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Jon Solomon appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his latest op-ed in the Hill [See Here]. Unfortunately, two years of congressional investigations that go no-where; two prior inspector general reports that conclude with no corrective action; and two-plus years of in-our-face corruption by DOJ and FBI officials, does not lend toward optimism when the next best hope sold by Solomon is another Senate investigation.
Democrats do not miss an opportunity to take advantage of any angle where they can criticize, attack and weaponize a narrative against their political opposition. So riddle me this… Somebody has been leaking congressional transcripts to Jon Solomon and The Epoch Times (Jeff Carlson). The unauthorized releases include testimony from: Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, James Baker, Bill Priestap and, most recently, Trisha Beth Anderson.
Question: Why aren't the democrats framing a political attack narrative around these unauthorized, unlawful and unethical releases?
September was five months ago.
The widely held view of the process is/was that Rod Rosenstein selected Robert Mueller as special counsel, and following that selection Mueller created his team. The perspective from CTH research is slightly different.
CTH believes that following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the FBI Chief Legal Counsel, Jim Baker and FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe; together with the corrupt small group that was involved in the prior year's counterintelligence investigation; reacted to Comey's firing by pressuring Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint their preferred person, Robert Mueller.
Within this internal debate (May 2017); at the time this construct was being argued; is when the famous comment from Rosenstein originates: "what do you want me to do, wear a wire?" The corrupt FBI investigative crew; having initiated and continued "Crossfire Hurricane"; including people from the DOJ-NSD side (Ohr, Weissmann, etc) were pressuring Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel….. but not just any special counsel.. Baker and McCabe had the person pre-selected. That person was Robert Mueller.
Obviously we can see the reason for this FBI/DOJ crew to need a special counsel. As career corruptocrats they were operating from a mindset of mitigating risk to themselves and continuing to advance on the objective to attack the executive office through their investigative schemes. The key point here is subtle but very significant. Robert Mueller didn't select his team, the corrupt team selected him.


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Ravensburger have released a new Doctor Who puzzle this month in the lead-up to the return of the series on-screen. The 1000 piece "Collector's Edition" puzzle shows monsters from both the past and present, and measures 70x50cm.
Based on the iconic BBC television series Doctor Who, the new puzzle depicts some of show's most infamous characters including the Doctor's most fearsome enemies such as the Daleks, Weeping Angels and one of the most frightening ever The Silence. The designs show over 20 characters within a space setting, ensuring plenty of puzzling fun as fans assemble the scene!Eagle-eyed readers will recognise the puzzle image as an extension of the 'monster' artwork released by Tea-Lady Design earlier this week!

subset: commoncrawl


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Monica is Davies is an environmental activist and rock 'n roll devotee. She has worked on the Greenpeace Africa digital communications team since September 2011.
So you've sent a letter to your Russian embassy, perhaps you've changed your profile picture or avatar too, but you want to do more right now?
If you run a website or blog, we've got the next step for you - add a ribbon of support (like ours in the t... Read more >
I've been thinking a lot about what an activist looks like and what they do.
When pop culture these days is so grandiose, we're fed stories of heroes who are so different. They look different, they're made differently to us. We're taught that for som... Read more >
Africa and the Arctic.
It seems like all those two places have in common is the same first letter.
One is known for its abundant wildlife, almost year-round sunshine, and as the home of over 1 billion people. And the other, at first glance, is alm... Read more >
Two years ago, hundreds of thousands of people in Japan lost their homes, jobs and communities in the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.
Today, many of them have still not received enough compensation to rebuild their lives.
Join us for a silent demon... Read more >
What do an accountant in London, a school teacher in Cape Town, and a bartender in Joburg have in common in the world of the web?
That's not the start of a joke, it's an honest question.
The answer is, they can all become online activists.
And it's... Read more >
1 - 5 of 33 results.


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A Bangladesh native pleaded guilty to terror charges in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday for attempting to bomb the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan last fall.
"I had intended to commit a violent jihadist act before I met the undercover officer in this case," Quazi Mohammad Nafis told the judge. "I no longer support violent jihad. I sincerely regret my involvement in this case."
Nafis faces a possible life term at sentencing on May 30.
FBI agents set up a sting operation to arrest him last October. Officials said Nafis, who was 21 when he was arrested, came to the U.S. on a student visa and briefly attended school in Missouri before moving to New York City in the spring of 2012.
As part of the FBI sting, Nafis drove a van loaded with dummy explosives to the door of the bank and tried to detonate the device, which he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb, from a nearby hotel room using a cell phone rigged to set it off.
He also believed he had the blessing of al-Qaida and was acting on behalf of it, but he has no known ties to the terrorist group, according to federal officials.
He was charged with attempting to provide material support for a terrorist organization and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Nafis had also proposed various targets beyond the Fed building at 33 Liberty St., according to prosecutors.


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What Property Condition do Oahu condos come in?
As of Monday, October 21, exactly 1,978 condos for sale on Oahu come in a particular Property Condition. Of these, 52% are in Excellent Condition, 39% are in Above Average Condition, 14% are in Average Condition, 2% are in Fair Condition, 0% Need Major Repair and 0% are in Tear Down Condition.
Click on the menu items below because they will instantly show the latest MLS listings for free.
Contact Request
By submitting any form on this site with your contact information including your name, telephone number, fax number, address and/or e-mail address, you are consenting for Sachiko Trillo or her authorized representatives to contact you even if your name is on the Federal or State "Do Not Call Lists". Your information will be kept strictly confidential and will never be sold, traded, or bartered.


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Hyde House
The Hyde
London NW9 6LH
United Kingdom
Antique / distressed effect faux leather in 6 colourways.
UV resistant to grade 7, faux leather / vinyl for outdoor and indoor upholstery.
Aura collection – elegant upholstery fabric with soft feel and high performance for outdoor seating projects.
Crushed velvet
Cashmir & Cashmir Tones – stunning mix of softness, warmth and colour to compliment all commercial environments.
The ultimate designer faux leather with designs finished in velvet – stunning!
A practical yet ultra soft & breathable faux leather designed to give that extra level of comfort on interior seating.
Embossed stitched diamond faux leather for indoor upholstery
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Soft yet hard-wearing fabric for indoor projects.
Linen style fabric for indoor upholstery.
Practical faux leather / vinyl fabrics for the most demanding environments.
Providing contemporary effects for upholstery schemes. Stylish, stunning, practical and chic!
Designed for use in demanding environments, the Nova collection is a high performance fabric with a small herringbone design that provides comfort and luxury.
Stunning wood effect faux leather. Mix with Agua Cashmir for creative textures and contrasting tones.
Antique / distressed effect fabric in 6 colourways
Natural looking faux leather in modern refreshing colours.
Faux leather with Linen, Herringbone or Denim look
A velvety feel upholstery fabric with a creative blend of alluring colours.
Soft to the touch and very flexible, Stirata is both stylish and practical.
An innovative faux leather / vinyl with multi-directional stretch in 12 colourways
For the authentic look of quality leather. A Faux Leather with stylish colours, durability and designer chic: perfect for every environment.
Fire Retardant Upholstery Fabrics to BS7176 Ignition Source 7 using CMHR 35Kg Foam (High Hazard).
Embossed faux leather for indoor upholstery. Co-ordinate with Agua Taurus for dual textured finishes.


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Join us every Tuesday for a night of tropical debauchery. Every week we will be featuring new tropical themed cocktails and setting the mood with some of the best reggae, calypso and sometimes even some salsa the world has to offer. Feel free to dress up in your best island attire and join our talented bartenders as we celebrate the island life in Charleston style.
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: January 15Jazz Night
Later Event: January 18Bluegrass Thursday at Bar Mash!


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Just as I anticipated, there were problems with tonight's upload. So the comic is posted at the all new, all improved message board.
http://pub83.ezboard.com/fglamourlustfr ... ID=4.topic
Consider the new place our permanent headquarters, as far as posting goes. It has all the cool features you like, plus it should be nice and stable. And it matches! Wheee!!!! I hope you like it.


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So we were watching the newest installment of the Chronicles of Narnia film series—Prince Caspian—the other night, and I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable with the use of a Christ-figure (Aslan) in battle scenes.
I've loved the Narnia series since I was a kid. But this time, when I watched Peter charge toward the enemy with his sword drawn, yelling "for Aslan!" I sort of freaked out. (Come on, you know that if this was an allegory meant to portray the teachings of Islam, we'd say that this scene condones jihad.)
At one point, it is suggested that maybe the Narnians won't fight back, to which the Telmarine king responds, "No, they are far too noble for that."
Does the story of Jesus really support the notion that refusing to fight back is disgraceful? In the face of the most unjust act in human history, Jesus did not fight back, but allowed himself to be crucified. Despite the human rights atrocities of the Roman empire, he did not urge rebellion. Not once did Paul or any of the apostles instruct Christians to fight back when they were being persecuted. In fact, the apostles specifically urged Christians not to fight back. They understood that Jesus came to show us that evil cannot be overcome by more evil, that killing cannot be overcome by more killing. Someone has to stop the cycle, and Jesus showed us how.
Now, I understand that there are some issues with pragmatism here. Lewis wrote during the world wars, so he certainly lived during a time when fighting back seemed like the only real option. I know there are a lot of logistical problems with such an idealistic view...but I've been wondering lately if Jesus really meant it when he said "love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you."
As Adele points out in a recent post on her blog, Christian leaders like Rick Warren have earned a reputation for condoning the use of force to "defeat evil." Movies like Prince Caspian glorify the notion that, if we believe that God is on our side, we are justified in killing...especially when it comes to self-defense.
I guess I'm just beginning to wonder if it really works. Will we ever be able to defeat evil with guns and bombs? How many more people do we have to kill before we are victorious? How can we be so certain that "we" are good and "they" are evil? When does it stop?
I find it a little ironic that the symbol of the cross was used in the Crusades...and that the broken altar from Aslan's sacrifice shows up in many of Prince Caspian's war-themed scenes. I guess I'm wondering if maybe we've missed the point.
So, have I gone off the deep end? Everyone loves the Narnia stories, right? Am I taking this too seriously? Is criticizing C.S. Lewis a bit heretical?
Someone talk me down!
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I was supposed to publish this post last week, because last week was my last week as a blog ambassador for simplehuman. (Hi FTC; that's a disclosure statement.) I wrote this post over and over and over, and finally had to stop and walk away, for no other reason than, ironically enough, it was grossly inefficient. I'm sure it was a good post, and will die an honorable death in my Draft Cemetery, but
you know how some people are really good at writing an exactly-three-hundred word post with a perfectly optimized-for-Pinterest photo and just enough but not too much SEO keyword inclusion that makes both their hoards of readers and their clients superbly happy? I am not those people.
My posts all take these Robert Frost Road Less Traveledesque segues into existentialism, my daddy issues, poli-sci, words that aren't even really words, and gravy recipes before I even decide what the point is, let alone get to it. Case in point? The 147 words I just typed that have nothing to do with the subject at hand AT ALL.
Ahem. Over the post year, I've been learning and advocating a lot for efficiency. I've toured headquarters dedicated to looking at the things everyone else overlooks and making them the centerpieces of efficient living. My fellow ambassadors and I have tried, tested, and paid forward tools for efficient living, from Jedi Mind Trick trash cans to co-dependent enabler dish racks. And despite all of that, I have managed to make my personal life as completely in/un/not-efficient as humanly possible.
- I moved to Northern California, so the mid-point Starbucks where I meet my kids' dad for his weekends with him went from being 19 miles away to being 360 miles away.
- My commute to work went from being over the dog toys and a left at the coffee pot to 2 1/2 hours. Each way. Uphill in the snow and barefoot.
- My kids who used to go to schools cleverly-staggered at 45 minute start intervals now attend three different schools each about three miles apart, each which all start within seven minutes of one another. And there are no school buses in this town. And everyone here drives Suburbans to each school at the same time.
- I replaced my neighbor who used to have an annoying husband and two kids with a neighbor with an annoying tribe of goats and one rooster.
- My tiny little entirely too small for us house has been replaced with one so big, I use a pedometer when I am making coffee in the morning.
- And I keep not going to the grocery store on the weekends like I used to before I had a commute into work and schools I had to drive kids to and roosters next door to yell at, so now I'm scrambling at 6:30 nightly to figure out something for dinner and going every.single.night which is a really great way to spend all your month's budget at Safeway.
But of course, all of that is happening so that I can live with my very best friend in the whole wide world, whom I can, like, see any time I want now and stuff, so there is efficient balance in the force, I think.
Still, with my simple, quiet existence gone and this constantly-running-and-juggling one with one commute and five kids and three dogs and a crazy wonderful boyfriend in its place, I am grateful for every small favor which comes my way, any shortcut my three hacker boys-man-children-things in my life read off the internet and try to pass of as their own to me, and any item around my house that makes the rest of life's details seamless and shiny.
I am glad to know that I don't have to even think about the trash, like, EVER AGAIN, that the kids shower stuff isn't going to collect that inexplicable gunk in the corners of the tub, that I'm not going to have to reach my arm into the dogs' kibble to dig out my 1 cup measuring scoop that I decided I could live without and have regretted deciding that every batch of caramel I have made since, because my dog food container has a scoop that magically or by voodoo hangs from the lid. Seriously, WHY DID SOMEONE NOT MAKE THIS SOONER? I am glad to know someone is out there looking at every single bit of crucial daily minutia and making it work better, so that I can worry about everything else in my life I need too. I'm am excited to see what else they come up with, and really, it needs to be this.
You're welcome, simplehuman.
Also, thank you for a really fun, really interesting, and really shiny year.


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Word of the Day, Web Site of the Day, Number to Know, This Day in History, Today's Featured Birthday and Daily Quote.
Word of the Day
Zaftig ZAHF-tig (adj.) Having a full rounded figure; pleasingly plump -- www.merriam-webster.com
Web Site of the Day
If you're feeling overwhelmed or just want to add more order into your life, this site is a great resource. It features tips and tricks for getting and staying organized, streamlining your space and adopting organization strategies.
Number to Know
80: Percent of the world pecan crop that the United States produces, according to www.ilovepecans.org. Today is Pecan Day.
This Day in History
March 25, 1807: The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
Today's Featured Birthday
Race car driver Danica Patrick (28)
Daily Quote
"I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house." - Yogi Berra


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Proud Blank of a U.S. Marine with Eagle, Globe and Anchor on front. Personalized with Marine's last name, company, platoon number and graduation date. EGA graphic design is officially licensed by the U.S. Marine Corps; royalties paid go to the U.S. Military MWR (Moral, Welfare and Recreation) funds. Optional name and platoon number on back for an additional $5. Available in Adult and ladies sizes.Size Charts
Additional Information


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Stanford is the top-seeded team in the NCAA women's water polo championships that begin Friday at USC's Uytengsu Aquatics Center.
UCLA (25-4) is seeded second and defending champion USC (24-3) third in the eight-team tournament that concludes with Sunday's final at 5:30 p.m.
Stanford (22-1), led by senior two-meter player Annika Dries and drivers Kiley Neushul and Maggie Steffens, opens play against No. 8 Indiana (23-5).
UCLA, which features goalkeeper Sami Hill, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation player of the year, plays No. 7 UC San Diego (27-10). Driver Monica Vavic and two-meter player Kaleigh Gilchrist lead USC against No. 6 UC Irvine (24-7), which features utility player Danielle Warde, the Big West Conference player of the year.
Fourth-seeded California (19-8) plays No. 5 Arizona State (15-10) in the other first-round game.
All matches will be streamed live online through ncaa.com.


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It takes only a glance at the stat sheet to see the biggest example of the unselfishness that Ja'Wuan Woodley of the Hartley High School football team has tried to display this season.
It takes only a glance at the stat sheet to see the biggest example of the unselfishness that Ja'Wuan Woodley of the Hartley High School football team has tried to display this season.
Through 12 games, the 5-foot-11, 230-pound senior had only 33 more carries than fellow running back Marcellus Calhoun despite having been the Hawks' go-to player on offense the last two seasons.
That hasn't hurt Woodley's stats, however, as he had 1,709 yards and 23 touchdowns on 214 carries while Calhoun had 1,435 yards and 23 scores.
The Hawks were 12-0 and ranked first in the final Division IV state poll before playing Ottawa-Glandorf in the Region 14 final Nov. 16.
Combine his offensive numbers with his ability to lead the defense at inside linebacker in Hartley's 3-5 scheme and Woodley is the first Hawks player to be named ThisWeek's Super 25 captain.
"People have been starting to game plan against me, and I think I've been doing pretty well," Woodley said. "I'm just trying to lead my team and I'm not really too worried about getting the stats."
A Toledo recruit, Woodley was the state and district Defensive Player of the Year last season. This year he is the district Offensive Player of the Year. Through 12 games, he had eight receptions for 119 yards and one touchdown, six two-point conversions, two interceptions and was among the Hawks' leading tacklers.
On Sept. 28 in a 28-14 win over Watterson in the first meeting between the schools since 1996, he rushed for 134 yards and a touchdown, completed a pass for 71 yards and had an interception.
Last season, Woodley rushed for 1,403 yards and had 17 touchdowns and made the Super 25 as the Hawks went 12-1.
"He's a tough, physical football player," Hawks coach Brad Burchfield said. "He's like a quarterback on the field on defense. He can pick up on things and is a really smart player. He's so powerful. I don't know how other coaches get their kids fired up to tackle him because he's just such a monster."


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The New York City Asian American Student Conference is encouraging people to apply for this year's event, scheduled for Saturday, April 21, at the Kimmel Center for Student Life at New York University.
The deadline to apply is online at the NYCAASC site. The deadline is Today!! at 5PM. Students from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
The event is presnted by NYU, Columbia University, Baruch College, Hunter College, and Fordham University. Among the featured participants are Phil Yu, aka Angry Asian Man; spoken-word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai; state Sen. Kevin S. Parker; David Zhou from Microaggressions.
In a release, NYCAASC said the theme for this year's gathering is INK: Imagine aNd RethinK:
In past conferences, we have examined notions of Asian American identity and how mainstream representations encroach on definitions of self. This year, we hope to highlight Asian Americans reclaiming authorship of their representations. The experiences of Asian Americans have often been essentialized–portrayed through dichotomies of model minority and yellow peril. Asian Americans have certainly begun to complicate and challenge these stereotypes with the rise of new media. Youtube, blogs and Twitter have become platforms for Asian Americans to respond to, deconstruct, redefine and to critique conventional stereotypes as well as a space to produce images that account for a diverse set of experiences.
To conceptualize the possibilities of this growing awareness of Asian Americans, we use the image of a comic book. What if Asian Americans could INK their own possibilities, challenge the boundaries and complicate the existing images? This year, we aim to highlight the agency that Asian Americans possess. Despite years of facing exclusion and race-based antagonism, Asian Americans have and continue to insist on a social and political presence in the landscape of America. We ask attendees to recognize themselves as vehicles of change–how can your INK create change for Asian American communities?
The deadline to apply is today at 5pm, and applications can be filed at NYCAASC's website.


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Family members say Chicago cook and restaurant owner Edna Stewart, whose West Side establishment was almost as famous for its political clientele as it was for its soul food, has died less than a week after her 72nd birthday.
Stewart's brother, Sam Mitchell Jr., said she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November and died Friday morning at Rush Oak Park Hospital.
The Chicago native opened Edna's Restaurant in 1966. Her earliest patrons included The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights workers, whom she fed free of charge.
Edna's was soon a magnet for black West Side political leaders, and later drew citywide figures such as Mayor Richard M. Daley.
This year, Gov. Pat Quinn declared Feb. 19 Edna Stewart Day.
Stewart is survived by her brother, a son and daughter, and two sisters.


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Friday, January 9, 2009
After seeing a few of her performances on YouTube, I must ask: Did every one of her sketches have as its comic premise that black folks make life unpleasant for white folks?
Ms. Johnson is no longer a "MADtv" cast member. But the third clip below has been viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube.
Tell me what y'all think: gifted comedienne... or shameless coonette?
20 comments:
- blackwomenblowthetrumpet.blogspot.com said...
Buffoon....with a capital B!!
- January 9, 2009 at 3:26 PM
- SJ said...
I absolutely hate that last clip! I can't believe people find it funny.
"Ms. Johnson is no longer a "MADtv" cast member"
MADtv was canceled.
- January 9, 2009 at 3:32 PM
- Undercover Black Man said...
MADtv was canceled.
Dang. I'm really out of touch.
- January 9, 2009 at 3:46 PM
- blackink said...
Speaking of black folks who make life unpleasant for white folks, I fully expect Nicole Randall Johnson's next role will be Michelle Obama on SNL.
I think she's ready to inherit the crown from Ellen Cleghorne. I mean, they can't just dust off Maya Rudolph or put Amy Poehler in black face every week, can they?
- January 9, 2009 at 4:52 PM
I liked her. She wasn't as good as Debra Wilson, but she was funny most of the time.
- January 9, 2009 at 8:45 PM
- Days like These! said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- January 9, 2009 at 9:12 PM
- Days like These! said...
Damn! The back of YO head is Ra-dik-a-liss!
Oh Eeee-vonnn? That's a french ass name!
Cuh-I-hah-YO numba?
The intra-caseez of sin- a-muh!
**gifted comedienne AND shameless coonette**
Let the record show, I loved these skits. Thanks for the giggles!!
The final video was my FAV! The other ones were OK.
- January 9, 2009 at 9:17 PM
The most surprising thing about MAD TV was that it was still on when it was cancelled.
14 years and not one memorable, breakout skit. But it survived.
I couldn't make it 2 minutes into either of the first two skit because they were soooo bad.
There was at least a character in the third one, but no real direction.
Coonery...or hackery? That's what the question should be. It's often hard to tell the difference.
- January 10, 2009 at 5:55 AM
Come on, the first one is pretty incisive.
- January 10, 2009 at 7:16 AM
- Lyndon said...
This perpetuates the same kind of mentality as the low class lady that talked about how she was confronted because of the meager tip she lost.
These skits are no different than Amos n' Andy in exploiting stereotypes instead of promoting insightful social commentary.
Dave Chappelle's skit about what would happen if black people got reparations: funny because it touched upon issues relevant to today's society.
These skits, on the other hand, are simple caricatures with none of the biting social satire.
- January 10, 2009 at 8:15 AM
- Undercover Black Man said...
**gifted comedienne AND shameless coonette**
Yeah, Tanyetta... I guess that's a legitimate option.
- January 10, 2009 at 8:44 AM
- Undercover Black Man said...
14 years and not one memorable, breakout skit. But it survived.
Yep, dude. Not one catch phrase that went culture-wide.
It's about the writing. The writing on that show I always thought was coarse, mean, smutty, and leaning like a crutch on ethnic stereotypes.
Some talented actors moved through there, though.
- January 10, 2009 at 8:59 AM
- maria said...
speaking of out of touch, amy poehler had a baby and is off SNL.
- January 10, 2009 at 2:22 PM
- Invisible Woman said...
I remember the 3rd video while watching the very rare MadTV episode. I also remember LMAO, cause there is a surplus of dudes out there just like that...I thought she was on point.
- January 10, 2009 at 5:44 PM
- Mr. Obie Joe said...
I adored the third skit, too, having been amused/maddened by the surplus of clueless players of all colors who lacked the tact. It was a skit that could be any guy of any color, I think.
Don't underestimate MADTv's niche among teenagers. Among my children's friends, MADTv was it, and SNL was for the old folks.
- January 10, 2009 at 6:12 PM
My favorite thing from MADtv isn't a skit, but a cartoon parody they did called "Raging Rudolph." I got my family into it and we watch it every Christmas, heh heh.
- January 10, 2009 at 11:00 PM
- Undercover Black Man said...
^ I must say, I thought "Delta Ebonics" was epic.
- January 10, 2009 at 11:11 PM
I quoted the third video (and it's successor) with my friends with a while.
I didn't like the other sketches that much though.
- January 11, 2009 at 1:37 AM
- justjudith said...
the one where she's a dude makes me think she is channeling a cast member from roots. i never watched madtv and now i feel vindicated.
- January 11, 2009 at 3:17 PM
I say Nicole Randall Johnson is a comedienne. She perfectly satires some characters within the black community who lack certain social graces. Having been a social worker for over ten years, I can attest to coming across people like Daryll, Anonymous, and the airport lady. People who have no idea how ridiculous and stereotypical they come off as. For some who perceived these skits as stereotypical, In Living Color and The Dave Chappelle Show have done skit not too different from these.
- January 18, 2009 at 1:26 AM


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For approximately 15,000 National Grid customers in Worcester, Mass., the energy system of the future is less than a year away – and they helped design it. Recently, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approved National Grid's proposal for a smart grid pilot program in Worcester. The pilot developed in partnership with customers, the City of Worcester and other key parties in a new way that drew heavily on their pooled knowledge and creative energy. This new approach marked one of the first times a major energy program was co-created with customers, the community and stakeholders from across the city and within the state. All involved worked to develop a program that culminated in September 2011 with the "Green to Growth" Summit that was co-hosted by National Grid and the City of Worcester. During the event, more than 300 members of the community and a cross-section of key groups and individuals helped to develop the Smart Grid program leading to an official proposal. "We are delighted that the pilot has been approved. We are very grateful to the city, our customers and everyone else who invested their time, energy and creativity to help design this program," said Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts. "We are excited to embark on the next big step of this journey where we will bring our collective vision to life and deliver its benefits to our customers and the city." "Worcester is very pleased the Mass. DPU has approved National Grid's smart grid pilot program," stated City Manager Michael V. O'Brien. "The pilot's goal of helping residents and businesses better understand and control their electricity usage, and providing National Grid additional tools to make the electrical system more reliable are priority concerns for the city as well. National Grid's proactive, inclusive approach to creating and implementing the pilot will likely be a model for others in the state and beyond."
Smart Grid Pilot FeaturesThe pilot will offer participating customers greater choice in how they use energy as well as new technologies that will increase electric system reliability so that problems on the system, such as power outages during storm events, can be identified and fixed more quickly. While preliminary preparations are underway, and much work remains to be done, full pilot launch is expected within the next year. A key feature for the pilot is the installation of the latest technology on the grid to improve reliability and system responsiveness, which includes testing remote power outage sensors that enable crews to be dispatched directly to the source of the problem and restore power more quickly; systems that better identify which customers are affected during storms, thereby improving restoration times. The pilot calls for installation of advanced metering systems that provide the very latest in technology and security. Early installation of approximately 5,000 advanced meters is nearly complete, helping to obtain baseline energy data, test communications systems and adjust the equipment before full deployment. Under the pilot, the company also will be testing full integration of renewable resources, electric vehicle charging stations and connecting energy storage to existing renewable projects across the city. One of the most important elements of the pilot is customer choice. The company plans to communicate information about specific pilot offerings to customers. In turn, customers will be able choose their level of involvement and, according to what options they select, can receive information about their energy use from various sources such as on-line applications, including cell phone and smart phone apps. New dynamic pricing options will be available to help customers save energy and money at different times of day. Customer Interaction Since the Green to Growth Summit, National Grid has and will continue to focus on proactive customer and community engagement that allows for customer interaction and education - a key difference that sets this pilot apart from other Smart Grid programs across the country.
A Sustainability Hub that provides an interactive location where customers can learn more about the pilot, the technology and energy choice is in development. National Grid is teaming up with local colleges and universities to staff the Sustainability Hub and create cooperative learning opportunities for area customers and students.National Grid is also using social media to provide information and continue the dialogue on the Smart Grid pilot, as well as energy savings tips, products and special offers via Facebook and Twitter @Green2Growth. The pilot is projected to cost approximately $44 million. While the pilot officially began with the DPU approval, final technology and vendor selection is currently under way. Design and communication materials will be developed in the coming months. Customers who would like current information on the pilot can follow National Grid on Facebook and Twitter. About National Grid National Grid (LSE: NG; NYSE:NGG) is an electricity and gas company that connects consumers to energy sources through its networks. The company is at the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing our society - to create new, sustainable energy solutions for the future and developing an energy system that underpins economic prosperity in the 21st century. National Grid holds a vital position at the center of the energy system and it 'joins everything up'. In the northeast US, we connect more than seven million gas and electric customers to vital energy sources, essential for our modern lifestyles. In Great Britain, we run the gas and electricity systems that our society is built on, delivering gas and electricity across the country. National Grid delivers electricity to more than 3 million customers in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. It manages the electricity network on Long Island under an agreement with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), and owns over 4,000 megawatts of contracted electricity generation, providing power to over one million LIPA customers. It is the largest distributor of natural gas in northeastern U.S., serving more than 3 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.


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How Ted Nugent riles and divides
To some Republican activists, he's a celebrity defender of the Second Amendment who rallies the base like the rock star he once was.
To Democrats and mainstream Republicans, he's a sexual "predator," an affront to families and a flamethrower with an appalling record of incendiary comments.
Story Continued Below
When it comes to Ted Nugent, his conservative fans and liberal detractors are living on different planets.
Nugent catapulted into the spotlight this week when he appeared at two campaign events with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the presumptive GOP nominee for governor. Democrats, in Texas and nationally, bracketed the events with email blasts and tweets highlighting elements of Nugent's unsavory past and record of inflammatory remarks. They plan to continue making hay of those Texas appearances, and relish the possibility of his campaigning with other Republicans.
( Also on POLITICO: Perry has 'problems' with Nugent)
But in the deep-red Lone Star State, registration for Abbott's events tripled when Nugent's appearances were announced.
Democrats and Republicans alike see Nugent as a turn-out catalyst, in Texas and perhaps beyond. He outrages Democrats and mainstream Republicans — but he fires up a segment of the GOP base, which is so enamored of Nugent's fiery anti-Barack Obama rhetoric and defense of gun rights that it can overlook the singer's tawdry history. A case in point: Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page that if Greg Abbott "is good enough for Ted Nugent, he's good enough for me!"
Nugent, 65, is a board member of the National Rifle Association, and is perhaps one of the country's most colorful champions of the Second Amendment. He's a lifelong gun enthusiast, a crusader against drugs and a die-hard Republican. But as Democrats have been eager to point out this week, he's not exactly a buttoned-up cultural conservative.
( Also on POLITICO: Rand Paul: Nugent should apologize)
In an interview for a VH1 "Behind the Music" documentary about him, Nugent, who hit the peak of his career in the 1970s, acknowledged that when he was young — and even not-so-young — he was "addicted to girls."
"I was a wang-dang addict, I was addicted to girls. Addicted. It was hopeless," he said in the video. "It was beautiful."
By age 21, he had two children from two different women. By 30, after being married, having more kids and getting divorced, he was involved with a 17-year-old, for whom he assumed the mantle — with her parents' permission — of legal guardian.
"It just really wasn't a terribly appropriate situation in most people's eyes," said Pele Massa in the documentary, who said in the film that at 17 she became romantically involved with Nugent and was with him for nine years, though he wasn't faithful to her during that period, she said. "And now, it would be criminal."
( Also on POLITICO: Greg Abbott sings Nugent's praises)
The documentary said he acknowledged several relationships with young women, and that he won parental approval.
There were never criminal charges leveled against him for indiscretions with underage women, the film said, but the incidents have served as fodder for Democrats, who have repeatedly blasted him as a "predator" this week.
"I find Ted Nugent disgusting. And I find it disgusting that Greg Abbott is sharing a stage with him," wrote Wendy Davis, the Texas Democratic candidate for governor, in a Wednesday fundraising missive. "But this isn't just about my feelings. Every Texan should be offended by Greg Abbott's decision to make a predator the new face of his campaign."
Yet in recent years Nugent has painted himself as a family man. He has always eschewed drugs and alcohol and has been an advocate for keeping kids substance-free.
His current wife, Shemane Nugent, writes on her website that, "Recently, we have discovered four more adult children Ted had from previous relationships. I look forward to getting to know them, and hopefully they will welcome me into their lives." They have been married since 1989 and have one child together.
"[Like] other marriages, I don't always agree with everything my husband says or does," she wrote.
A representative for both Nugents didn't return a call and emails seeking comment.


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Overview of Newspapers in Family History
This article originally appeared in "Newspapers" by Loretto Dennis Szucs, FUGA, and James L. Hansen, FASG in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy
The technological advances of recent years have revolutionized the way family historians discover and use records. Nowhere is that more evident than in the area of newspaper research. As a steadily increasing number of large metropolitan dailies and small-town dailies and weeklies become accessible on the Internet, we suddenly have a powerful new tool to discover incredible details about our ancestors' lives'details that are often unavailable elsewhere. Historical newspapers give us the remarkable ability to see history through eyewitness accounts, while contemporary newspapers keep us current with today's domestic and international happenings. With just a few clicks of the mouse, we can view a news item or an obituary from yesterday or from a hundred years ago.
Scanning technology makes it possible for us to see and print accurate reproductions of old newspapers from the convenience of our own homes. Indexes created using optical character recognition (OCR) software allow us to search through hundreds of thousands of pages for names or events in mere seconds. Coverage is uneven at this point, but if one of the digitized newspapers is one you need, it can be invaluable. For anyone who has had to conduct a page-by-page search of unindexed original or microfilmed papers, this development is nothing short of wonderful.
In just a few short years, government agencies and commercial entities have placed millions of pages of our individual and collective history online, enabling us to see the original documents firsthand. In these cases, we are no longer dependent on abstracts or transcripts to fill the gaps in our family stories. Being able to search newspaper databases allows us to discover long-lost relatives who were living in unexpected places and involved in stories we never imagined. Consider the man who disappeared from records in New York in 1850 but was found in a Chicago newspaper database for that same year. Or the woman who disappeared from records in the town where she had resided all of her life, only to be found in a search of a newspaper database of a distant town. An item in the digitized and indexed newspaper led to the story of how the woman had gone to live with her daughter in this town because of declining health, and how she had passed away in a place where no one had thought to look for records.
Essentially every currently published newspaper has a website. While some include only contact and other basic information, others include much more detailed and rich content. An increasing number of current newspapers post most, if not all, of their articles and archives online, either free or for a fee. Many libraries, genealogical and historical societies, commercial companies, and individuals have extracted, compiled, indexed, and digitized items from newspapers and made them available online in various forms.
Many newspaper databases include fully searchable text versions that can be browsed or searched using a computer-generated index. The accuracy of every newspaper index varies according to the quality of the original images. The images for most newspapers can be browsed sequentially, or via links to specific images, which may be obtained through the search results. Over time, the name of a newspaper may have changed and the time span it covered may not always be consistent. Also, the date range of some Internet collections may not represent the complete published set or time period needed. Check the local library or historical society in the area in which your ancestors lived for more information about other available newspapers. When the subject or individual of your search cannot be located through an index, and if a place and date range (death date, etc.) are known, try browsing the full text of a specific newspaper. Such full-text searches should be conducted as frequently as possible because, in addition to the chance to find an ancestor, there is no better way to capture the thinking, the culture, and the very essence of the time and place where your ancestors lived.
How have newspapers become such an important research tool for so many in such a short period of time? And what are the secrets to using them to their fullest potential? It has been said that newspapers are the first rough draft of history. As such they are of great importance to students of history, sociology, law, medical research, economics, marketing, and many other fields. Because newspapers are so heavily used, there has been a significant demand to make newspapers more accessible to the masses. This chapter will focus on the great potential that this ever-growing research tool has to offer, with a special focus on the ways that family historians can best put newspapers to use in their research.
The National Digital Newspaper Program
The National Digital Newspaper Program, launched by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress in late 2004, plans to digitize 30 million pages, spanning the years 1836 through 1922. Stars and Stripes, a newspaper published by the United States Army from 1918 to 1919, was the first project to go online at the Library of Congress website as a result of the joint effort. Because the fonts used in newspapers prior to 1836 do not lend themselves to OCR technology, those newspapers were not included in the first phase of scanning, and copyright laws set the limit at the other end of the series. Eventually, the Library of Congress site will host an online bibliography of newspapers that will tell where every newspaper (since the first newspaper published in 1690 to the present day) is located'whether online or offline. In a speech to members of the National Press Club in November 2004, NEH Chairman Bruce Cole said, 'This digitizing will democratize knowledge by making it available to anyone with an Internet connection. But just as important and revolutionary, it is also going to create something new. The sheer volume of information in newspapers has been an obstacle. Newspapers carry three thousand to seven thousand words on a page. The new technology overcomes that. The page is scanned; it's tagged with name, date, and page number'metadata. The process turns the enormous volume of material into a searchable asset. And this asset will be easy to use' http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/speeches/11162004.html.
Examples of Online Newspapers
Because they understand the importance of newspapers to general and family historians, authors, students, journalists, and those in dozens of other professions; commercial entities like Ancestry.com, ProQuest, and Readexhave invested heavily in newspaper digitizing projects.
The Historical Newspaper Collection at Ancestry.com, available by subscription, includes pages from newspapers across the United States, UK, Canada, and other countries, dating from 1765 through the present. In addition to fully-searchable images of the New York Times, the Atlanta Constitution, and other large city publications, the Ancestry.com collection includes a wide variety of small town publications such as the Adams Centinel published in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the Ohio Repository (1815 to 1861 with some gaps), which was published in Canton, Ohio.
The ProQuest Historical Collection, available at many libraries, includes full-text and full-image articles from several major American city newspapers from 1849 to 2001, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and a few others.
For those with an interest in early-American research, Readex, a division of Newsbank, has posted Early American Newspapers, 1690'1876 Series I online. Based largely on Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690'1820, this collection offers a fully text-searchable database of over one million pages, including cover-to-cover reproductions of historical newspapers such as the Boston Gazette, the Gazette of the United States, the New York Evening Post, and others. This collection is available at some public libraries, through some educational institutions, and to members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Another good example of a subscription service offering digitized newspapers is NewspaperARCHIVE.com, which, according to its website, adds a million pages of new content each month. There are also a growing number of pay-per-view newspaper sites that charge a fee for access to articles that can be identified by free online indexes.
State and Local Projects
The Utah Digital Newspapers project, launched in 2002 through a Library Services and Technology Act grant administered by the Utah State Library, is a great example of what individual states are doing to make newspapers accessible to the masses. The digitization process, developed at the University of Utah, is regularly adding searchable images of Utah newspapers printed from 1879 to 1956.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online is a remarkable project, produced by the Brooklyn Public Library (NY), and supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Pages of the now-defunct Brooklyn Daily Eagle can be searched by name, date, or subject for the years 1841 to 1902 http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle. The Eagle is important not only because it carried news of what was for a long time the third largest city in the United States, but also because it included news from the rest of the New York Metropolitan area and the world in general. Because of the enormity of the collection, the digitization project has been broken into several phases. Phase I, which covers the period from 26 October 1841 to 31 December 1902, and is currently online, represents only half of the Eagle's years of publication.
Newspaper Abstracts, Extracts, and Photographs
A growing number of historical agencies are partnering with libraries to post newspaper archives or portions of newspaper collections online. An example is a Chicago Daily News collection of photographs (1902 to 1933) housed at the Chicago Historical Society. The collection is now viewable at the Library of Congress website.
In addition to the searchable full-page newspapers that are continuously going online, volunteers regularly post historical newspaper items on local interest sites such as those hosted by RootsWeb.com. In many cases, obituaries and other newspaper clippings are the only sources to include birthplaces of the deceased, making them especially important for those seeking the origins of ancestors whose birth took place in a different state or country. The newspaper clipping database at RootsWeb.com <www.rootsweb.com> contains over 400,000 entries. The U.S. GenWeb Project, hosted by RootsWeb.com, has been posting obituaries from various newspapers since 2000.
Obituaries from recently published and archived newspapers are available on a growing number of websites. Typing the word 'newspapers' or 'obituaries' into a search engine will lead to a vast array of old and current biographical information about individuals living in the United States and almost everywhere else on the globe. Typing the word 'newspapers' or 'obituaries' plus a specific place name will generally lead to a well of fascinating information and new clues for future research. Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Net includes an alphabetically arranged list of hundreds of obituary links. Obituary Central is a site with its own archive, searchable from the main page, as well as a state-by-state directory of obituary search engines. An amazing and always growing number of obituaries from current and historical newspapers are being posted daily.
The Obituary Hunter on Ancestry.com includes hundreds of thousands of recent obituaries from hundreds of newspapers. Ancestry.com scours the Internet daily to find new obituaries and extracts the facts into the database. In each case, the source of the information is provided, along with links to the full obituary text. It is a popular site for locating information on a recently deceased family member, ancestors, friends, former classmates, business associates, and celebrities.
The Denver Public Library is one of many libraries that have posted local obituaries online. The 'Denver Obituary Index' covers various periods between 1939 and 1974, as well as 1990 through 2004. Newspaper sources for the obituary index include the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News.
The Cleveland Public Library index to area obituaries from the early 1800s to the present is a similar project. And Cleveland, like many other urban areas, has benefited from the work of ethnic groups whose members have prepared indexes with a special focus on newspapers. The Cleveland Jewish Genealogy Society has an index of Jewish obituaries from 1902 to 1974: http://www.clevelandjgs.org/resources.htm.
The Value of Newspapers
Newspapers are the day-to-day (or week-to-week) diaries of community events. They are accounts of the lives of famous and ordinary people written as events happened, making them an excellent source for family history. Newspapers usually serve a geographic region, and may also be oriented toward a particular ethnic, cultural, social, or political group. Because newspapers preserve the collected thoughts of many minds, they reflect moral, cultural, educational, and political development more broadly than do the isolated thoughts of an individual's correspondence or diary. Nowhere can a clearer idea be gained of public sentiment than in the American newspaper.
While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful, only the genealogist's imagination and resourcefulness limit the newspaper's usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local news items, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.
Newspapers are especially important for family historians as they are a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. Obituaries, for example, often fill the gap when a death record is nonexistent or cannot be found. Newspapers are also an important source of marriage information, particularly in those states where marriages were not recorded until the twentieth century. They take on added importance where official public records have been destroyed. All Cook County, Illinois, official records, for example, were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Newspapers consequently become even more critical in reconstructing the history of the city and tracing the roots of its settlers.
Newspapers are unofficial sources, and as such, they often provide incidental information not recorded elsewhere. Because of their unofficial nature, they are not bound by forms used by official government sources. A newspaper account of a marriage might, for example, indicate that it took place at the home of the bride's parents, perhaps even naming them; it might list the occupation of the groom, or indicate that the ceremony was part of a double wedding in which the bride's sister was also being married. None of these details is likely to appear in the marriage record at the courthouse.
Newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area and may include reports of births, marriages, and deaths of local citizens, even when they occurred in a neighboring county or another state. Discovering the date and place of an event through a newspaper account can open doors to additional research sources and documentation.
The Evolution of Newspapers
The newspapers we know and take for granted today are the products of some three centuries of development, and are quite different from their colonial predecessors. After a single-issue attempt in 1690, the Boston News-Letter, starting in 1704, was the first regularly published newspaper in what is now the United States. Its basic format'four pages, with content concentrating on international news and 'literary' matter, with a wealth of advertising and legal notices'remained generally standard for newspapers for the next century and a half. The early newspaper was very much a local product, designed to convey news of the wider world to the citizens of a particular community. Little attention was given to local news, which everyone presumably knew already.
Three nineteenth-century developments changed the newspaper dramatically: the invention of the power printing press, the development of the railroads (which allowed much wider distribution of a paper), and the increasing demand for news, particularly during the Civil War. The major city dailies, with their telegraphic news-gathering, large steam presses, and railroad-based distribution systems, began to dominate the international, national, and state news-reporting functions. As a result, papers in smaller communities had to concentrate on local news if they were to survive and prosper.
Current Newspapers
Current newspapers are especially useful in locating unknown relatives. Distant relatives may still be living in old hometowns though the direct ancestor moved away. Obituaries in current papers may provide biographical details not available elsewhere. Thousands of current newspaper obituaries can be found by typing a name, or the name of a town plus the word newspaper into a search engine such as Google. The Obituary Collection at Ancestry.com contains recent obituaries culled daily from hundreds of newspapers on the Internet.
Additionally, current newspapers at least occasionally feature historical articles about the community and its people, particularly in conjunction with centennials, sesquicentennials, and so on of either the community or the newspaper. These articles may also provide useful leads for furthering research. The availability of an ever-increasing number of online newspapers has put a wide variety of newspapers at our fingertips.
As with any other genealogical or historical source, a degree of skepticism is needed as we read through the pages of the past. The hurried nature of news-gathering'then, as now'has often led to error. Not everything found in print is accurate. Yet, while the quality of information found in newspapers varies greatly, there's often no other way to glean more personal and personality-revealing details about ancestors and other family members. Sometimes newspapers fill in gaps in family stories, and sometimes they provide vital records where no other proof of birth, marriage, or death exists. They are entertaining and enlightening. They are accounts of the lives of famous and ordinary people written as they happened, making them an excellent source for family history.
Coming soon...


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ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia state representative Allen Peake introduced a bill on Tuesday that would legalize a non-psychoactive strain of marijuana strictly limited to patients with severe seizure disorders.
The Republican lawmaker's proposal is similar to legislation introduced recently in Florida and Alabama, while limiting its availability to a handful of medical research facilities.
Peake's interest in the issue was prompted by a constituent's 4-year-old daughter, who suffers from a seizure disorder.
"When I saw her, she reminded me so much of my granddaughter, who is about the same age," said Peake. "It made me realize that if this was my child or my grandchild, I'd be moving heaven and earth to get this legislation passed to provide some hope and relief to these families."
Medical marijuana in various forms is currently legal in 20 states, and at least 10 other states are considering legalizing it, including Florida, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, said Erik Altieri, spokesman for the Washington-based pro-marijuana group, NORML.
"Traditionally, this was the realm of Democratic lawmakers. But we're beginning to see a lot more Republicans get behind this issue," he said. "It really seems like finally, legislators are catching up with the will of the people."
None of the 20 states where medical marijuana is currently legally available are in the south, Altieri said.
If the Georgia medical marijuana bill is enacted, patients would not be able to obtain the drug from their corner drugstore, Peake said. The drugs would be dispensed by five university research centers in the state.
Georgia law already allows medical marijuana to be prescribed at medical research facilities for cancer patients and to relieve eye pressure for glaucoma sufferers, though a state board has never been authorized to administer the program, according to Peake.
In Alabama, a bill called Carly's law, initiated to help a toddler with violent seizures was filed in the first days of the 2014 Alabama Legislative session that convened January 14.
The bill, which is still in committee review, also makes it legal to possess a prescribed medical grade extract known as cannabidiol, or CBD, which is non-intoxicating.
Florida lawmakers are also considering legalizing CBD, which has shown promising results for controlling seizures.
The strain is low in TCH, the psychoactive compound that gives users the feeling of being high. The product has no value to traditional marijuana consumers and comes as an oil.
Passage of the bill in Georgia would be tough, said Peake, but added it had the key backing of the Medical Association of Georgia (MAG).
The association's president William Silver told Reuters that MAG supported marijuana use for medicinal purposes in academic settings.
Writing by David Adams; editing by Gunna Dickson


text: Blog Archive Disclaimer Information is intended as a guide only Back to all Share AFL star blames concussion for memory loss Dual Brownlow medallist and AFL premiership player Greg Williams believes his failing memory can be traced back to the heavy knocks he took while playing football. Williams, 49, says the memories of his career are fading fast and he can no longer recall much of it. Williams, who played 250 games with Geelong, Sydney and Carlton, told the Seven network he knows he was in the winning premiership team in 1995 but does not remember a lot of the game. He and former North Queensland player Shaun Valentine underwent tests at Deakin University covering memory, dexterity and response times, with worrying results. Their response times matched those of much older men. In fact, the doctor running the tests, Alan Pearce, advised both men to see a neurologist. Williams said that in his playing days there were no club rules regarding concussion. If you were knocked out and you recovered you were sent back on. "If you didn't you were a wimp - it was just tradition, you got up and kept going," he said. His wife Mary has noticed the changes in her husband of 26 years - his forgetfulness and his temper, which she says is getting worse. "He'll snap at me for no reason, and you think, what's going on here?" she said. She said the worst part would be if she had to care for him as he got older and he didn't recognise her. Valentine, 36, left the game after suffering six concussions in two years. "That's footy, I guess," he said. The last time he was knocked out, against Melbourne, was the final straw for the Cowboys who decided he had had enough and it was too dangerous for him to play on. In the United States, concussion expert Chris Nowinski, believes every footballer who's ever played the game has suffered brain damage from concussion. He said he could not justify exposing children to contact sport until they were at least 13 to 14 years old. The program visited eight-year US NFL veteran John Hilton, 69, who is a dementia patient in a Virginia nursing home. He endured repeated concussion during his career and is unable to count back from 10. His doctor said Mr Hilton now had the cognitive abilities of a pre-school age child. References and further information The original article was produced by The Age. To view this article, visit the The Age website. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-star-blames-concussion-for-memory-loss-20130224-2ezsk.html Related articles 007 - Bridge Magazine - Sports and Concussion (2012) HEAD CASE: The deadly spiral of football, concussion and brain damage


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This is the first time ever that I've reposted from one of my P-I blogs to the other and I just pray to the WordPress Gods that it works. But I thought that this piece actually fits better here than in the more sedate "The Constant Valentine", hence this repost. This won't become a habit…
Here's to the restless spirits, the people who just are not and never will be satisfied doing things the same old way. Here's to the people who would make a Christmas tree out of found materials and make it look beautiful. A toast to the type of person who's told all the time, "That'll never work. You're gonna lose your shirt. Why must you ALWAYS rock the damned boat?!?"
Here's a toast to Trey Busch and Alex Ganum.
For anyone not instantly conversant with Northwest wine, Trey Busch is winemaker and partner in the celebrated Sleight of Hand Cellars of Walla Walla, total music freak, father, husband, and as close as the Northwest gets to a true Renaissance Man. Get used to that term, by the way, if you read this series of posts between now and Christmas. One of the saddest things to me about 21st century America is that anyone who is simply well-rounded and accomplished in more than one field is wryly labeled with that monicker, usually delivered in ironic or even scornful terms. In the age of specialization, those who refused to be pinned down are considered odd, flighty time-wasters, instead of being praised for being versatile and curious. I've been pasted with that term about fifty times in my adult life and it always seems to confound the person using it when I smile and say,"Thanks!" From cradle to grave, we're subtly (and sometimes not so) nudged to be narrow, "focused", and to "decide what you're going to do with your life." Trey Busch, to his infinite credit, has simply and good-naturedly refused to fall for this. He's rabid about music – lots of music. I'm one of those people whose musical taste took a left-hand turn off Main Street back in college and, instead of crashing, now drive around in the dense weeds. Harry Partch, Egberto Gismonti, Bireli Lagrene, George Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Nadia Salerno-Sonnengberg, Eugene Chadbourne, Eva Cassidy, Cesaria Evora, Eric Clapton, Evgeni Mravinski, Terrance Blanchard, Joe Pass, Mandy Barnett, James Burton, Neville Mariner, Jethro Burns, and (most of all, maybe) Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli – those are my musical icons, and I'd bet Trey is intimately familiar with most of 'em, including some of the names which produce dumbfounded expressions whenever I say them in polite company.
His wine acumen is so well-documented, by now, that repeating it here is gilding the lily but know that – among fast company like Steven Tanzer, Robert Parker, The Rhone Report, the tasting panel at Wine Spectator, and virtually every other wine critic who's had the pleasure of tasting his juice from Sleight of Hand – Trey Busch is a name that's talked about frequently and fondly. A cursory examination of those four sites produces 20 90+ wines already in the very brief history of the winery, topping out with the 95 points that Wine Spectator bestowed upon his '08 "Illusionist" Cabernet.
Trey started at Dunham Cellars and if there's a better, nicer guy to learn from in Washington than Eric Dunham, I'm not aware of 'em. After that, and short stints learning at wineries literally all over the map, Trey settled in at Basel Cellars, where his name began to surface more and more often in the wine magazines. But Basel was and is a fairly straight-laced operation, with a big, elaborate chateau on a hilltop in Walla Walla, lotsa overhead, and a determinedly Old World image. One look at the labels tells the story: faux-French as all git-out and far more visually sedate than the wines in the bottle. When Trey met Jerry and Sandy Solomon in Sun Valley in 2002, it was an encounter of like minds, three people who believe in wine, fun, and success, in that order. In 2007, Sleight of Hand was started, with an outlook and image so far different from Basel that it must have given Trey a mild case of whiplash, at first. The label graphics, names of the wines, the tasting room, and mostly the wines themselves were wildly inventive, adventurous, and FUN. Their funky, retro t-shirts. (Hard to imagine a Basel logo on anything short of an Oxford-cloth button-down) Their irreverent public image. It's all helping rewrite wine in America in the post-stick-up-the-fanny era.
I don't know Trey personally. I met him once, at Basel, and he was the perfect host, charming, informative, and hospitable to Judye and me. He's a Facebook friend and that's mostly how I've come to know the things about his life outside the winery that resonate so strongly with me. He's certifiably crazy about his kids and wife, loves beer and music, and exhibits a zest for life in all its aspects that's compelling and infectious. Many of the winemakers I know personally hardly exist outside the winery. They approach the craft of making high-octane grape juice with the zeal and solemnity of a monk. Trey's success at SofH simply proves that life isn't any one thing. Different approaches work just fine. And as Trey Busch ascends, as he certainly will, to the lofty status of people like Mike Januik, Bob Betz, Gary Figgins, and Doug McCrea, I have zero doubt that his irreverence, sense of humor, and mania for fun will go along with him. For Trey, I don't believe for a moment that his non-conformity has anything to do with a studied attempt to be different or to "think outside the box". I don't believe, in fact, that Trey Busch even realizes there is a box.
The same things can be said of Alex Ganum. Since starting Upright Brewing, hard up against the Rose Garden arena of the Portland Trailblazers, Alex has simply – and in the true meaning of this phrase – Done His Own Thing. You will not find an obligatory IPA, Amber, Pale, or ESB on the tap handles at Upright's funky, subterranean basement tasting room, in the bottom of Portland's edgy Leftbank Building. Alex's brewing history at Upright (named for the upright bass of his musical hero, Charles Mingus) is a long, devout nod to Belgium with enough riffing off a theme and outright improvisation to make even Mingus go slack-jawed.
I've been spellbound by what's coming out of Upright ever since they started. His core beers – named simply Four, Five, Six, and Seven – are a sort of textbook on Americanizing traditional Belgian ales. They are all quite recognizable as the styles to which they pay respect but shaped, tweaked, twisted and enhanced in radically different, always pleasing, ways. My own favorite, Six, is a rye-based Belgian-inspired dark ale that finishes dry and shockingly light; a pure, hedonistic pleasure to drink. But to get the truly spectacular, envelope-pushing creations that gush out of that unadorned Portland basement, you have to go to Upright, plop down on a picnic bench, and get 'em off tap, which is the proper medium anyway. I've been floored half a dozen times at Upright; floored to the very nearly the same degree as upon my first sip of "The Abyss", my first sample of Bunnahabhain, my first tastes of Peter Lehmann Stonewell Shiraz '95, Ricardo Seghesio La Villa Barolo '97, Argiolas Turiga '05, Numanthia "Termanthia" '04…or Sleight of Hand's Illusionist '08. The first time was when I laid hands on a bottle of Alex's titanic "Billy the Mountain", back in 2010, the most replete, shocking, unique Strong Sour I've tasted before or since. At the tasting room, last year, I tried the indescribable "Monk and Mingus", a massive Belgian-style Stout that left me speechless (which Judye enjoyed to an unseemly degree) and scrambling for ways to get it packaged and back to Seattle. Fatali Four stunned me again, with a freaky recipe that includes their Four that's been amply barrel-aged, infused with homegrown fatali chiles, and lightly infected with brettanomyces, for a beer that's at once oaky, peppery, sour, and sweetly earthy. And, most of all, I fell deeply and passionately in love with their truly world-class Oyster Stout. I had this first on tap at the brewery and then in a bottle that I begged as we were leaving. I drank it in November and it…was…flawless; easily the best oyster Stout I've ever found. Murky, briny, devastatingly well-balanced. No searching for the oysters, here. They practically walk up and introduce themselves. It remains, in my personal pantheon, the only ale that has ever equalled Deschutes "The Abyss" '07 for sheer swoon-inducing impact and total surprise.
Alex Ganum is a Michigan kid who moved to Portland in 2002 to attend the Western Culinary Institute, met some brewers, and quickly became immersed in and seduced by the culture and craft of brewing. He worked briefly at Brewery Ommegang, in upstate New York, and then did a stint at chain brew pub, BJ's Restaurant and Brewery in Portland, for a few years. After leaving BJ's, Alex took a brief time-out to strategize Upright and find the right digs. They opened their doors to almost zero fanfare in 2009 but quickly became an important and iconoclastic part of Portland's increasingly-experimental brewing scene. What Alex did that hit me squarely in the heart with greatest impact was to simply start without all the "core beers" that 90% of the breweries in America use to insure that they'll find quick acceptance and make money. He went straight for the weird stuff, his beers, the ones that fired Alex Ganum's imagination and kept him joyously awake nights, planning and executing in his head. He trusted that the beers would find their audience, that people who think, choose, and sample outside the accepted bounds would eventually find Upright and make it work. And he was right. Again, like Trey Busch, I don't think Alex Ganum once thought about doing any of the uber-creative experiments he's done with his beers simply to be different. I believe that he, like Trey, simply doesn't perceive boundaries and limitations the way most of us do. One good way of looking at it is this: they give us all credit, before the fact, that we're smart and open and discriminating. They respect their customers. We don't have to be coddled and spoon-fed the same old pablum, the same styles, the same grapes in the same combinations. Do they pay a price for this financially? Almost certainly. But if money was at the root of their reasons for starting SofH and Upright, they simply wouldn't have done things this way…this delightful, inspiring, uplifting, wildly creative way.
People like Alex and Trey – neither of whom I know personally – give me hope that intelligence and creativity and the simple ability to embrace more than one narrow aspect of the incredible bounty of what life offers us is not being effectively ground out of us all; that our occasional determination to embrace our "weirdness" is actually still valued and valuable.
I know one thing for damned sure: the next time there's a serious collaboration between a winery and a brewery, ala Dogfish and Aexandria Nicole's amazing "Noble Rot", I pray that it's these two doing the job. I think they would, in each other, find a kindred spirit and a mutual vibe that would result in something truly spectacular. Whenever I taste a SofH wine or an Upright ale, I feel privileged, as I do when I open an Abyss, a Cigar City ale, a bottle of Bob Betz's "Pere de Famille", a Januik Champoux Vineyard, a Quilceda Creek Cabernet. I feel like the doors to the secrets of the universe have gaped open, just a crack, and all that's needed for me to see new possibilities is to sip and savor and ponder with an open mind…an open mind like those of Trey Busch and Alex Ganum.


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Commercial, Products, Regulatory
By Staff Writer | May 11, 2012
Send Feedback
Finmeccanica unit AgustaWestland conducted the first flight of its light intermediate AW169 on Thursday at the company's plant in Cascina Costa, Italy. Chief test pilot Giuseppe Lo Coco took the aircraft through its paces along with test pilot Giuseppe Afruni and flight test engineers Massimo Longo and Stefano Rognoni, verifying general handling characteristics and basic systems. The testing program for the 4.5-ton helicopter involves three more prototypes, with the second and third AW169s joining the effort later this year, and the fourth in 2013. AgustaWestland anticipates certification of the AW169 in 2014. CEO Bruno Spagnolini says that operators will benefit from "the advantages of a family concept of three new generation helicopters," referring to the AW169, AW189 and AW139.Related: Flight Test News
Photos courtesy of AgustaWestland


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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Mothman Prophecies
7 comments:
- ~Scout~ said...
I loved this movie. LOVE. Not because the actors were favorites, either. For a dramatic re-telling, I felt it was fair to the storytellers and still asked more questions at the end, on behalf of skeptics.
Awesome movie - lots of fun.
- February 16, 2010 at 11:11 PM
- Acorn said...
Great film, great book, incredible Art Bell interview!
- February 16, 2010 at 11:30 PM
- Brandi McKenna said...
Rot....this is the scariest movie ever. I have never been so scared of anything...because I KNOW he is real....I pray he never calls me on the phone!!! I am a little nervous I will look out my window one night and see him. I am afraid just saying his name will.summon him here!! Its all just too. Much!! And he's on Monster Quest tonight!!
- February 17, 2010 at 8:13 AM
- Rot said...
That monsterquest was great.
They always have great production value...and I don't even care that every episode ends with pretty much no evidence whatsoever.
- February 17, 2010 at 12:40 PM
- Rot said...
I'll have to look up that Art Bell interview.
- February 17, 2010 at 12:40 PM
- Arcane said...
Utterly creepy movie.
- February 17, 2010 at 10:50 PM
- Steve said...
My IMDB listing is for this movie. Well, okay, for the documentary on the special edition dvd. They used an artwork of mine. I think it's an okay movie. I could riff the shit out of it, though, it's so damn pretentious. Could have been worse, though.
- February 21, 2010 at 12:22 AM


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Focusrite Has Strong Presence at AES135
Focusrite has a full itinerary of events at the 135th AES Convention in New York, spotlighting their RedNet product line, their acclaimed range of Ethernet-networked audio interfaces based around the industry-standard Audinate Dante® Ethernet audio networking system. Convention attendees will experience RedNet first hand and see why RedNet units are becoming the go-to network interface for recording, house-of-worship, live sound and education market sectors.
At the Focusrite booth, attendees can see the full range of RedNet interfaces up close and in action – showcasing RedNet's seamless interoperability with Pro Tools|HDX, MADI, and other Dante-enabled products. Focusrite product specialists will be on hand, demonstrating RedNet's functionality and flexibility using simple, cost effective Ethernet technology.
Additionally, Focusrite will be holding a series of in-depth RedNet demonstrations in its private Audio Demo Room, where attendees can hear RedNet's superior sound quality first hand. Sponsored by Focusrite and GC Pro, this showroom will feature a state-of-the-art recording/playback environment featuring the following cutting edge components: RedNet Audio I/O, Ocean Way AS1 Monitors, and the new Slate Digital RAVEN MTX/MTi Multi-Touch Production Console. This exclusive and quiet demo room is located away from the convention floor for optimal listening. Allen Sides, a GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, engineer and mixer, and who founded Ocean Way Recording, will lead the demonstrations. Attendees may even bring their own Pro Tools files to play back!
Focusrite is also serving as a proud sponsor of two key events at the convention: the AES Project Studio Expo and the Networked Audio Track. The Project Studio Expo, created in partnership with Sound On Sound, brings the latest tools, techniques, and experts together for professional training on topics ranging from acoustics in small spaces to microphone placement, mixing, and mastering. The Networked Audio Track is a set of presentations, tutorials and papers offering a comprehensive examination of the ongoing fundamental shift in networked audio.
In addition, Multiple Grammy Award-winner Chris Lord-Alge is the latest mixer/producer to embrace RedNet as part of his studio setup. Chris will be at the Focusrite booth (#2930) throughout the show playing back recent mixes he did using RedNet.
To learn more about RedNet and other new installations, head to www.focusrite.com/rednet.


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Most of the apps and devices that are in development for healthcare out there require the user to input at least some amount of information. At the very least every device requires you to push a power button, but Striiv has developed a new proprietary technology that allows users to track their physical activity to play games, and ultimately donate to charity.
This technology, called "TruMotion", is put into a device about the size of an iPod Nano that can be attached to a belt loop or even a keychain. During the day there is pretty much nothing you have to do as the device simply tracks your daily interactions such as walking, taking the stairs or actual exercise. Your activity is translated to success in the games.
MyLand is the first game where as your activity increases, your island fills up with exotic plants and animals. More games will come out over time and they will start to include other bonuses and rewards that have become so popular in most games.
Success in the games ultimately translates to donations to charity. Initially the charities that Striiv has chosen are GlobalGiving to donate clean water to children in South America or a polio vaccine to children in India. It really is a win win situation as you get exercise, and kids get something that quite literally can save their lives.
The device attaches to any computer using a USB port which makes it incredibly easy to go from tracking your activity on your keychain, to helping donate money to charity. Co-founder David Wang says they are really trying to appeal to the mainstream but particularly women. They think that combining gaming with real world movement, and essentially no input will revolutionize the fitness device sector.
The startup has raised $6 million from iD Ventures and a number of angel investors, which leads me to believe that there is some real merit to this idea. $6 million is no small sum of money, and gives some real credibility to the idea.
They have not said where the device will be sold other than to say that they have a few big names they are discussing distribution with. The device will retail for $99 and can be reserved right now on the company's website.


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Browse by Medical Category
MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND)
Neurology Access Center: 1-855-644-6387
Access Patient Gateway
Dr. Hyman directs the Alzheimer's disease research unit at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease with the goal of understanding the neuropathophysiologic and genetic factors that underlie dementia. His laboratory studies the anatomical and molecular basis of dementia in Alzheimer's disease, and dementia with Lewy bodies.
Dr. Hyman's research includes a collaborative of several labs working on different aspects of neurodegenerative disease and dementia. The following principal investigators have research labs and collaborate with Dr. Hyman's lab.
Principal Investigator
Bradley T. Hyman, MD, PhD
Affiliated Principal Investigators
Laboratory Staff - includes all lab members of principal investigator labs
Read about and apply for residency, fellowship and observership programs at http://www.massgeneral.org/neurology/education/.
All applicants should register with the Mass General Careers Web site at http://www.massgeneral.org/careers/viewall.aspx. Request a list of current open positions at firstname.lastname@example.com.
View All PubMed Publications
MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease
Building 114, Charlestown Navy Yard
How to Apply for Positions
How to apply for jobs: Send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com to receive an automated e-mail with full instructions for all types of positions.
Fundraising Contact
Contact Krista McCabe in the Mass General Development office at 617-726-1392 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Anne B. Young, MD, PhDDirector, Massgeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Clinical Appointments, Consultations & Clinical Trials
Please visit the main Neurology Service Contact page for all other contact information.
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76 Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, D14 RF96
One of the best known Gastropubs on the South of Dublin City. Our Friendly Staff pride Superior Service with a Smile and Award Winning Chefs provide the freshest Irish pub grub 7 days a week. Boasting a large heated Beer Garden/BBQ area & serving
Read more about The Old Orchard Inn | View Map of Area | Photos
1 Willbrook Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, D14 WR90
A wonderful Gastropub situated a stone's throw away from the very historic Rathfarnham Castle is the Yellow House.
Read more about The Yellow House | View Map of Area | Photos
Edmondstown Road, Rockbrook, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16, D16 HK02
Read more about Merry Ploughboy Pub | View Map of Area | Photos


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"vi" edit mode in Windows (10)
DougBreaux 270007SMYJ Visits (1912)
Small tip if you're on Windows and are used to UNIX vi style shell command history (set -o vi). And aren't using cygwin, Linu
Command history search, in particular, is what I really wanted. Searching anywhere in the command, not only at the start, where Windows' F8 search works.
PowerShell's PSReadLine has a vi mode:
UNIX tip: Use 'find' for recursive directory permissions
DougBreaux 270007SMYJ Comment (1) Visits (11708)
When you want to make all directories executable, but not all files.
find ./ -type d -exec chmod a+x {} \;
SSH key authentication with PuTTY
DougBreaux 270007SMYJ Comment (1) Visits (46971)
This post is intended to document procedures which can be used to simplify and increase security of remote login procedures to UNIX systems through use of SSH private and public keys.
PuTTY for Windows
PuTTY includes a full suite of programs in addition to the PuTTY executable itself. The top of the download page describes the purpose of each tool. We'll use 3 of those tools in this process.
Creating an SSH private key
PuTTYgen is used for this step. Use the "Generate" button and follow the instructions.
You can choose RSA or DSA key types, and you can change the key size.
Enter a passphrase and "Save private key" somewhere on your local system. Note: Use a passphrase that you can remember but that is stronger than a normal password. Security people usually suggest using whole sentences or combinations of words/phrases. Later we'll configure another program so that you don't have to type this passphrase very often.
Installing the public key on the remote system
There are various ways to do this, but the PuTTYgen window explains what I've found to be the easiest. That is, copy the text from the Key text area at the top of the window and manually add it to the $HOM
The authorized_keys file probably doesn't yet exist, and the .ssh directory may or may not. (The same directory is where ssh places the known_hosts file that contains the public keys for hosts which you have trusted for ssh connections in the past.)
If either doesn't exist and has to be created, ensure that the permissions are as follows
Each line in authorized_keys can also be configured with further options, including restricting a key's use to specific hosts, for instance. The best documentation I found on those options is at this Free BSD man page.
You can, and probably will want to, install the exact same public key on each system on which you want to use key-based authentication.
Using the key pair to login with puTTY
This is the "manual" approach, which isn't necessary if you follow the next step, but I wanted to document it for completeness. Here we explicitly tell a PuTTY session that we'll be authenticating with the private key file we saved earlier.
If you use this approach, when you connect to the remote system, you'll be prompted to enter your private key's passphrase:
You could argue that's actually worse usability than the user ID/password solution since you'll be typing a much longer passphrase, which is where the next step comes in handy.
Automatic key usage with Pageant
Another of the PuTTY programs, Pageant, can act as an agent providing access to private keys and only requiring you to authenticate once for each key.
Once you've added this key file to Pageant and entered your passphrase there, you can leave Pageant running, and all the PuTTY programs will be able to authenticate with your key without your further involvement. In fact, with Pageant running, any attempts to connect to a host which trusts your key will automatically connect even if you haven't explicitly configured your PuTTY session to use key authentication. (See the default, enabled "Attempt authentication using Pageant" checkbox in the above PuTTY screenshot.)
Furthermore, the Pageant tray icon can actually be used to directly launch any saved PuTTY sessions you've created. Right-click on the tray icon and select "Saved Sessions".
Finally, you can use the command-line to pass to Pageant any private keys you want it to automatically load when it starts. This allows you to create a shortcut icon that will prompt you for the necessary passphrases and then start a copy of Pageant ready to be used for subsequent, key-authenticated SSH sessions:
PAGEANT.EXE test-key.ppk
DougBreaux 270007SMYJ Visits (9809)
Uncompress and un-tar in one step (leaving original file compressed):
gunzip -c file.gz | tar xvf -
Edit: As a colleague pointed out, some flavors of UNIX have the -z flag in tar. This is for those which don't (like AIX).