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The PNF Duo Pen is an interesting device that brings some touchscreen tablet functionality to standard laptops. You attach the USB receiver onto your laptop's screen in a similar way to a webcam, which responds to the movements of the pen itself.
Instead of a clip for the receiver, however, you tape a small magnet onto the back of the screen, which allows the receiver to be attached quickly and firmly. Although this solution works, a clip would have been much more preferable. The outer shell of your laptop is left with an unsightly magnet attached to it this way, and it means you can't easily use one receiver with different laptops.
Once you get past that rather odd design decision, the PNF Duo Pen works well. The receiver tracks the motion of the battery-powered pen decently, although you have to calibrate the screen using the included software first.
Hovering the PNF Duo Pen over the screen will move the cursor, while pressing the pen onto the screen replicates a mouse click. Lines and notes can be drawn by dragging the pen over the screen, although this should be done with caution.
You should remember that unlike touchscreens, normal laptop screens haven't been built for objects to be pressed against them, so some damage might occur if you're too rough and ready with the PNF Duo Pen. With a bit of caution and a light touch, however, this shouldn't be a problem.
Even after calibration, the PNF Duo Pen can behave slightly erratically – sometimes misconstruing movements and the location of the pen – although on the whole it works well.
A far more successful way of using the PNF Duo Pen is to clip the receiver – while still connected to the laptop via a USB port – onto a sheet of A4 paper. You can then use the pen on the paper in a similar way to the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet and the Genius G-Pen M609.
Even better – you can replace the screen-friendly felt tip of the pen with a ballpoint pen tip (three are included). This enables you to write and draw on the page, with the results replicated on screen. Just make sure you remember to replace the felt tip before you return to drawing over the laptop screen. It doesn't work as well as these dedicated products, but it feels more responsive and natural than writing on the laptop screen.
The software that comes with the PNF Duo Pen includes Mint Note. This is a program that enables you to write, draw and paint on the screen, and then save the results. Although it has been created to work with the PNF Duo Pen, it doesn't do anything that you couldn't do better with other programs.
Microsoft Word's handwriting recognition, for example, will take words you write on the screen and transform them into editable text. Mint Note also crashed from time to time, so if you are tempted by the PNF Duo Pen, make sure you have some other software to make use of it.
PNF Dup Pen: Verdict
The PNF Duo Pen makes a commendable effort at trying something new. If you're looking to have tablet touchscreen functionality on your laptop, the PNF Duo Pen makes a decent attempt at it. However, the hit and miss accuracy prevents this from being a wholehearted recommendation.


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However, shouldn't the servo motor run(or pulse) continuously when hooked directly to a battery? They do not, they run sporadically.
I putting power to the red/black wires coming out of the servo.
I am using HS-311's I didn't have a microcontroller to center them, I did what I thought was good by hand.
I unplugged the battery and one servo exhibited the behavior described.
does the battery need to be unplugged when removing the programming dongle?
Plug in your AVR STK Serial Port Dongle Programmer to both your computer and your robot if it isn't already from Step 3C. AFTER plugging your robot in, turn on the microcontroller by flipping the ON/OFF switch, or plugging in the battery if it doesn't have one. If you were to unplug the programmer, make sure you turn off your robot first.

subset: commoncrawl


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Green Lantern opens this weekend, and the stars and creative team told us about the challenges of adapting an insanely complex mythology, how to play villains who aren't yet villains, and being forced to wear an impossibly huge prosthetic head.
We recently got a chance to interview the Green Lantern cast and crew, including stars Ryan Reynolds (Hal Jordan), Blake Lively (Carol Ferris), Mark Strong (Sinestro), and Peter Sarsgaard (Hector Hammond) alongside director Martin Campbell, producer Donald De Line, and cowriter Greg Berlanti.
Telling The Story and Building Green Lantern's World
Director Martin Campbell wasn't particularly aware of Green Lantern before being offered the movie, but said the project immediately appealed to him:
I've never done a superhero movie before. I wasn't even versed in the comic when it came through the door. Once having read [the script] and so forth, it just sort of fascinated me, the whole world of Green Lantern – going to another planet, going to the center of the universe. So that's really why I did it.
On why it's taken so long for a Green Lantern movie to happen, actor Mark Strong suggested that it's nothing to do with the character or the mythology, and all to do with finally having the technology to make it happen:
I don't think he's a greater or lesser superhero either than Superman or Batman, but I think as was said earlier, their problems are all earthbound. So they're much easier to film and do. Obviously, Green Lantern deals with space and I don't think up until now the technology has been able to catch up with the vision. So, I don't think he's a lesser character. I just think it's the way that it's been made over the years. It's much easier to make a Superman or a Batman than a Green Lantern.
Greg Berlanti explained that he and his fellow writers shared a common love for Green Lantern, and their main goal was just to remain true to what appealed to them in the first place while still telling a compelling story. He singled out what he sees as the philosophical underpinnings of the character - specifically the battle between fear vs. will - as something that sets Green Lantern apart. He also pointed to the character's more complicated premise, which includes a corps of 3,600 other Green Lanterns that patrol the entire universe and rings that run on willpower and can create any construct its wielder can imagine.
Star Ryan Reynolds said that the main thing he wanted to bring from the original comics was their tone, and that he actually thinks the best way to make a movie successful with wide audiences is to key into what the hardcore fans love. He explained:
It was mostly just finding out who Hal Jordan was, and also distilling what it is that the fanboys who love this character, what it is that they love about him and making sure that can be found up onscreen. If they love it there's a good chance that a broader audience is also going to love it as they're being introduced to this character for the first time.
Making the Heroes Real
Ryan Reynolds said that the tone of Hal Jordan really spoke to him:
A lot of the current iterations of superheroes are a little bit darker and a little bit more serious in tone. The thing that I distilled from diving into that mythology and that universe is that the tone is a little bit different. It's a bit of a throwback in that sense. There's a lot of fun with the character. He's not a character that's overly funny, but he's witty. I always say he's that guy that can throw a punch, tell a joke, and kiss a girl. There's something really iconic and fun about that guy because anything is possible with that guy.
For her part, Blake Lively enjoyed how strong a character Carol Ferris is, arguing that she's far from the damsel-in-distress that often pops up in male-driven action movies, not to mention the possibility of becoming the villain somewhere down the line:
I think that Carol is very unique in this genre. She's an incredibly powerful woman and she's also a fighter pilot along with Hal. She runs her father's aviation company and it's rare to see such strong women existing as equals amongst men in film, especially in this genre. I loved that if this franchise continued that she does become a villain [like in the comics]. That was also very, very appealing, that element.
All About Supervillain Sinestro
As Sinestro, Mark Strong has one of the trickiest tasks in the movie. While Carol Ferris's eventual transformation into the villainous Star Sapphire isn't necessarily a fundamental part of her character - only a small percentage of Green Lantern comics really deal with it - Sinestro has been the main villain of the Green Lantern universe for nearly fifty years.
The fact that Sinestro hasn't yet begun his descent into villainy in this movie provided Strong a particular challenge, and he explained how he balanced out Sinestro's role in this particular story versus where he's headed in potential sequels:
If you know the comics you know the direction that he goes to. It's great to play him before he goes there. I'm not sure that's always the case. Usually villains are just villains in these things. They're very straightforward, and so it's nice to have him as a hero in this one. I couldn't really imbue him with anything to do with where he goes after this movie. But what I tried to do was give him characteristics that would lend themselves to being believable should he decide to go to the dark or the yellow side. I really couldn't think about where the stories go. The source material is so vast there's plenty to draw from, but I had to really just stick to the script as it was. If we do go somewhere else with it I hope that he's a believable character that would go that way
All I could do was use human characteristics, and it was very obvious to me that he's a kind of military commander type figure who's very weary of this new Lantern and feels like his priority is the Corps. If this guy is going to be the weak link in the Corps then he's going to have to do something about it. The way that he's drawn, such a muscular drawing and so you had to try and bring an element of that to the way that you play him. That's what I tried to do. As far as where we go from this film, no, no. That was never discussed. It's there in the source material, but this was the movie that we were making.
Fun With Prosthetics
Mark Strong and particularly Peter Sarsgaard had to deal with some pretty heavy-duty makeup for the movie. Sarsgaard spoke lovingly - if somewhat tongue-in-cheek - about the glue that was used to hold his heavy prosthetic in place, and how the sense memory of the stuff still haunts him. Sarsgaard also joked that he was glad he was already married, because this role - which starts with him as a balding, disheveled loner and ends with his brain on the verge of popping out of his skull - would never get him any dates.
However, there were some advantages to such heavy makeup, as he explained:
I think for me as an actor on it, there were these different stages on it, right, and none of them looked like me. Even the beginning doesn't look like me. So, it was like a gift. For one, I could tell where I was in the movie. A lot of times you're in a movie and you're like, "Right. We're in the part where what happens?" I had clear stages that told me where I was in the movie, which was nice.
But perhaps most interest revelation was that the Hector Hammond we see in this movie is a restrained version of what they originally planned. As the panel explained, they wanted to create a super-sized cranium for Hector that resembled what was seen in the comics, but that simply wasn't physically possible:
DeLine: He was [originally] more extreme.
Campbell: He was actually more extreme. The head was actually the size of the room.
Sarsgaard: We had that one that was quite much.
Reynolds: Peter walked out of his trailer at a perfect right angle.
Sarsgaard: We tested one where I was like, 'This is…I can't.' I couldn't do it.
De Line: If you look at the comics his head was twice the size of his body, eventually.
Sarsgaard: He's a little guy also, and then there's the one's of Hector where he's like kind of a robust dude. There's the one with the big, thick mustache. There's a lot of different images. That head pushed down on my eyes and I couldn't open my eyes.
When pressed, De Line said there's a good chance the screen test for that oversized prosthetic will end up on the DVD. Green Lantern opens this Friday.


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A mere seven years after the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man debuted in 1962, comic book fans were already making amateur tributes to the wall-crawler.
This groovy fan film from 1969 — which purports to be the first live-action Spidey movie ever — demonstrates the no-frills dedication of low-budget filmmakers from back in the day. If you can't afford special effects, use an action figure!
The man in the arachnid costume is television producer/animation veteran Don Glut, whose dinosaur memorabilia collection you will never forget. As the YouTube uploader notes:
Notice the use of the Captain Action Spider-Man figure for web swinging and wall crawling; that goes for huge bucks now. The villain in this fan film, Dr. Lightning, is not a real Marvel character and was just created by the guy's making the film.
I absolutely adore the 1960s-ness of it all (particularly the soundtrack), the magnificent ending, and the web effects. Now I want to see a Spider-Man movie à la Mad Men, with a nervous Peter Parker yelling "PIZZA HAUS!" whenever Gwen Stacy calls. For another fantastic example of how crazy devoted old-school fan filmmakers were, check out this 1970s special effects reel.
[Via The Retroist]


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Margaret Murray and the Painswick Lodge Stud: Part 1, 1932-1967
By Emma Bennett. Perhaps the inspiration to own and breed Arabs came from Margaret Murray seeing her mother drive a pair of South African Arabs in a phaeton, for in 1932 she bought a grey two-year-old colt from Mr. T.C. Armitage's stud at Taunton in Somerset. This colt was Sahban, by *Aldebar 1864 (bred by the Prince of Wales) out of the Crabbet mare, Seriya (Skowronek x Somra). Sahban was the start of a long friendship between Margaret Murray and Tom Armitage who was president of the Arab Horse Society three times. Sabhan was used mainly on pony and Thoroughbred mares and only sired a few purebred foals as at that time Arabs were used mainly to improve other types of horses.Continue Reading


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Mother, infant targeted in Londonderry home invasion
Man allegedly threatened victims with gun, ransacked home
Authorities were investigating a home invasion in Londonderry on Friday afternoon.
Police said Joshua Magee, 29, faces a slew of charges including armed robbery and criminal threatening with a deadly weapon.
Click here to watch News 9's report.
Mary Carco says she watched as he marched into her neighbor's home on Wilson Street in broad daylight.
"I head her scream and what sounded like items being thrown or struggle," Carco said. "She only screamed one time and then it got quiet."
Police say Magee was wearing a ski mask and goggles, and he was armed with a gun.
"Her 1-year-old son saw him, started screaming and ran," Londonderry police officer Christopher Olson said. "She came around the corner and saw the suspect with a firearm."
According to police, Magee ordered the two into a bedroom while he ransacked the home.
Meanwhile, Carco had already called 911.
"While I was on phone with dispatch he came running out of the house wearing a mask and ski goggles and bags on his shoes," she said. "And I knew the situation wasn't right then and there."
She said Magee took off in his car.
Londonderry police issued an alert, and Derry police stopped him on Old Manchester Road soon after. They found a loaded gun next to him.
Carco said she was relieved police worked so quickly and that her neighbor was unharmed. After what she saw, she assumed the worst.
"It just was so quiet. She never screamed again, so I just assumed she was hurt," the neighbor said.
According to authorities, tMagee and the victim knew each other, and police said this was not a random act.


text: The Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday delayed to May a vote on whether to end a longstanding controversial ban on gay participants, giving a membership deeply divided by the possible change more time to air their concerns. Board members for the private youth organisation, which turns 103 years old on Friday, had been expected to vote on the matter at a meeting on Wednesday. The Boy Scouts upheld the ban just last year amid sharp criticism from gay rights groups. The Boy Scouts touched off fierce lobbying by groups both for and against changing the policy when it said on Jan. 28 that it was considering removing a national restriction based on sexual orientation and leaving the decision to local chapters. Even President Barack Obama, who favours lifting the ban, and Texas Governor Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout who supports the ban, weighed in ahead of the Boy Scout's national executive board meeting this week near its headquarters in Irving, Texas. "In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public," the Boy Scouts said in a statement that noted it had considered "extensive dialogue" within the membership and outside comments. The board has concluded that "due to the complexity of this issue, the organisation needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," the statement added. The Boy Scouts said the roughly 1,400 voting members of its national council will take action on a membership standards resolution at its national meeting in May. A coalition of 33 faith-based councils that represent about one-fifth of all youth members in the Boy Scouts had asked the board to delay the vote. Reaction to the delay was swift. "This is no doubt a major victory for moral values, but it is a temporary one," said Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, a group that organised a vigil supporting the ban on Wednesday and the parent of a Scout. Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout who has two lesbian mothers and is the founder of Scouts for Equality, called the delay "an abdication of responsibility." "By postponing this decision," Wahls said in a statement, "the BSA has caved to those who argue that their anti-gay attitudes trump basic scouting values of kindness, courtesy and bravery." More than 22,800 people had registered comments with the Boy Scouts on the group's Facebook page from its announcement that it was considering lifting the ban until Wednesday's statement. The debate about the ban follows a series of moves recognising gay rights in the United States in the past year. The US military now permits gay and lesbian members to serve openly, and residents in Maine, Maryland and Washington state voted to approve gay marriage in November, the first states to do so through the ballot box. A national poll released by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday found a solid majority of registered voters, 55 per cent to 33 per cent, favoured ending the ban. A scout is supposed to be brave, and the Boy Scouts failed to be brave today Men supported lifting the ban by 49 per cent to 39 per cent and women by 61 per cent to 27 per cent, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,772 registered voters from January 30 to February 4 and had a 2.3 percentage points margin of error. Gay rights activists, who have said it would not go far enough to lift the national ban but permit local bans to stand, said they were disappointed by the decision to put off a vote. "A scout is supposed to be brave, and the Boy Scouts failed to be brave today," Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian from Ohio who was forced out as a den leader, said in a statement. "The Boy Scouts had the chance to help countless young people and devoted parents, but they've failed us yet again." Tyrrell and other activists delivered more than 1.4 million signatures to the Boy Scouts on Monday on petitions seeking an end to the policy. The Boy Scouts won a 5-4 US Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that upheld its right to ban gays, but the organisation has come under increasing public pressure in recent years from activists. Youth membership in the organisation, which prides itself on teaching boys life skills such as camping and leadership, has declined 21 per cent to less than 2.7 million since 2000. Gay rights activists have also been pressing corporations, including United Parcel Service Inc, Merck & Co Inc and Intel Corp, to withhold contributions to the Boy Scouts while the ban stands. The Boy Scouts also face criticism for keeping from public view decades of reports on child sex abuse in the organisation. It released thousands of pages of files covering 1965 to 1985 in October under a court order. Two board members have said publicly they support a change: Jim Turley, chairman and chief executive of Ernst & Young, and AT&T Inc CEO Randall Stephenson. A spokeswoman for Turley and spokesman for Stephenson said on Wednesday they declined to comment on the board's decision to delay a vote until May.


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(CNN) – Sarah Palin blasted President Barack Obama and gun control advocates Friday, blaming them for "exploiting" recent mass shooting tragedies to promote their political agenda.
Speaking to a welcoming crowd at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, the folksy former governor from Alaska also used chewing tobacco at one point to draw some laughs.
[twitter-follow screen_name='politicalticker'] [twitter-follow screen_name='KilloughCNN']
Palin, wearing a shirt that read "Women hunt," was one of several speakers at the NRA gathering who targeted the Obama administration and some lawmakers for wanting tighter firearm restrictions after the Newtown elementary school massacre.
In the days leading up to the Senate's April 17 vote on gun control proposals, the president invited families of Newtown victims to fly on Air Force One to Washington and lobby Congress.
Newtown families also participated in media interviews and appeared in an ad made by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the pro-gun control group co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
When the upper chamber ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass a bipartisan compromise to expand the background check system, some of those family members stood behind the president not long after the vote as he chided Capitol Hill for what he described as a "shameful day in Washington."
Palin argued the president was practicing the "politics of emotion" by "flying in grieving parents on Air Force One, making them backdrops in his perpetual campaign-style press events."
Par for the course, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee faulted the media for being a "reliable, poodle-skirted cheerleader for a president who writes the book on exploiting tragedy."
Politics of emotion, she argued, won't make the country safer. "It's the opposite of leadership. It's the manipulation of the people by the politicians for their own political ends. It's not just self-serving. It's destructive and it must stop."
Charging the president with being disingenuous in the wake of the shooting was a running theme throughout the day at the NRA. Palin added Obama was ignoring another tragedy.
"We could use a bit more emotion by the way of what goes on every single day on the streets of cities like Chicago and New York," Palin said.
Speaking of New York, Palin took the opportunity to take a swipe at Bloomberg, a mayor she has vehemently opposes for what she describes as his nanny state politics. In her last big speech at a major conservative gathering in March, Palin made headlines for sipping a "Big Gulp" on stage, a knock against New York's ban against certain large sugary drinks.
"Now I see that the mayor of New York now wants to ban public displays of legal tobacco products," she said, referring to his recent push to keep tobacco products out of sight at stores in order to de-glamorize the product.
"I tell ya," she said, as she pulling out a pack of chewing tobacco. "Don't make me do it."
With the crowd roaring, she put the pack back in her pocket.
"It's funny because Todd's been looking for this all morning."
Let's see... only job she can get is to fire up already fiery crowds by bashing President Obama. Hope you have something as a back up Sarah.....
""I tell ya," she said, as she pulling out a pack of chewing tobacco. "Don't make me do it."
With the crowd roaring, she put the pack back in her pocket."
She glamorizes tobacco and the crowd roars? Tobacco? It just goes to show that all she has to do is pick something a liberal or traditional conservative says, show she's against it, and the lemmings following the far-right extremists approve. How sad our nation is so full of ignorant people. We need a new kind of' religion where the goal of the missionaries is to educate the people in East Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, etc. as to how our government is set up, that tobacco is really, really bad, etc.
Only dolts and misfits get fired up by Alaska's ultimate conman.
I love how Palin and the GOP try to fuel fear when it comes any sort of reasonable gun legislation. Meanwhile, this last week we've heard the very same GOP hypocrites criticize the government for not searching/spying on/arresting the Boston Marathon bombers based on the suspicions of the Russian government! The same government that brutally slaughtered the Chechyan for daring to want to have democratic representation (you know, like the people of the original Boston Tea Party). The Russians basically have flagged tens of thousands people as being potential terrorists because of where they were born. The GOP wants to suspend the Constitution based on the word of a government who has used Ricin to assassinate political candidates. But insisting on a background check to buy or transfer ownership of a gun is Facism according to these same NRA puppets, pubic safety be damned. 25% of the people killed by the Boston bombers were killed by a gun. It would be great to know where they got the gun (maybe from another terrorist cell?) but we can't thanks to the GOP. The 2nd amendment is sacred and absolute (but no other amendments) even for a terrorist according to these idiots.
Why do we tolerate the "firing up" of a crowd of morons by a moron? This bunch has bought up every gun and round of ammunition available and threaten to start an uprising against the government. They are a danger to themselves and others. Sarah Palin uses lies and propaganda to excite a riot that openly threatens to assassinate our President. Why is this not illegal? She plans on running for the Senate for the state of Alaska. Someone better find a good Democrat to run against her.
They're dumb. Of course they love her.
"Palin fires up NRA crowd"
I'm a gun owner, but shun the NRA. This headline shows just how stupid those members are.
Yeah I'm sure Obama just has a political agenda. He wouldn't just you know be opposed to twenty elementary school kids being murdered at their school. I'm sure that's got nothing to do with it. When Ms Palin had the opportunity to serve she, um, quit.
Says a lot about the average IQ of those in attendance.............
Anyone who can be fired up by Palin is a mental pygmy.
,,,,,,,WOW,,,Palin is SUCH AS WINNER................oh,........maybe if she stayed thru 1 TERM..........or won Dancin wid da sters..
All I can say, again, is Thank you John McCain for making this imbecile a national celebrity. What were you thinking? Oh thats right, you weren't, again.
Is this sorry excuse for a human being still out there? There is no benevolent god. If there were, he wouldn't have wasted valuable protoplasm on the likes of Sarah Palin.
Liberals HATE gun toten chicks.
When did she turn into a bag lady ?
Fires up? Without a gun? Wow!
The media keeps putting palin in the news thinking anyone cares what that misfit is doing. I would rather hear what Donald Duck, Porky Pig and Goofey are up to....
Ms. Palin has to be the most pathetic person in the world, this woman is so predictable it's almost comical, the people that support her and actually wanted to see her as President of the United States are just as insane as Ms. Palin has become.
Her need for attention is unmatched, her childishness and ignorance is profound, it's very difficult to regard her in any serious manner if your sane and rational.


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Medicare's seven-year effort to spur quality improvements in hospital care by publishing key performance metrics on its Hospital Compare website has not resulted in fewer patient deaths, according to a new Health Affairs study.
In 2005, Hospital Compare started rating more than 3,000 hospitals on how well they adhere to basic guidelines for clinical care, such as giving flu vaccinations to pneumonia patients. Over time, Hospital Compare has added the results of patient experience scores, readmission and mortality rates, and, most recently, rates of complications and other patient safety mishaps.
There's been little evidence that consumers use the site in choosing hospitals. Still, health policy experts have hoped poor performing hospitals would nonetheless be embarrassed enough by their public scores to make changes. Indeed, scores on many of the measures have improved over time.
But the new study questions whether any of this was actually leading to better outcomes for patients, such as their chance of survival in the month after they were discharged. The study found that at the time Hospital Compare was launched, mortality rates for patients with three common ailments — heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia — were already decreasing. After those trends were taken into account, Hospital Compare was found to have no effect on the 30-day survival rate of heart attack and pneumonia patients, according to the study.
There was only a "modest" reduction in death rates for heart failure, and that could have been due to something other than Hospital Compare, the study said. "Hospital Compare did not result in patients' shifting toward high-quality hospitals, and led to little or no reduction in mortality rates within hospitals beyond existing trends," the paper concludes.
Starting in October 2013, hospitals will have an added reason to improve their mortality rates. As part of the health law's value-based purchasing program, mortality rates will be added to the factors Medicare uses in determining how much to reimburse hospitals.


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Welcome to OldMeadeCounty.com, created to
share the history of Meade County Kansas on-line!
above will direct you to contact information if you have a story or photos to share.
The search box below will allow you to do a Google search on this site.
This website is a work in progress....
I will attempt to add stories and photos on a regular basis until I exhaust my resources, which include years
and years worth of collecting Meade County History. So stop by often and see what's new!
Nancy Ohnick
Copyright 2018 © Prairie Books, all rights reserved


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It was a modest amount in the scheme of things — a $240 million investment by Microsoft in Facebook in 2007, valuing the social network at $15 billion at the time, and giving the Redmond company a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook.
More than four years later, Microsoft has held on to the investment. And it has already paid off strategically for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer by cementing the relationship between the companies.
Joint projects between Microsoft and Facebook have included advertising initiatives and a collaboration between Bing and Facebook to incorporate data from Facebook into search results — a step that Google is now attempting to follow by connecting Google+ to Google search.
Now, with Facebook poised to take its first steps toward an initial public offering, we'll soon have a clearer sense for the financial value of the investment, as well.
Facebook's value will ultimately depend on the assessment of the market, but the speculation for its debut generally ranges from $75 billion on the low end to as much as $100 billion.
That would translate into a five- to six-fold increase since 2007, easily boosting the value of Microsoft's stake to more than $1 billion. Not a bad return, to say the least. (Facebook's follow-on investment rounds aren't believed to have significantly affected Microsoft's percentage stake.)
Of course, the public market would also present Microsoft with a better opportunity to sell those shares. But a complete exit would be a surprise. With more than $51 billion in the bank, Microsoft doesn't need the money.
And the real value of its relationship with Facebook remains that strategic link.


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Customs and traditions allow us to preserve important ancestral history. Unique, individual stories, wisdom and in this case recipes, passed from generation to generation. As Sri Lankan migrants, my parents continue to pass on their significant heritage to their children, and at important celebrations of the year where family gather, recipes like Sri Lankan Love Cake remind us of where it all began.
This traditional Sri Lankan cake was inspired by the Portuguese from the 1500's. As the name suggests, Love Cake was originally made to win the heart of an admirer. It is made from cashew nuts, semolina and candied winter melon/squash called puhul dosi (pumpkin preserve). Exotic spices and floral essences create a fragrant, sweet, spiced cake with a soft chewy inside and a crunchy crust.
There are many different variations to Love Cake, with each Aunty insisting her recipe is better than the other! Practice is also another requirement. Don't be alarmed if you do not succeed the first time. Adjusting ingredients or oven temperatures may be necessary.
In the recipe below, I have used a bain-marie of water to create that soft chewy centre. By placing a tray of water at the bottom of the oven, the moisture stays within the cake and doesn't dry it out.
Happy Christmas Baking…
Sri Lankan Love Cake
Makes: 2 rectangular baking trays
Prep Time: 30 mins (Eggs need to be at room temperature)
Cooking Time: 2 hours 15 mins
450g butter, softened
450g semolina
650g cashew nuts (pulsed in a food processor until finely chopped, keeping some larger pieces. Do not blend to a powder consistency)
12 egg yolks (at room temperature)
7 egg whites (at room temperature)
700g caster sugar
500 g preserved pumpkin (puhul dosi), finely chopped or pulsed in a food processor
50ml rosewater
2 tbsp almond essence
50ml honey
juice of 1 orange
rind of 1 lemon
2 tsp nutmeg, ground
2 tsp cardamon, ground
1 tsp cinnamon, ground
1 tsp clove, ground
Preheat oven to 160°C fan forced.
Grease two rectangular cake tins and line with foil and then baking paper.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy.
Combine the softened butter and semolina together in a separate bowl using your fingers. Add this to the egg and sugar mixture in thirds, beating to combine.
Transfer mixture into a very large mixing bowl and using a wooden spoon incorporate the nuts, pumpkin preserve. Then add rosewater, almond essence, honey, juice and rind, stirring well. Add remaining dry spices and mix.
Whip the egg whites into soft peaks and gently fold through the egg whites into the cake batter in two batches, do not over beat mixture. The egg whites will loosen up the mixture.
Pour batter into prepared cake tins.
Place a large tray of water on bottom oven shelf.
Bake the cakes at 160°C for 20 mins on middle oven shelf.
Reduce heat to 150°C and bake for a further 2 hours and 15 minutes.
If the cake is browning too quickly, cover with foil.
Once cooked and brown on top, remove cakes and allow to cool in trays before transferring. Cut into rectangles or squares when cool.
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The 20 Best College Traditions In The US
Each college has beloved traditions that students have kept alive through the years.
We've put together a list of the best college traditions from around the country. Some of these—like the Dartmouth Winter Carnival—are loved by students and school officials alike. However, traditions such as the Mirror Lake Jump at Ohio State are enjoyed much more by students than faculty.
Cornell Dragon Day at Cornell University
When: Every March
Year it began: Sometime between 1897 and 1901
The tradition ofDragon Day goes back more than one hundred years. Every March, first-year architecture students band together to build a massive dragon, which they parade across campus. The dragon then "battles" with a large phoenix, built by engineering students.
Spirit Splash at the University of Central Florida
When: End of October
Year it began: 1995
ForSpirit Splash, students at the University of Central Florida rush into the campus's Reflecting Pond to celebrate homecoming weekend. The tradition started in 1995 when someone pushed the student body president into the pond. Spirit Splash won the "Best Campus Tradition" award from the National Association for Campus Activities.
THON Weekend at Pennsylvania State University
When: Every February
Year it began: 1973
THON Weekend is 46-hour no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon that takes place every February at Penn State. The marathon is for a good cause, with a majority of the proceeds going toward the Four Diamonds Fund to fight pediatric cancer. THON has raised more than $114 million for the cause since the tradition began in 1977.
The Great Midwest Trivia Contest at Lawrence University
When: The last weekend in January
Year it began: 1966
The Great Midwest Trivia Contest at Lawrence University is an extraordinary challenge, with 50 straight hours of trivia from Friday to Sunday. The contest is known as the "world's longest-running trivia contest" because each year a question from a previous year begins the new contest.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge at North Carolina State University
When: Every February
Year it began: 2004
This tradition involves a lot of running and a lot of doughnuts. Runners will travel 2.5 miles to a Krispy Kreme shop, eat a dozen doughnuts, and run 2.5 miles back to NC State's campus. The Krispy Kreme Challenge began as a dare between some undergraduate students, and has now become a huge event with proceeds supporting the North Carolina Children's Hospital.
The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt
When: Beginning of May. The last day of the hunt is always Mother's Day.
Year it began: 1987
The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt spans four days in May and includes a list of items to find, a blood drive, and a road trip that can take participants as far as 1,000 miles from Chicago. This event currently holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest scavenger hunt.
Civilians vs. Cadets Snowball Fight at Virginia Tech
When: The first big snowfall of the year
Year it began: Unknown
Virginia Tech's student body used to be entirely Reserve Officer Training Corps. Every year during the first big snowfall, students break up into two teams—cadets and civilians—and duke it out in a massive snowball fight in honor of the school's history.
The Pull at Hope College
When: Every September
Year it began: 1898
The Pull is an annual tug-of-war contest held at Hope College. Each team has 18 "pullers" as well as 18 "moralers," who have the responsibility of boosting morale. The longest pull lasted for three hours and 51 minutes, and the shortest was only two minutes and 40 seconds. "Sports Illustrated" named the Pull the "mother of all tug-of-war."
Renn Fayre at Reed College
When: End of April/beginning of May
Year it began: 1960s
Renn Fayre is a crazy tradition that celebrates the end of the school year and features music, food, art, a giant slide and skate ramp, and naked students covered in blue paint. One of the highlights is the Thesis Parade, where seniors burn all of their thesis notes in a bonfire and then march around campus.
Dolphy Day at Le Moyne College
When: Every spring
Year it began: 1971
Dolphy Day is a tradition at Le Moyne College that surprises students with a day off. The date of the surprise holiday is kept secret until the last minute, and celebrations begin at 2 a.m. with fireworks. Throughout the rest of the day, students enjoy barbecues and partying.
Little 500 at Indiana University
When: Every April
Year it began: 1951
The Little 500 at Indiana University is modeled after the Indy 500 and is the largest collegiate bike race in the country. Four-person teams compete against each other in a race; the men's race is 200 laps, and the women's race is 100 laps. More than 25,000 people come out to this event, and proceeds to go toward raising scholarship money for students.
Drake Relays at Drake University
When: Every April
Year it began: 1910
The renowned Drake Relays have been a tradition for more than 100 years, and attract more than 40,000 spectators each year. Races feature both world-class athletes and college teams, making for a very exciting campus event.
Dartmouth Winter Carnival at Dartmouth College
When: Every February
Year it began: 1910
The Dartmouth Winter Carnival has been a tradition for over 100 years and features events such as ski races, an ice sculpture contest, a polar bear swim, and a human dog sled race. One of the greatest parties during this event is the Alpha Chi Alpha beach party, a tradition since 1976.
The Harvard-Yale Football Game
When: Every November
Year it began: 1883
The Harvard Crimson and the Yale Bulldogs football teams are major rivals, and every November they face off in The Game to the delight of many spirited students and alumni. The 2014 event will take place on November 22 and will be the 131st anniversary of The Game.
Carnegie Mellon Sweepstakes at Carnegie Mellon University
When: Every April
Year it began: 1920
Sweepstakes, also known as "Buggy," is a competition between campus organizations where each team builds torpedo-shaped vehicles and pushes them in a relay race. The race has taken place every year since 1920.
ASU BB Run at Arizona State University
When: Beginning of May/last day of classes
Year it began: 2008
For the ASU BB (bras and boxers) Run, more than 15,000 students at Arizona State run across the Tempe campus in nothing more than their bras and underwear to celebrate the end of classes. In addition to the run, there is plenty of music and entertainment. After shedding their clothing, students can donate it to Goodwill Arizona.
Rotblatt at Carleton College
When: During spring term
Year it began: 1967
Rotblatt is an annual softball game where students play one inning for every year Carleton College has been in existence. Since the university is 148 years old, students played for 148 innings this year. One of the rules for Rotblatt is that you must have a beverage in your hand at all times.
Mirror Lake Jump at Ohio State University
When: End of November
Year it began: 1990
Every year, thousands of students gather together and plunge into the freezing Mirror Lake to celebrate the Ohio State vs. Michigan football game. School officials tried to control the jump in 2013, but students went ahead with the tradition as usual.
Purdue Grand Prix at Purdue University
When: Every April
Year it began: 1958
The Purdue Grand Prix is an exciting go-kart race at Purdue University. Any student can participate in the race, and every five years an alumni race is held so former students can relive their glory. There is also a Classic race, where only go-karts built before 1986 can enter. There is a whole week of celebrations leading up to this event.
Beer Bike at Rice University
When: Every March
Year it began: 1957
During the Beer Bike relay race at Rice, each residential college has three teams. One person on each team chugs beer or water (depending on their age), and once they finish, a biker on the team can start to race a set amount of laps around the track. On their last lap, the team's next chugger begins. After the race, there is a huge water balloon fight.
Now check out the best college campuses:
The 20 Best College Campuses In The U.S. >
See Also:


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Gene sleuths track spread of hospital superbug 11 декабря 2012, 11:39
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Gene detectives on Sunday said they had pinpointed how a hospital superbug arose in North America in the early 2000s and spread to Europe before becoming a source of global concern, AFP reports.
The germ spread through two different but closely-related strains, not one as previously thought, said the researchers.
The evidence comes from a "family tree" of the dangerous bacterium Clostridium difficile as it evolved into different strains over the years, they said.
"Between 2002 and 2006, we saw highly publicised outbreaks of C. difficile in hospitals across the UK, US, Canada and Europe," said Miao He of Britain's Wellcome Sanger Institute.
"We found that this outbreak came from two separate epidemic strains, or lineages, of C. difficile, FQR1 and FQR2, both emerging from North America over a very short period and rapidly spread between hospitals around the world."
The study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, analysed the DNA from C. difficile samples taken from hospitals around the world from 1985 to 2010.
Two strains of the bug separately acquired genes that made them immune to fluoroquinolone, once the frontline antibiotic against it, the authors found.
"Up until the early 2000s, fluoroquinolone was an effective treatment for C. difficile infection," said investigator Brendan Wren, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"We've seen that since these strains acquired resistance to this frontline antibiotic, not only is it now virtually useless against this organism, but resistance seems to have been a major factor in the continued evolution and persistence of these strains."
The new study, appearing in the journal Nature Genetics, sheds worrying light on how superbugs can travel easily and swiftly via jet travel and interconnected health systems.
The first known outbreak of the FQR1 strain was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2001. It then leapt from the northeastern United States to South Korea and Switzerland.
The earliest outbreak of the FQR2 strain appears to be in Montreal in 2003, but its transmission pathway was different.
The germ disseminated in North America before being introduced into Australia in a single incident, and to continental Europe and Britain, both on at least four incidents.
Known as "C-diff," the pathogen ranks alongside Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as a hospital threat.
It causes about half a million cases of sickness, and between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths, in the United States each year, according to estimates published in 2009.
The bug comprises a bacterium that comes in a spore, or a hardy shell-like jacket, which makes it easily transportable on surfaces or hands.
It naturally colonises the gut and is not a problem for people who are healthy as it is kept in check by other intestinal bacteria.
But when antibiotics are used to treat someone who is sick, the drugs can wipe out the "good" bacteria, which leaves C. difficile to multiply uncontrolled.
As it reproduces, it releases toxins that cause severe, even fatal, diarrhoea as well as colitis that may need removal of the colon.
Resistance to fluoroquinolone means that doctors have to fall back on a diminishing arsenal of antibiotics to kill the germ.


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Size of Your Segment and Network Reach Matters in Behavioral Ad Targeting
Recently I came across a company who invested a lot of effort (time and money) in behavioral ad targeting. At the end, they were not happy with the results and were wondering if it was worth continuing with this effort. Further discussion revealed that they did not get enough clicks on their behaviorally targeted ads and hence their discontent. Since they were paying for clicks only, money was not an issue, but the clicks on behaviorally targeted ads were not enough to justify the efforts they were putting.
So what happened, isn't behavioral ad targeting suppose to provide you more click-throughs?
The problem was that their behavioral targeting vendor showed them great case study but did not set the realistic expectation about what this customer should expect. I am sure; there are a lot of companies in the same boat. So, in this article, I will explain how to set realistic expectations about what to expect in terms of clicks on your behaviorally targeted ads.
Let's take an example of a Cruise site which sells cruises packages for travel around the world.
This site participates in Behavioral Ad network to target visitors who had shown interest in cruise package to Alaska when they visited their site but wandered-off without making a purchase. These visitors will be targeted when they arrive at other publisher sites participating in the behavioral ad network.
Here are some stats on this site and target audience (visitors)
Traffic: Let's assume they get 1,000,000 visitors a month (This is for illustration purposes and you can use your own multiplier to see the effect on your site).
Target: Visitors who viewed details and prices about cruises to Alaska. Let's assume this customer base is about 250,000, 25% of the total site visitors. (Most of the segments I have seen actually are way less than 25% of the total visitors)
Behavioral Ad Network Reach: For this example, the network, the site is participating in, only reaches 30% of the internet population. Let's assume the site's visitors are a good sample of the total internet population.
By participating in this network the customer will able to reach 75,000 visitors (30% of 250,000), assuming you were able to get impressions on all the sites participating in the network.
Note: This is a big assumption because even if you network reaches 90% of the internet population you will not reach 90% of your target audience. You will be competing with other advertisers (both participating in this network as well as the advertisers directly advertising on the publisher's site) for the available inventory. Most of the network do not get premium inventory, what they get is Run-of –Site or Run-of-Network inventory which further reduces the reach.
Click-Through Rate: Assuming the click through rate without targeting is .5%. With behavioral ad targeting it is expected to increase to 1.0% (100% increase, this has yet to be proven the % increase is all over the board and one study even said that click through rate declined)
So let's say you show 75,000 impressions to these 75,000 visitors (1 impression each). So the clicks you get will be 750 visitors (1% of 75,000)
So For every 1,000,000 visitors on your site you can only expect 750 visitors from Behavioral Ad Targeting (.075% of your total site visitors, not a huge number).
No let's assume your network reached 80% of internet population. In this case you will be able to reach 200,000 (80% of 250,000) visitors and with 1% click through rate you can expect 2,000 clicks (167% increase). 0.2% of your total site visits, still not a huge number but still better than a network with 30% reach.
By choosing the right network marketer would be able get more clicks for the same efforts.
Your Behavioral Ad Networks (vendor) should have a way to forecast the clicks you can expect. Talk to your account representative; get all the facts, talk to their customer (not just read case studies) so that you have realistic expectation about the clicks. If they can't provide you this information then time to move on to a new vendor.


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In this episode, market experts Brian Overby and Callie Cox from Ally Invest explore the Disney (DIS) stock and discuss the Calendar Spread strategy for options trading.
Episode 61: Overtime
In this episode, Brian Overby from Ally Invest looks back at the performance of the options strategy he set for Disney (DIS) on Tuesday's episode.
Your Host
Brian Overby
Senior Options Analyst for Ally Invest
As senior options analyst for Ally Invest, Brian Overby is a widely sought-after resource for his option trading knowledge and market insights. He has contributed to numerous articles for the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Bloomberg, and has had frequent appearances on CNBC Fast Money and Fox Business News. A veteran of the financial industry since 1992, Brian continually seeks to improve the understanding of the retail investor. He has given thousands of option trading seminars worldwide, written hundreds of articles on investing, and is the author of the popular trading resource The Options Playbook and its free, acclaimed companion site OptionsPlaybook.com. Prior to Ally, Brian was a senior staff instructor for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and managed the training department for one of the world's largest market makers, Knight Trading Group.
Callie Cox
Former Senior Investment Strategist for Ally Invest
During her tenure as senior investment strategist for Ally Invest, Callie Cox helped educate Ally Invest customers about the financial markets through engaging content and strategic initiatives.


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As brutal election results reflected, the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) was a scandal-plagued outfit circa 2006. I don't relish the current ORP leadership fight, but if we don't want second terms for President Obama and Senator Sherrod Brown we must avoid repeating our mistakes. Party chairman Kevin DeWine's old-guard ways – combined with his public betrayal of Governor Kasich – make it hard to believe ORP can be effective with DeWine in charge.
Quick hits: this fall, a consultant with ties to Chairman DeWine produced $179,000 in advertising for one of the Big Labor fronts smearing Kasich's union reform bill. A glance at last year's ORP campaign expenditures reveals –
- $753,680 spent in the incredibly close Kasich-Strickland race
- $1.3 million spent in the secretary of state race, for DeWine ally Jon Husted – including $375,245 in the GOP primary
- $1.5 million spent in the attorney general race, for Kevin DeWine's cousin Mike DeWine
If those figures don't raise your eyebrows, there's more. In the early aughts, Brett Buerck was a recognized name in Ohio Republican circles. Then, suddenly, he was known more widely… and not for a good reason.
Brett Buerck (BYOO-rik) is president of Florida-based Majority Strategies. In 2004, he was fired as an aide to former House Speaker Larry Householder after a federal grand jury began subpoenaing records on Householder's fundraising practices. The U.S. Justice Department later declined to prosecute Buerck.
"Team Householder," renowned/reviled as brass-knuckle politicos, became synonymous with "corruption" in 2004. Buerck joined Rep. Bob Ney, Governor Bob Taft, and Tom Noe on the list of Ohio GOP persona non grata (or at least persona not-terribly-grata) and by all assumptions that was the end of that.
Though Buerck was never prosecuted, seeing money funneled from ORP to his Florida firm – $1.8 million in 2008, $1.7 million in 2010 – sets off alarm bells. Couldn't ORP find a vendor with a less clouded history? Maybe the party could even spend its money in Ohio, if DeWine contracted with people not banished from the state!
I volunteered briefly for Ken Blackwell's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, so there are familiar tones in the current fight with Governor Kasich:
"The speaker talks to me through his lawyers," said [Secretary of State] Blackwell, the darling of anti-tax conservatives and the state's highest ranking black elected official.
"We now stand in a Statehouse awash in scandal, a scandal that was born under loose rules and grew under blind eyes," Blackwell said recently.
Householder calls Blackwell a "Rodney Dangerfield of Ohio politics" trying unsuccessfully to get respect.
It seems clear that Brett Buerck's ORP money stream would run dry without DeWine & Co. manning the pumps. After all, it's a simple task to pull the gory Cleveland Plain Dealer and Toledo Blade coverage from Team Householder's heyday, and the Ohio Democratic Party's affinity for ORP leadership will last only as long as DeWine is arguing with the governor.
DeWine's public complaints of victimhood, in addition to feeding the leftist narrative about Mean King Kasich, are downright ironic in light of his relationship with Buerck. Ken Blackwell had the right idea in 2004, per this Washington Post account:
Ohioans have been treated to regular servings of leaked strategy memos and e-mails written by Buerck, Sisk and others in Householder's camp. With a swaggering tone, the documents suggest an approach to politics that borrows equally from H.R. Haldeman and Barney Fife.
"People have gotten caught up in having power for power's sake," said J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican secretary of state, who has clashed bitterly with Householder and is investigating the consultants' dealings. "When people don't feel passionate that Republicans can and will make a difference, that makes the president's job that much more difficult."
Without a break from the people and practices who helped sink Republicans here in 2006, 2012 could be ugly for conservatives in Ohio and across the nation. The question now is whether Kevin DeWine wants the upcoming election to be about him.
Cross-posted at RedState and Big Government.


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Maybe you and a few million other Canadians thought the issue of "Lost Canadians" had been resolved.
You know, war brides and children (born in and out of wedlock to Canadian soldiers in WWII) who discovered years later -- after a lifetime of paying taxes, working productively, finding out on retirement -- or when applying for passports -- that through bureaucratic glitches, they were not Canadian citizens.
Supposedly, these and other citizenship lapses had been corrected by the Harper government and an all-party Parliamentary vote.
If you think this -- think again. Think again.
Take the case of Jackie Scott, who was born out of wedlock in England in 1945. Her father, a Canadian soldier (born in Canada in 1911), married her mother in 1948 who became a naturalized Canadian after the family came to our country.
Jackie Scott went to school, worked, married, had a daughter and now has grandkids -- all of whom are as Canadian as maple syrup.
But because Jackie had not lived in Canada for five years prior to the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947 (remember she was born in 1945!), she didn't qualify as a "Canadian."
Subsequent laws sought to correct this foolish oversight, but in one of the strangest rulings imaginable, today's Citizenship and Immigration department -- over the signature of one Stella Holiday, Citizenship Analyst -- insists Jacqueline Scott is not Canadian.
Her reasoning? In letter she bluntly (and categorically) says: "At the time you were born in 1945, neither of your parents was a Canadian citizen."
Oh? Remember, the father was born here, was a Canadian soldier, was wounded for his country, and is now viewed as a non-Canadian!
Stella Holiday's letter continues: "Before 1947, persons born in Canada, such as your father, were considered British subjects [...] Canadian citizenship only gained legal recognition when the former Act came into force on January 1, 1947. Therefore you are not described as a citizen."
In other words, the 100,000 Canadian soldiers who stormed Vimy Ridge and won the first and greatest battle of World War I, were not Canadians, according to today's Citizenship and Immigration.
Nor were nearly a million men in uniform in World War Two. And the 100,000-plus who died in Canada's wars are not considered "Canadian" by the Citizenship department.
In 1946, then-Prime Minister Mackenzie King stood on a dock in Halifax and welcomed war brides and their children as "Canada's newest citizens." His greeting has an ironic ring today.
I guess Prime Minister Stephen Harper was out to lunch when he recently paid tribute to the Canadian Corps on the 95th anniversary of the Vimy Ridge: "Their remarkable victory helped create a new and stronger sense of Canadian identity here at home."
In an anthology compiled by the late Pierre Berton, my father, who earned a Military Medal and bar at Vimy, wrote: "Before Vimy Ridge I never felt I was Canadian, but after Vimy Ridge I never felt anything but a Canadian."
How dare this bureaucrat from Citizenship and Immigration say that no one born in Canada prior to the 1947 Act was "legally" a Canadian citizen.
Don Chapman lost Canadian citizenship as a kid when his dad moved to work in the U.S. As the founder of "Lost Canadians," Chapman not only regained his citizenship, but rescued unknown thousands of others who'd been unwittingly deprived of theirs. Chapman's persistence forced the government to change laws that deprived so many.
Canada broke with Britain in 1867 when the British North America Act declared Canada an independent country. We have been self-governed ever since. Of course we have links with Britain, but we are masters in our own house -- except for the bureaucratic lapses that still exist.
It behooves the Prime Minister, if Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney won't act, to cut the red tape and recognize Jackie Scott as a legitimate Canadian, and not scurry for cover and pretended ignorance.
Scott now lives in the U.S. and discovered she was not considered Canadian in 2005 when her application for a passport was rejected.
The Conservatives sought to correct the citizenship when they were the Opposition. Now that they're the government, they have other priorities.
Shame on all of them.


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ACTION COMICS #1 FACSIMILE CGC Graded 9.8 PREORDER 9/21/22
Guaranteed grade of 9.8, returns from CGC approximately 28-32 weeks after publication date. (unless publication date has passed, delivery will be 28-32 weeks after purchase date). All return times are estimates, grading times can be as long as 52+ weeks. We make no guarantees for return times. Items ship as soon as they return from CGC.
- Comic cover art, title, and description is provided by the publisher/distributors and is subject to change. Comics typically will have "Trade Dress" (Title, issue number, barcode, etc.) unless specifically noted. However all final versions of the comic are subject to change. Hotshot Comics updates our listings frequently, however it is possible changes to a listing have been made, and not yet be updated by us.
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- Please note* All comics marked as "Preorder" are not available to be cancelled or refunded.
- Any refunds given by Hotshot Comics not due to our error will be assessed a 5% cancellation fee.


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Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama says that federal law enforcement agencies have "bigger fish to fry" than prosecuting marijuana users in Colorado and Washington, which voted in November to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
Obama made explicit in an interview to air Friday on ABC News that prosecution of marijuana users in the two states would be placed low on his Justice Department's list of law enforcement priorities, but that certain issues must still be ironed out as more states could pass similar legislation.
"This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law," Obama said. "I head up the executive branch; we're supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we're going to need to have is a conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it's legal?"
In a statement Monday, U.S. Attorney John Walsh said that the Department of Justice is "reviewing" the initiatives passed in both states and that the department's "responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged."
"Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 10 in Colorado, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law," Walsh said.
The Justice Department is familiar with negotiating contradictory state and federal laws on marijuana. Aside from the two states which have legalized recreational use of marijuana, 18 states and the District of Columbia have allowed legal use of the drug for medical reasons.
Marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency, meaning it's dangerous and has no medical use. Other Schedule I drugs include heroin, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms. Medical marijuana advocates say it should be listed under Schedule II, comparing it to other prescription painkillers that have a high potential for abuse.
In California alone, more than 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries are in business, employing thousands and providing state and local governments as much as $105 million in taxes each year.
But federal prosecutors are getting tougher. Last year, law enforcement agents seized 3.9 million plants in the Golden State and were poised to collect more this year.
Marijuana advocates say the attack collides with California's law and goes against a campaign promise by Obama to not circumvent the state's relaxed rules.
A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted after November's election indicated 64% of Americans felt the federal government should not take steps to enforce federal anti-marijuana laws in states where it has been made legal for recreational use.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted between November 28 and December 3 showed 51% of registered voters nationwide thought marijuana should be made legal in the United States, compared to 44% who thought it should remain illegal.
CNNMoney's Jose Paliery contributed to this report.
I don't see anyone arresting the hillbillys in Alabama that violate the federal consent law with thir state laws. How about you spend the money to go down there and find everyone married to a 16 year old and arrest them instead?
Obama is still promoting smoking in the U.S. of unfiltered cigarettes. Great idea! That fits PERFECTLY with Obamacare!
Namaste Everyone, The recent states approval of recreational marijuana subject to being overruled by the federal government in the future will have serious implications as history has taught us. Expect lower street drug prices, increased first time users and everyone experimenting with different types of drugs because the government has said its ok for one. Drugs provide lots of money, minimal investment which will encourage their manufacture. Conflicts will result between dealers and users which cannot go to the police for their criminal activity but must settle it themselves. We will need increased health care practicineers in pulmonary and behavior illnesses. Thank You, Namaste Timothy Murphy.
The RX drug companies will do anything including paying off politicians. Thye do not want to give up there "piece of the pie".
Your not suppose to notice things like that CJ, Obama's policy of "do what I say,not do as I do " policy.
reply to CJ:
Let's see, a prohibition law that is ineffective, hypocritical and antiquated and an immigration law passed by AZ legislature that included language and practices unseen since Nazi Germany. God forbid we have a president that exercises rational thought.
There's bigger fish to fry than discrepancies between federal and state laws.. as if problems in other countries supersede the growing problems in our own country.. sounds to me like Obama has a cloudy brain himself. Didn't the US just promise to send troops and patriot missiles to turkey?
The GOP has said they want small federal gov and the states to have more power. Except when it comes to things they don't like, drugs, gay people, women who might die if they don't have an abortion etc. Of course most of the GOP smoke pot, a lot hang out in mens washrooms and it is okay for their daughter to have an abortion. The GOP need to go away.
Legal, illegal... I'll still grow it and smoke it. No one will tell me that I cannot.
I'd bet if the whole Congress sat down and passed the bong for an hour, they'd balance the budget by lunch time. Pot smokers can be most agreeable when food is awaiting them.
Obama says, "This Bud's For You" to deal with for now.
Good one babe!! LOL!
It's Friday people. Loosen up.
War on "Drugs" Billions of $ lost.
Court Costs, Billions of $ lost
Prison terms, food, clothing and health care, Billions of $ lost.
Associated Crime, Lost lives, lost opportunities in life, Billions of $ lost.
Profit from legal growing, processing, distribution, Billions upon billions GAINED.
HUGE Tax levies on sale. Billions of $ GAINED.
Net turnaround from losses eliminated and profit and Taxes Gained....TRILLIONS of $.
I am absolutely outraged that we're not spending more money to prosecute these growers! No issue is more important than protecting our Adults from enjoying themselves in the comfort of their own homes! We must stop this scourge immeadiately! I propose we:
– Stop spending money on frivious items like Education, Health, Defense, Infrastructure or Research
– Invest in 10,000 new Private Prisons so Good Ole Boys can make heaps of money off of incarcerating our youth and ruining their future employment chances because of a pot-possession charge.
– Specifically target those most likely to indulge, which apparently means incarcerating all the Black community since they make up most of the current prisioners.
– Pass a host of new laws which invade the privacy of US citizens so that we can make sure no one is enjoying themselves.
– Give more tax breaks to Big Pharmacy so they can invent new drugs which sicken those who smoke.
– Start spraying Paraquat over all of Colorado and Washington just in case.
– Install drug testing equipment in all public urinals and post police to arrest anyone who tests positive.
No expense is too much! A policeman on every corner! Sacrifice all to maintain the Purity of Thought that the Prohibitionists demand!
/End Sarcasm. Really, just Legalize and Tax already.
if u look at the transcript on 20/20 Obama says" we need to find other ways to deal with users",sure sounds like some kinda of harsher sentence to me.
Marijuana is just like alcohol during prohibition. It doesn't hurt anything and criminals try to make a profit off it along with all the killing and robbing that goes with that status. Legalize it, tax it, put drug dealers and suppliers out of business and clear the jails of people arrested for marijuana related crimes which leaves room for real criminals.
Sense the law has made marijuana federally illegal we have to prove it does not show an high class offense to the general population in health concerns and safety conditions. This particular plant is grown from original soil and is maintained with water, while sunlight is used to promote growth or essential production. Once the plant is ready to be harvested it can be used for a number of professional market regulated business interventions especially in the United Nations forum as we have the strongest department in the medical health field.
I don't see anyone arresting the hillbillys in Alabama that violate the federal consent law with thir state laws. How about you spend the money to go down there and find everyone married to a 16 year old and arrest them instead?
And while you're in Deliverance country seize the moonshine!
Hate to be a bearer of bad tidings, but this Will Be a Political Issue, in 2016, period. If something like this ends up bringing IN Trillions of Dollars of Taxes in a few short yrs, then it will end up political . I really don't blame Obama, and his administration, for not wanting to fool around with this issue. Why ? because : 1) He has much bigger fish to fry. 2 ) Since "some" states have already legalized it, it's going to much more difficult to "enforce it" on a federal level. It's like comparing this to other things. If something is Illegal in all 50 states, then the Feds can come in, and prosecute, if need be. For instance, if Liquor was only allowed in only a few states, people will be running to those states to buy as much of it, as they can, and it's taxed. But since Liquor is Allowed in All 50 States, then it's taxed in all 50 states. So, since the Feds are going to start "turning their heads the other way" when they see this, ( so to speak) it will probably still be outlawed for a while, but the "enforcement" won't be high on the "important list" – compared to other crimes, ie: murder robberies / & etc .
There is no way the federal government will ever have enough money to effectively prosecute marijuana users. They have always depended on state police enforcing those laws and if the state doesnt support it its not happening, no matter who is president.
Pharmaceutical companies are the second largest lobbiests AGAINST the legalization of pot. I think we all know why that is. Pot would take the place of many of the drugs on the market today with far less side effects. It's time to stop giving the money to the big pharmaceutical companies and the black market drug dealers. Give it to the agricultural farming industry and let the states receive the tax money for it. Allow it to create the jobs that it would create.
There happens to be this little thing called the fiscal cliff and I believe that might be more important then worrying about who is lighting up and whether or not the feds should go after them. As for the issue its self, well there is a Mexiacan Billionaire, who prays the government doesn't change a thing. As for the rest the estimated value of pot transactions in the states is billions of dollars, heck it might even help the fiscal cliff issues.
It's very easy to point out the insanity in drug laws when they equate marijuana and mushrooms with heroin. It makes these so called "experts" look like ignorant fools. It's like equating Near Beer with Everclear.
crackin up at some comments..........weed looks crappy, no red or black hair thru it, shake, no buds in it, no seeds
--–somebody knows what they are talking about lol-–seeds are not suppose to be in MEDICAL weed or so I've been told 🙂
Very simple, the Feds do not want to give up the power to enforce a ridiculous law. Any one with common sense would say let the states figure out what they want to do. Then the states who reap the benefit of common sense will convince the others that pot laws are antiquated, expensive and based on ignorance. The only people who benefit from pot being illegal are the criminals and the grand-standing politicians, spending YOUR money to make themselves look good.
Oh Timothy....poor Timothy...left behind by science, common sense and logic. Don't worry though, you can always try reading a history book, scientific article, or medical report to reconcile your world view with the above mentioned criteria as your guide as opposed to blatant ignorance. Namaskar


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Pascagoula, Mississippi (CNN) - Mitt Romney swept into Mississippi Thursday to make his case in a state where he doesn't expect to win.
The former Massachusetts governor, who has struggled to woo voters in the South and faces a string of upcoming contests below the Mason-Dixon line, appealed to a group of about 120 Mississippians by feeling their pain.
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Romney rattled off three stories of people he had met at campaign events - a father worried about health care costs for his special needs child, another man who wondered how he would pay for his daughter's education and a soldier back from Afghanistan who struggled to find work.
"A lot of people hurting right now," he summed it up, and blamed President Obama for not following through on his campaign promises of economic turnaround from 2008.
"Since this president has been president, the cost of gas has doubled," Romney said. "Not exactly what he might have hoped for, and he says 'well it's not my fault.' By the way, we've gone from 'yes we can' to 'it's not my fault.'"
The re-jiggered lines in Romney's speech come a day after a campaign aide acknowledged the candidate was "working to establish a stronger connection with lower-income voters, with voters who are struggling."
In Ohio's primary, which Romney narrowly won, exit polls showed him trailing rival Rick Santorum among voters who made less than $50,000 a year.
The swath of Southern states that will vote in the upcoming days – Kansas, Mississippi and Alabama – have been hard hit by the economy. In Mississippi, where Romney makes another appearance Friday, the unemployment rate is over 10%.
Faced with an uphill climb in the South, Romney asserted in an interview with radio station WAPI that he hoped to walk away with some delegates in states such as Alabama, where he is not favored to win.
"That's of course what this is all about, getting the delegates necessary to become the nominee," he said, echoing his campaign's relentless focus on a numbers game they say Romney's opponents have no chance of winning.
In Mississippi, Romney did try out some Southern charm, telling his audience he was "an unofficial Southerner."
"I am learning to say y'all and I like grits, and things," he joked. "Strange things are happening to me."
But the ultimate compliment came from Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who endorsed Romney in Pascagoula.
"He just has a warm, comfortable way about him," Bryant told reporters. "I like to see a man when he's holding a baby. And he looks like he's held a baby before."
Also see:
Obama and Romney ahead in ad fight
First on CNN: Santorum super PAC hits Alabama and Mississippi airwaves
Obama releases movie trailer a week before campaign film's debut
@Rudy, actually a good portion of our dog's diet is chicken gizzards/hearts, and ground beef 80%lean. He gets excited and he runs/spins in a circle. He has become more vocal as he has gotten older. He might be trying to talk, who knows.
I think that means take me for a walk, "Now, please."
I'll bet his first words will be, "Thank-you for listening to Rudy NYC."
I'm a Hillary Clinton Democrat who did not vote for obama in 2008.. voted Independent .. this time around I will again not vote for obama.. this Democrat will cross party lines and vote for the more qualified candidate (again) , Mitt Romney.
ROTFLMAO! Funniest post of the day. Still can't accept the fact that the black guy beat Hillary, lol! Just because you're a business man who is able to hide money in the Cayman Islands and who's state was 47th in job creation, does not qualify you to be POTUS! Obama's gonna mop the floor with the "I'll say anything to get elected" Romney!
mitt always sounds like a wind up toy. Is he afraid we won't listen if slows down and sounds like an adult? as for grits he had one of his campaign flunkes run out and buy some so he would know what he was talking about. What a phoney!
Mitt Romney comes to Mississippi and makes the statement: "I like grits!" Don't this man get it? Grits were a bi-product of a straving to death society where that was all there was to eat. For him to make this statement is another ethnocetristic, out-of-touch, screw up on his part. Even if he was eating breakfast here and probably tasting them for the first time, it makes him simply a liar or weird. Nobody likes the taste of those things the first time they try them. It's an aquired cultural taste! The joke: Only Newt and Ron Paul could get away with this statement. Vote for Snoopy in 2012!
Woman In California wrote:
Rudy NYC said,
"He always has an nervous, almost agitated undercurrent of near panic in his demeanor when he is on the stump. You know what I mean?"
Rudy, I have been saying this for months but not quite in such an elequoent manner
Why, thank you.
But, if you were holding your breathe the entire time, then you would move and act the same way.
Truth and Nothing But the Truth
FLIndependent – Okay, all you Romney supporters that say because you think he's been a successful businessman that he would a great president – why do you want someone that may have business skills, but certainly does NOT have diplomatic skills to be our president and the Leader of the Free World?
Obama had ZERO skills and experience yet you had no problem with that. What's the issue all of sudden?
Romney couldn't do any worse than Obama has done. I have come to understand why he always wants to lead from behind. It is much easier for him to push our allies under the bus from that position.
So you would vote for a man that has five sons who avoided military service . What do you call leading from behind , Mitt Romney ?
Ace - Has there ever been a phonier person than Romney?
yes, Obama! Thanks for asking.
I can see it now, Romney Grits!
Seriously, though. Here's what probably motivated Mitt Romney to remark about the grits. In the upper midwest, they do eat grits. It is not just a southern thing. But, they like to put milk and sugar in their grits as if it were farina.
To put cheese in the grits, and eat "things" [probably eggs and some pork product] together with the grits is strange. An even stranger way to serve grits to most midwesterners is "grits and gravy". Psst, roasted garlic grits and some of that leftover Thanksgiving gravy with generous turkey chunks in it is the bomb. Don't forget the scrambled eggs.
@Rudy NYC, actually you are right. Most of the time his spinning/circling means he wants to go for a walk or give me one of my toys, or get out the flashlight so I can chase the light (depends on the location in the house he is spinning). When he just needs to go out, he stands by the back door and looks at you like, "do I look like I have a thumb to open the door myself?"
I like my grits simple, butter, sugar and a little milk.
Truth asked:
Obama had ZERO skills and experience yet you had no problem with that. What's the issue all of sudden?
Barack Obama didn't come to the table pretending nor claiming that he had decades of experience. That's the difference.
Your trees are just the right NASCAR grits! Where am I now? bzzztfst malfunction! malfunction!
Nothing like mocking those you want to vote for you,by perpetuating a stereotype in their face.
Ya'll ? Be it true or false a stereotype, I'm glad to know he thinks everyone there talks that way. Why not tell them you're fixin' ta learn tah play the banjo and spit tabbaca ?
In coveralls instead of jeans while you're at it !
Taran wrote:
I like my grits simple, butter, sugar and a little milk.
That's called baby food, my friend. Nothing wrong with it, though. But, it's still baby food.
Mitt Romney understans my pain, some how I doubt that.
A Democrat is a Democrat, and if you didn't vote for the President because he beat Hillary, you weren't a real Democrat in the first place. Had Hilary beat President Obama, I would have still voted Democrat, even though I don't think I will ever want a female as President. And yes, I am a female myself. Sorry ladies I don't want a premenstrual President.
It was a joke but he's a Republican so I guess according to liberals and CNN he isn't allowed to do so. Lol I find it funny that this is trending?
@Rudy, might be why I don't eat grits very often, usually when I'm sick.
Austin wrote:
It was a joke but he's a Republican so I guess according to liberals and CNN he isn't allowed to do so. Lol I find it funny that this is trending?
Try reading the remarks. A whole lot of them are jokes about grits.
Obama had ZERO skills and experience yet you had no problem with that. What's the issue all of sudden?
Romney couldn't do any worse than Obama has done. I have come to understand why he always wants to lead from behind. It is much easier for him to push our allies under the bus from that position.
So you would vote for a man that has five sons who avoided military service . What do you call leading from behind , Mitt Romney ?
March 9, 2012 03:11 pm at 3:11 pm |
So if Mitt was in we can add an additional 1million+ to the 750k in jobs we were shedding PER MONTH in Jan 09' when Obama took over for W. No ? We alreadyb know what he would have done to GM.
Despite fighting the GOP tooth and nail on the deficit, the DOw has manage to reached the high 12k,breaking 13k very briefly.
Gas is high,due to tensions with Iran...yet people like you are READY to jump in the mess with Israel and tank gas prices even higher. For the record, gas broke the $4 mark under W. Still haven't seen that with Obama.
Not only are you ready to jump into a fight with Israel over Iran , you all SCREAM for the president top bring the troops home. And in the same sentence bust the guys &^%$ for not sending them into a potential Nuclear conflict with Iran ?
While we're talking about that,what do you think is going to happen to our economy and gas prices in event of an war there ? How much do you think it will cost and where are we going to get the moey to back an ally in an all out war over there ?
Please Thomas, from your point of view as someone who supports the GOP, where will we get the money ? Knowing that you are in favor of reducing the defict and gas prices, why do you think the President should blindly back an ally and go right BACK to war ? Same thing with North Korea ?
I thought conservatives were all about cleaning up the deficit ?
It would be great to hear what you think of that Thomas.
The same snarking, patronizing "I don't care about the poor" "I'm unemployed too, my friend" self serving narcissist he's always been but now he wants your vote so he can one-up his father, a far better man.
to Mitt, the only good grit is one that's republican.
"Romney couldn't do any worse than Obama has done. "
Two words: First strike


text:
Thoroughbred horse
Thoroughbred horse, breed of light horse more properly known as the English running horse. As its name implies, it was the first pedigreed, or
thoroughbredhorse. It originated in England from crosses between imported Turkish and Arabian horses and existing English lines and has since been exported around the world. As the fastest of all horses—it can achieve a speed of just under 40 mi (64 km) per hr for a distance of a mile (1.6 km)—the Thoroughbred has held undisputed reign as king of horse racing (except for the quarter-mile sprint; see quarter horse). Its temperament is racy and nervous. Thoroughbreds average over 16 hands (64 in./160 cm) in height, weigh around 1,100 lb (500 kg), and have a leggy appearance. They may be any color but usually have white markings.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Agriculture: Animals


text:
A Gem of a Place
Home to Gemfest, the Sapphire Gemfields covers almost 900 square kilometres of one of the world's most significant sapphire-bearing grounds and takes in the delightful townships of Anakie, Sapphire, Rubyvale and The Willows.
Located in Central Queensland, the Gemfields are only four hours west of Rockhampton on the Capricorn Highway. People from all over the world descend on the Gemfields each year to experience fossicking firsthand and try their luck in finding the ultimate gem discovery.
If it's treasure that you're seeking or the opportunity to experience a real-life fossicking town, the Sapphire Gemfields has it all with its array of gemshops, galleries, jewellers, underground mines and digging areas.
There are many ways to explore the Sapphire Gemfields. Why not take a guided tour of a walk-in underground mine or take a four-wheel-drive scenic or digging tour. There are also self-drive fossicking tours with all the necessary equipment. Fossicking parks are also great fun, where miners supply sapphire 'wash' for a fee and teach you to recognise and find sapphires. It's enjoyable and educational, and you can even take bags of sapphire wash home to extend your holiday.
Gemshops, galleries, jewellers and locally-created cottage industries are abundant in the area; there's no better place to purchase an Australian-mined and cut sapphire or quality jewellery. Gem-cutters are also available to facet your very own find and jewellers to set them into a valuable family heirloom to be treasured forever.
The area is also rich in history, character and charm, and driving around it's easy to imagine how commercial mining drove the town from the late 1890s. Once a burgeoning market right up until the early 1980s, a downturn in Australian sapphires brought about an active tourist industry in the area. Indeed, some of the world's most famous sapphires have been found in The Willows Gemfields.
Today, along with the underground sapphire mines, hand-mining and fossicking tourist parks, the area also has a number of interesting buildings and attractions which have readily become popular with tourists. Rubyvale and Sapphire feature many billy boulder and bush timber dwellings (just like the original pioneers), as well as a roman castle, a bottle house, bush humpies and shacks.
Today, the lifestyle of the Sapphire Gemfields is very laid back and peaceful, where visitors are always made to feel welcome.


text:
Alternate Mission
Eric Fischer uncovers a rather startling set of mid-60s plans for the what the Mission could (probably not) have been. We're talking massive infrastructure, along the lines of Embarcadero Center, running the length of Mission from 15th to Army/Cesar Chavez. (click images for originals on Flickr)
Mission and 24th:
Note the walkways across Army/CC…
…to massive, circular parking lots.
I somehow doubt Valencia would have maintained its bicycle friendly charm.
Mission and 16th:
Hey, a kite!
Hooray, tacos!
But a piñata tent? WTF are the chairs for? To watch people break piñatas? People pay for that? I'm confused. (I'd totally dig a Lucha libra tent though.)
Some context is in order. This was the "Miracle Mile" — the Mission used to be one of the primary shopping districts in the city (there was a Sears at Mission and Army, after all — that was probably what the second walkway over Army St was for).
Pictures of shoppers on the Mile in the 40s and 50s: (from SFPL, but their image site seems to be down at the moment so I can't link to the metadata, sorry)
I am sure theses 50s/60s era planners were hoping to stem the flight to the suburbs as the city depopulated around them.
(Anyone know how to constrain the date range for Wolfram Alpha charts?)
This is of course a completely different approach of construction destruction than the post-WWII SF freeway plans that we've discussed before — imagine a huge Geary-like trench through the Mission, and a highway on the west slope of Bernal, along Coleridge.
Detailed map below of the Mission Freeway from 30th to 14th (south is up). basically, all the odd-numbered streets except 21st would have been cut off, and the even-numbered streets would have been bridges (think Fillmore over Geary).
I need a drink.
Happier bonus material of a slightly modified past via Eric: a great 1966 picture of 24th and Mission (looking north):
Here's a bunch of 1950 Sanborn maps jammed together to give you an idea of what the pre-BART 24th and Mission was like. (Click to zoom).
The NE and SW corners of the intersection are obviously gone. The McDonalds took out the SE corner, but the building next to it (Last's Paints) is still there (now Western Dental / Mr. Pollo), as is the Dance Mission Theater building on the NW corner.
Here's the 1950 Sanborn overlaid on Google Earth:
Note the stores in the diagonal slot where the railway used to be. Next time you have a sausage and beer at Rosamunde, remember that you are sitting right on the railway tracks.
Speaking of which, a 1926 shot of the guard arms for the active railway crossing (looking north up Mission, just before 24th) :
The rails in the foreground are the tracks for the old 14 and 24 streetcars (via SFPL)
And a 1945 shot of an apartment fire on 24th between (1) Valencia and (2) Mission (where that big church is now) from a WWII bomber that happened to be flying over the Mission:
Zooming back to the 1950s and 60s version of the corner, we can get an idea of the vibrancy of the mile:
(Sorry for the lack of bars. Older Sanborn maps clearly mark bars/saloons as "Sal." but it's weird there are NO bars here. I'm guessing Sanborn never updated the maps to show saloons like they did before the 1920s. Still, a lot happening on the corner…)
Anyway, some great details in the photo:
Theater marquees a few blocks down the street: Grand. Crown. New Mission. Tower. Also the Leeds / Sketchers sign. No trees at all.
Tired of your typical, depressing 1960s bar? Sobered by highway and infrastructure planning? Come get a drink at "Smile Awhile Cocktails!"
Hey, that sign sure is a funny shape. Jigjag, jigjag. Just north of 24th. Where have I seen that before?
El Farolito, continuing the tradition of old school Mission signs.
And this concludes today's lesson in Mission bar and infrastructure history.
gregory permalinkSeptember 10, 2010 2:50 pm
you, sir, are a raging genius. thank you.
September 10, 2010 3:04 pm
Thanks for all the additional map and photo research! What a strange and unwelcoming place the future of the past was.
Colin Barrett permalinkSeptember 10, 2010 4:09 pm
Great post, man.
September 10, 2010 4:32 pm
Oh man, that is amazing. There but for the Grace of God, etc. Scary to think that the Mission could have gone the way of the Fillmore/Embarcadero.
Chris Carlsson permalinkSeptember 10, 2010 11:56 pm
It's worth noting too, that those plans would have had a much greater chance of occurring had not it not been for the intense and steady organizing in the community, including especially the Mission Tenants Union and eventually the Mission Coalition Organization. It led to Model Cities Money pouring in and a whole community planning process that more or less stopped Redevelopment in the Mission… but it's happening now more stealthily!
anyway, thanks as always to Eric and El Doctor de la Lengua… awesome!
September 13, 2010 1:18 pm
The more I read, the more I also want to credit Allan Jacobs and the Planning Department from the era when he was Director with saving San Francisco. It was his department that totally rewrote the car- and demolition-oriented World War II-era Master Plan into the form that more or less still stands today. They were also apparently responsible for stopping the Redevelopment Agency from bulldozing several neighborhoods by stepping in preemptively with resident-driven housing rehabilitation programs to get the neighborhoods back into shape before the Redevelopment Agency had a chance to declare that the areas were substandard and had to be demolished.
San Jose/Guerrero permalinkSeptember 12, 2010 12:58 pm
Thank goodness we didn't get pedestrian bridges over Chavez!
Mike Miller was one of the organizers of the Mission Coalition. He still lives in (what is now) Noe and wrote a book about the Model Cities/Mission Coalition era:
deleted permalinkSeptember 23, 2010 11:22 am
Rosamunde is *on* the railroad tracks. (Google Maps has its business labels wrong).
TommyWillB permalinkApril 30, 2011 8:58 am
Well, I have to say… I love the Embarcadero center. I really like the idea that cars and pedestrians are separated on different elevation levels.
As for 24th Street BART… That corner really could use some work, and adding taller mixed-use buildings could work.
SPMackin permalinkAugust 20, 2011 2:06 pm
I especially love the photo showing the New Mission, the Crown and the Grand. Spent way too many weekend hours inside those theaters. Walked down Mission the other day for the first imte in many years. The change between then and now was staggering. I'm still reeling..
24th & Mission on a Thursday Afternoon
The street was filled with the busy heat
And salty tang of the life in the Barrio
Everywhere there was the quick exchange
Of cash for goods transacted under tables
And gaudy carts strung along the sidewalk
Before rows of empty storefronts and lots
Where I once spent my Saturday afternoons
There was chili in the air, the odor of cilantro
And lemon on the corner of 24th St. station
A man sitting on the stairs by BART is selling
Giant avocados from twin Safeway bags
He halves them adroitly with a Buck knife then
Put pitted halves in paper bowls, fills the pits
With red salsa, serves with spoon and napkin
SPMackin, August 2011
May 21, 2012 8:57 pm
And here is more about the train line that used to cross Mission near 24th, from a piece I wrote for the SPUR magazine: http://www.spur.org/blog/2010-06-30/urban_field_notes_six_spots_mission_track_traces_trains
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