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2014 Audi A4 2.0 TDI Ultra review
It's hard to keep up with Audi's rapidly expanding Ultra range. We've been impressed by the A7 and A6, and now we've tested the latest car to get this technology – the Audi A4 – which emits 109g/...
This version of the Audi A4 won't be around for much longer, but Audi is keen to keep its popular executive model as up-to-date as possible with the latest technology, including its efficient 'Ultra' diesel engines.
We've already tested the estate (Avant) A4 Ultra, which is heavier than the four-door saloon, but still manages an impressive 64.2mpg and pumps out 114g/km - closing up the gap to its nearest rivals when it comes to performance and running costs.
As a saloon, the A4 Ultra returns a claimed 67.3mpg and emits 109g/km of CO2, putting it on a par with the BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics (109g/km), and only slightly behind the new Mercedes C220 Bluetec (103g/km).
It's only available with a six-speed manual gearbox, but you can choose between SE and SE Technik trim. Can a new engine really breath new life into one of the oldest models in Audi's line-up?
What is the 2014 Audi A4 2.0 TDI Ultra like to drive?
Let's start with the good news. The revised 161bhp diesel engine revs freely and without sounding harsh when you accelerate hard. There's more torque then before, which helps the Ultra feel a tad more responsive, while maximum power arrives a lot earlier than it used to (at 3000rpm).
This improved flexibility means you can punt along in town at low revs, without feeling like you need to change down into a low gear. Once the engine picks up, there's a progressive surge of power, and more than enough oomph for fast overtakes.
The A4 Ultra is impressively quiet whether you're driving at low speeds or cruising on the motorway, to the point where you're more aware of the rush of wind noise instead of any engine thrum. True, there's whine from the turbo when you put your foot down hard, but it's less noticeable than in the old 2.0-litre TDIe.
A light clutch and precise gearshift make the A4 Avant easy to drive – even in stop-start traffic. However, the new engine can only do so much, and there are still some niggling issues. There's often a noticeable vibration through the pedals and gearknob, for example, particularly at idle, but also when accelerating.
The handling is also pretty unremarkable. While the steering is accurate, the front-wheel-drive A4 feels heavy, and the front wheels always want to wash wide through tight turns in the road. There's also an inconsistency to the steering assistance when you're turning into corners. The A4 never feels unstable, but it's never particularly engaging, either.
Ride comfort is another bugbear. Despite the Ultra having not particularly low-profile tyres (it comes with 17-inch alloys as standard), it has lowered suspension to reduce drag and improve fuel economy, and isn't that effective at dealing with cracks and potholes in town, while expansion joints thump their way into the cabin at motorway speeds.
**What is the 2014 Audi A4 2.0 TDI Ultra like inside?**
Nothing has changed inside, so you still get a mostly classy, well finished interior, with fairly high-quality materials and a reasonably clear, easy to use layout. However, the shortcut buttons around the MMI control dial are made from hard, shiny plastic and look out of place.
A more serious problem is the off-set pedals, which will be an issue for all drivers, because the A4 Ultra is available only as a manual. This makes finding a comfortable driving position trickier than you'd expect.
Newer rivals such as the Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series are both a little more high-tech inside, and the BMW in particular has a slicker, easier-to-use infotainment system. The A4's MMI unit is decent enough, but the shortcut buttons aren't as straightforward and the graphics aren't as sharp.
There's enough space inside to seat four adults comfortably – five is a squeeze – with decent head- and legroom for those in the front and the back. The boot is a good size, with a square load floor and a low lip that makes loading heavier items a breeze.
SE trim comes with climate control, auto lights and wipers, a DAB radio, rear parking sensors and a 6.5-inch colour display. If you fork out an extra £1,000 for the SE Technik model then you also get leather upholstery, sat-nav, all-round parking sensors and an iPod connector.
**Should I buy one?**
The Ultra definitely is the new pick of the A4 range, thanks to improved refinement and lower running costs that make it more competitive than before.
At £27,675, it's about £1000 cheaper than the sharper driving BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics, and around £1700 cheaper than the cleaner Mercedes C220 Bluetec.
However, it now feels a fair bit less plush inside than both these rivals, despite its smoother, quieter engine. The practical Avant has more going for it, but this saloon now feels distinctly average.
**What Car? says... **
A4 2.0 TDI Ultra
Engine size
2.0 diesel 4 cyl
Price from
295lb ft
8.3 seconds
Top speed
Fuel economy
Best family SUVs 2023
Want practicality, class and an elevated driving position in a relatively compact package? Then these are the top 10 cars you should be looking at – and the ones that are best avoided
Used Audi A4 long-term test
The Audi A4 is suave and sophisticated, not to mention a former What Car? Car of the Year, but how well will a nearly new example handle long-term use? We're finding out


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Queen Elizabeth II and her close family celebrated Christmas with a morning service at St. Mary Magdalene Church near her rural retreat at Sandringham in eastern England.
It was a festive event Wednesday as the queen was joined for the first time by Prince George, 6, and Princess Charlotte, 4, the two eldest children of Prince William and his wife, Kate. They left 1-year-old Prince Louis at home.
George and Charlotte walked to church hand in hand with their parents. Prince Charles, their grandfather, walked next to them.
The queen arrived in a Bentley with Charles' wife, Camilla. Her elderly husband, Prince Philip, stayed at home. He was discharged from a hospital Tuesday after treatment for an undisclosed ailment. Philip, 98, has retired from public duties.
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This year marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day and in today's Queen's Christmas Broadcast Her Majesty reflects on the commemorations. "For the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of that decisive battle, in a true spirit of reconciliation, those who had formerly been sworn enemies came together in friendly commemorations either side of the Channel, putting past differences behind them. "By being willing to put past differences behind us and move forward together, we honour the freedom and democracy once won for us at so great a cost." . Speaking about the life of Jesus and importance of reconciliation The Queen said: "…How small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding… The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference." . Watch The Queen's Christmas broadcast in full in our IGTV video. #HappyChristmas
Prince Andrew, who has stepped down from royal duties because of his association with a convicted sex offender, attended an earlier church service with his brother Charles at his side.
Prince Harry, his wife, Meghan, and their 7-month-old son, Archie, did not attend. They are spending the holiday in Canada with Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland.
The royals were greeted by several hundred well-wishers who had gathered outside the church grounds.
The queen's traditional pre-recorded Christmas message will be broadcast throughout Britain and the Commonwealth nations Wednesday afternoon. Excerpts released ahead of time reveal that the queen plans to acknowledge it has been a challenging year.
Talking about the need for reconciliation and forgiveness, Elizabeth says: "The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference."
She is thought to be referring both to Britain's laborious exit from the European Union, which is now almost certainly going to happen on Jan. 31 after voters gave the pro-Brexit Conservative Party a comfortable majority in Parliament, and to the royal family's difficulties.
The problems this year included Andrew's retreat from public duties following a disastrous TV interview in which he defended his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and failed to show empathy for Epstein's young female victims.
The family has also endured what many close observers think is a rift between William and Harry. Both Harry and Meghan have complained about constant scrutiny by the media as they settle into family life with Archie.
READ MORE: How much do you know about Christmas?
READ MORE: Gerry Christmas, Okanagan!
——— Katz reported from London.

subset: commoncrawl


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Oct. 13, 2010 -- The euphoric "high" that accompanies the passion-filled, early days of romantic love is a common pop music theme, but is it just a metaphor or is love really like a drug?
When researchers examined the question, they found that intense feelings of romantic love affect the brain in the same way drugs like cocaine or powerful pain relievers do.
"The reason people are so attracted to cocaine is that it activates the area of the brain that makes you feel good," researcher Arthur Aron, PhD, tells WebMD. "The same reward area is activated when people are experiencing the intense desire of romantic love."
Intense Love = Less Pain
Aron, who is a professor of psychology at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, has been researching the impact of love on the brain for three decades.
Several years ago he and longtime pain researcher Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, began talking at a neuroscience conference and conceived the idea for the study.
Mackey is chief of the division of pain management and an associate professor of anesthesia at Stanford University Medical Center in California.
"He was talking about the neural systems involved with love and I was talking about the neural systems involved with pain, and we realized there was a lot of overlap," Mackey says.
They recruited couples in the first few months of romantic relationships for the study by posting notices around Stanford University. The researchers specifically focused on the euphoric, obsessive phase of early love rather than more mature romantic relationships.
"Our subjects fit into this category of recklessly, widely, passionately in love, and it was the easiest recruiting we ever did," Mackey tells WebMD. "The fliers asked 'Are you in love?' and within hours we had a dozen couples beating on our doors."
The hypothesis was that love affected the brain in the same way many addictive drugs do, by targeting the "feel good" chemical in the brain known as dopamine. This reward system has also been shown to be critical in pain management.
Targeted Pain Treatments
The study included eight female and seven male students who were asked to bring photographs of their loved one to the lab along with photos of an equally attractive friend of the same sex as their romantic interest.
MRI scans recorded what was happening in their brains as they viewed the pictures while holding in their hands a computer-controlled thermal device that got increasingly hotter as the experiment progressed.
Throughout the experiment, the participants were asked to record the pain they felt from the device on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing "no pain" and 10 representing "the worst pain imaginable."
Because distraction has been shown to affect pain, one phase of the experiment involved distracting the participants by asking them questions that had nothing to do with the study.
The brain imaging showed that both love and distraction reduced pain, but in different ways.
When distracted, the brain pathway affecting the sensation of pain was mostly centered in the higher, cortical part of the brain, while the impact of love was on the brain's dopamine-related reward center.
The study appears online today in the publication PLoS One.
Aron and Mackey agree the findings show the potential for more targeted approaches to pain relief that may or may not involve drugs.
Mackey says the way we manage pain today will be considered the Dark Ages by future generations.
"Right now we use antidepressants, antiseizure drugs, and cardiac arrhythmia drugs to treat pain in patients who don't have seizures or arrhythmias and may not even be depressed," he says. "The hope is that in the future we will develop targeted treatments that specifically address the abnormal neural systems involved in pain."


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Searchers Detects Signal That Could Be From Missing Flight's Black Box
Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 discovered a pulse signal with a frequency used by black box locator beacons while searching in the South Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian passenger jet on Saturday, reports Xinhua.
There is no confirmation that the signal belongs to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board. If it does, however, it will be a critical step toward finding the plane.
The pulse signal with a 37.5 kHz per second frequency was detected 1,600 kilometers (994 miles) northwest of Perth, Australia, at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. (See approximate location on the map above from Voice of America's Steve Herman).
Attempts to find the signal have escalated with the battery on the locator beacon expected to run out soon. On Saturday, there were at least 11 ships, 10 military planes, three civilian aircraft, as well as underwater robots searching across 84,000 square miles.
Authorities still have no explanation for why the plane flew off course on March 8 or what happened to it. Malaysia Airlines representatives told families on March 24 that they "assume beyond a reasonable doubt ... that none of those on board survived."
See Also:
- This Teacher's Alarming Resignation Letter Shows How Much Schools Have Changed Since You Were A Kid
- 14 Interview Questions You Should Never Answer
- Here Are The Countries Where Young People Are Happiest
- Honey Maid Found The Perfect Way To Respond To Homophobes Who Hated Its New Ad
- George W. Bush Has New Paintings Of 24 World Leaders, Including This Haunting One Of Vladimir Putin
SEE ALSO: Malaysia thinks the plane was sabotaged


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Tesla Motors dealing as states play factory poker
LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's the corporate equivalent of high-stakes poker.
Tesla Motors has five states bidding to attract a $5 billion factory that will make batteries for a new generation of electric cars. The winner is expected to offer publicly financed incentives exceeding a half-billion dollars.
And the package could be far more, because the states don't know what their competitors are offering.
So far, Tesla has done initial work on a potential site in Nevada. But the company will prepare at least one other before making a final decision by year's end.
That leaves California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico wondering what they can do to be a finalist.
So far, the states have passed tax breaks, promised worker-training funds or proposed shelving environmental regulations that could slow the factory's construction.


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Facts about Sarah Polk
Sarah Childress Polk Biography
Sarah Childress Polk was married to United States president James K. Polk and served as First Lady from 1845 to 1849. From a prosperous Tennessee family, she was educated in Nashville, Tennessee and Salem, North Carolina. She married Polk in 1824 and became his lifelong political partner, working as his personal secretary and adviser while he served as a member of Tennessee's legislature (1823-25), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1825-39) and the governor of Tennessee (1939-41). The Polks moved into the White House in 1845, and First Lady Sarah, a devout Presbyterian, toned down White House parties by restricting dancing, gambling and alcohol. She also continued to help her husband with political matters, handling his correspondence and directing his attention to matters she deemed important. After the White House they returned to their estate in Nashville, but James died a few months later. Sarah spent the next four decades in Nashville wearing widow's black. Until 1860 she concerned herself with running the family plantation in Mississippi, and during the Civil War she and her Nashville home were neutral territory. Although the Polks had no children, in 1852 Sarah took on the duties of raising her niece, Sally Jetton.
Related Biography
Something in Common with Sarah Childress Polk
A Good Link
- Biography from the Daughters of the American Revolution


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I'm delighted to have guest blogger, Cadence Blue, on my blog today. Cadence and I connected when I was first venturing into the world of social media. I found her be delightful, friendly, and artistically-gifted. She loves writing, video production and grahic design work. And, hey, we share a love of cats. Need I say more? 😀
Given how passionate Cadence is about writing and the creative arts, I asked if she'd be willing to write a post for my blog. She came up with a wonderful topic that's going to have you redesigning a haven for your creative pursuits. Please welcome Cadence!
Creative Space: Creating a Workspace that Inspires
by Cadence Blue
Are you a writer, a reader, a vidder, a graphic artist? Regardless of what moves you artistically, you need a workspace that is comfortable as well as functional—a place that coaxes the seeds of inspiration to grow and bloom into the full flower of your creativity.
Your workstation—your creative space—is your sanctuary. If you haven't thought about making your workspace a place that will inspire you to do grand things then now is the perfect time!
Your office workstation is designed to be efficient, your dining room, inviting, and your bedroom, relaxing. It makes sense that the place where you go to write about (or read about) another time, place or world should be appointed accordingly.
The first thing I do is to keep my space clean. Dust is not my friend. Clutter is the next thing I erase. I can't organize my thoughts if I look around and see that my things are disorganized.
Now that my space is clean and ordered I focus on my surroundings. I like to appeal to all five of my senses.
Color: Some artistic people are at their most creative when they feel energized. Others need to be relaxed before their creative juices flow. Whichever category you're in, choose a color palette that puts you in the mood. This can be anything from painting the walls to hanging pictures and posters, or, art with motivational or inspirational quotes. Your sight is a dominant sense. Appeal to it with beautiful things.
Scent: A particular scent can take us back in time and stir memories. Don't ignore your sense of smell at your workstation. I love the smell of brewing coffee on a cold winter's day, or citrus in the summer. A few candles can make your space inviting. Last year I discovered flameless candles. They smell amazing and you can choose a wax warmer that matches your decorating style. If you like heavier, richer smells, incense is a great option.
Sound: Don't neglect what you hear. Keep music on hand that speaks to your emotions. Epic film scores can help you write your epic adventure novel. Remember that movie that made you cry? Sad music is great for writing those emotionally charged scenes.
If I am writing I listen to movie scores and New Age music because lyrics distract me. If I am making a video or working on graphic design I like music with energy, like pop and rock.
Another incredibly relaxing sound is water. My fountain is trickling near me as I write this. You can get them in the garden department of stores in the spring, or online all year round.
Taste: Nothing puts me in a creative mood like a piping hot cup of green tea or a cup of flavorful coffee. Whatever you like, keep it within easy reach. You don't want to have to make a trip to the fridge when you're in "The Zone".
Touch: For me this usually means a cat on my desk to pet. Seriously, make sure you have a comfortable place to sit. Plush throw pillows on your sofa cuddle your body while you're working at your laptop or reading. If you're working at your desktop PC, invest in a good executive chair. Sitting in a chair that makes your back and hips ache is not conducive to being creative.
I hope these suggestions will help you design the best creative space for whatever you are creating, or simply enjoying.
I am curious: how do you set up your creative space? Please share your tips on designing the perfect place where the seeds of your inspiration grow and flourish.
I would like to thank Mae for hosting my ramblings today!
BIO: Cadence Blue has been entertaining family and friends with her writing for many years. Circumstances beyond her control caused her to step back from the art form for a time and she is just now making a tentative comeback as an aspiring indie author. When not writing she enjoys doing graphic design and video editing.
Cadence is married and is both mother and play companion to her four black cats, who demand much of her time and energy.
Connect with Cadence at the following haunts:
Cadence Blue's Fan Videos
Email Cadence: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Leapster Explorer: Testing Kernels via USB Boot
The Leapster Explorer includes a USB recovery function, designed to be used in conjunction with LFConnect to recover the Leapster Explorer to a known-working state. We can leverage this USB recovery function to transfer kernels we want to test to the Leapster Explorer without having to do a destructive write of the new kernel to the LX nand (which can be dangerous). The result is an ability to test kernels on Leapster Explorer using USB booting, just like we test kernels using UART or SD kernel booting on the Didj.
Kernel Configuration
Modify lines 999-1008 of linux2.6/drivers/mtd/nand/lf1000.c as follows to enable mounting of the onboard partitions:
//if (gpio_get_boot_source_config() == SCRATCH_BOOT_SOURCE_USB) //{ // base_parts = partition_info_recovery; // base_parts_nb = ARRAY_SIZE(partition_info_recovery); //} //else //{ base_parts = partition_info; base_parts_nb = ARRAY_SIZE(partition_info); //}
You can then build your kernel as you normally would.
The bootloader expects the kernel to be in the Common Boot Format (cbf) LeapFrog included a script in their sources. To create the 'cbf' in the scripts directory, type:
$ make_cbf.py
You now have a kernel ready for USB Booting.


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domino theory
domino theory, the notion that if one country becomes Communist, other nations in the region will probably follow, like dominoes falling in a line. The analogy, first applied (1954) to Southeast Asia by President Dwight Eisenhower, was adopted in the 1960s by supporters of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. The theory was revived in the 1980s to characterize the threat perceived from leftist unrest in Central America.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Political Science: Terms and Concepts


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SE Wyo. Seeing Smoky Air From Colo. Wildfire
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Department of Health reminds residents that smoke from wildfires can cause health concerns.
Some areas of southeastern Wyoming area are seeing smoky air because of a fire burning northwest of Fort Collins, Colo.
Dr. Tracy Murphy is epidemiologist at the Wyoming Department of Health. He says smoke can hurt people's eyes, aggravate respiratory problems and worsen the symptoms of heart of lung disease.
Murphy says people should use common sense when the air in their locality is smoky and avoid heavy outdoor exercise.


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Does the renewing of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba augur an flourishing of independent media and Internet access on the island? Brian Stelter asks New York Times editorial board member Ernesto Londoño, recently back from a trip to Havana, and OnCuba editor in chief Hugo Cancio.
"People desperately want the Internet and it seems clear to me that the state has used Internet access to control information fairly tightly," Londoño said.
He said the Cuban government has recently signaled that it wants to expand access.
"And if they keep their word, I think that could have a transformational effect," he said. "I think the more information that flows freely, the more Cubans will start debating and challenging the system. And I think that would have a very healthy impact."
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Meru says four new applications will help its Service Assurance appliance line provide high availability and quality to its Virtual Cell Wi-Fi networks.
Meru Networks' wants to build innovative products that empower the all-wireless enterprise. "We're seeing more customers wanting to use iPhones and BlackBerrys indoors, where 3G signal isn't strong enough," said Ram Appalaraju, senior vice president of marketing. "Our traffic-optimized single-channel architecture provides a foundation to deliver these kinds of services."
But, for mission-critical WLANs, a strong foundation is not enough. Enterprises need predictable, secure, manageable WLANs that are no harder to operate than Ethernet. Meru's Service Assurance (SA) platform aims to do so by supporting a suite of management applications, like last summer's E(z)RF Location and Network Managers. This week, Meru announced four new SA applications:
- Meru E(z)RF Spectrum Manager ($1,995)
- Meru Wireless IPS (from $5,995 for 50 APs)
- Meru PCI Compliance Manager (from $5,995 for 50 APs)
- Meru Wired/Wireless Network Management
These new offerings are designed to run on Meru's service assurance appliances, delivering the proactive measurement and service-level automation tools that operators need to efficiently ensure availability and quality.
Read "Meru Expands WLAN Service Assurance Portfolio" at Wi-Fi Planet


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Several hundred companies, governments, and civil society and non-governmental organizations have committed to zero deforestation initiatives. However, all may not have fully realized the enormousness and complexity of the challenge in committing to zero deforestation, and it appears that some did not know exactly what they stepped into. What is clear though, is that this endeavour is very much at the initial stage of development, and early work and experimentation is showing the way to putting in place what is needed.
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Established in 1991, the European Tropical Forest Research Network (ETFRN) aims to ensure that European research contributes to conservation and sustainable use of forest and tree resources in tropical and subtropical countries. ETFRN promotes a dialogue between researchers, policy-makers and forest users, the increased coherence of European tropical forest research, and increased collaboration with researchers in developing countries.
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Okay, so the title wasn't my best pun ever, but I think you get the point: Being away from the one you love often makes your heart, and other parts, throb with longing.
It's this catch 22, because sometimes I'm soooo ready for a break from Rex by the time one of his business trips arrive. "Wooo hooo - time to spread out and paint! Have the girls over! Write into the wee hours of the morning!" But the moment his plane leaves the tarmac I start to miss him.
This conundrum can only mean that, despite our occasional tiffs, Rex and I are sure to grow old together, hemming and hawing along the way.
More From Good Housekeeping
I can see us fifty years from now:
Rex: Pass the cookies, will ya?
Andrea: You've already eaten three.
Rex: If you didn't want me to eat them, you shouldn't have bought them.
Andrea: If I buy a head of lettuce will you scarf the whole thing in one sitting also?
Rex: I would if you'd wash it and didn't leave a fly squashed inside the core.
Andrea: I did that once. One time. A little extra protein never hurt anyone.
Rex: If I wanted protein I'd have cooked a steak.
Andrea: If I wanted to hear less complaining, I'd have married a chef.
Rex: Me, too. I'm sure she'd not only bake me cookies on a daily basis, but she'd pass them to me also.
Cut to lobbying cookies at his bald spot and laughing so hard she chokes on her dentures and croaks. Oh, well. Rex can serve the cookies at the funeral - one less thing for him to cook until he gets his new chef wife.
Yeah, life at 80 will be fun. Heck, we talk like this to each other right now. The only difference? Rex will have wrinkles to match his curmudgeon personality. And to be honest, he'll probably be just as beautiful. (Damn him - the older he gets, the more beautiful he gets.)
The post reminds me of my TV partner who took a job writing video games in Canada while his wife stayed in L.A.. The photo above was taken during her brief visit to him last Christmas. (I can only assume they spent a lot of it indoors making up for lost time.)
They looked pretty happy when I saw them during his short sojourn home. Was it the reunion or their impending dinner date sans children?
I can only imagine that raising kids without the hubby, no matter how much he can drive you nuts, is hard. Like Herb and Heidi, I have such admiration for military wives or anybody who puts distance between them to put food on the table. The key, I suppose, is not letting your heart fill with space while their gone, but instead with longing for when they return.
What about you? Are you a "distance makes the heart grow fonder" kind of person?


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Travel & Nightlife
Made Over, Still Magical
December 11 2013 8:42 AM EST
February 05 2015 9:27 PM EST
Marrakech is a city ruled by two contrary kings. There is, of course, the king of Morocco, your standard royal strongman. And then there is the willowy French king of fashion, Yves Saint Laurent, who may ultimately be the stronger man, at least in terms of his lasting local impact. That's because the late designer, a part-time resident who left his Majorelle Garden to the city when he died in 2008, really helped define its hybrid style: part soulful Berber grandeur, part Gallic chic. Thankfully, that legacy, seen in his villa and collections, keeps evolving. In fact, one-upping even Yves, the latest wave of largely Euro expats have bought the Medina's finest riads, turned those courtyard townhouses into boutique bolt-holes, and helped inspire a heady rediscovery of Moroccan craftsmanship paired with slightly unhinged boho savvy. Here, a guide to modern Marrakech's quirky best.
The Riad
Every other week, some designer artfully revamps another Medina riad, but few match the effortless elan of Riad Dixneuf (Dixneuf-La-Ksour.com). Avoiding the cliched Arabian nightmare of Day-Glo tiles and dangling lanterns, this intimate property on the edge of the Medina, designed by local Studio KO, edits things down to wooly tribal rugs, stucco fireplaces, and freestanding tubs. Even better, its daybed-lined rooftop overlooks the souk, so you can hear the city's somber music at dusk, when the mosques send out their call to prayers.
The Palace Resort
When the Medina starts to feel claustrophobic, retreat to the classic La Mamounia (Mamounia.com), recently renovated by Jacques Garcia into a sensual, plum-colored desert haven. Or try Palais Namaskar (PalaisNamaskar.com), a Malibu-goes-Moorish sprawl of pools, fountains, gold domes, and contempo-Cali guest villas.
The Tajine
Hotel La Maison Arabe (LaMaisonArabe.com) owners Jose Abete and Fabrizio Ruspoli (an Italo-French aristo whose relativeswere intimates of Marcel Proust and Jane Bowles) are the kind of culturally wired couple who can steer you to the best underground boutique or art party in town. But the signature lamb and orange tajine dished up poolside in their handsome hotel's Les Trois Saveurs dining room should prove party enough.
The Hangout
Homosexuality is illegal in Morocco, so you won't find any openly gay bars or clubs. But Terrasse des Epices's (TerrassedesEpices.com) rooftop still collects the Medina's most photogenic, polyglot insiders, all tucked into stone cabanas with wicker chandeliers, sipping fruity drinks and contemplating their Moroccan salads.
The Dat Trip
Boutique Souk (BoutiqueSouk.com) will organize just about any Moroccan expedition (transfers, guides, and meals included), from the Atlas Mountains to haunting ports like Essaouira.
The Landmarks
YSL's greatest memento is his Jardin Majorelle (JardinMajorelle.com), a 12-acre garden with cobalt- blue planters, a cafe, and one of the town's best gift shops. And for a vision of Moroccan craftsmanship at its most exuberant, visit Ben Youssef Madrasa (MuseeDeMarrakech.ma), a 15th-century Koranic school; its zellij mosaic tilework is a master class in color-blocking.
The Show
The Medina's central marketplace, the Djemaa el-Fna, is a catwalk of snake charmers, food vendors, and butch dancing drag queens in rose caftans and really tiny slippers.


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Gulf of Mexico oil spill fuels controversy over BP-funded energy research at UC Berkeley
BERKELEY, Calif. – BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fueling opposition to the University of California, Berkeley's research partnership with the British company, with activists and professors on the famously liberal campus calling for a severing of ties.
The oil giant gave UC Berkeley a $500 million grant in 2007 to create the Energy Biosciences Institute, which works to develop new sources of plant-based fuel. The 10-year deal, believed to be the largest-ever corporate sponsorship of university research, has outraged many students and professors who worry the global oil company will exert too much influence over academic research and damage the university's reputation.
Now, as the spill devastates the Gulf Coast, some local activists and faculty members say it's time to end the partnership.
"Our bottom line is the public good, and their bottom line is profit," said Ignacio Chapela, a UC Berkeley professor of environmental science. "There comes a point where those positions are irreconcilable, and I think that point is now."
On Friday, a group of activists staged an anti-BP demonstration next to the construction site where the university is building a new facility to house the research institute. They poured chocolate syrup on the sidewalk — to represent the oil spill — and held signs the read "Berkeley Petroleum" and "Do you want BP Pollution in Berkeley?"
"Now that we can see what BP is responsible for in the Gulf, we demand that the contract between UC and BP be re-looked at," activist Stephanie Tang said, speaking to onlookers through a megaphone.
But UC Berkeley officials say the institute has nothing to do with the Gulf spill, and the university has no plans to end its research partnership with BP.
"The horrible events in the Gulf should only strengthen our commitment to find alternatives to fossil fuels," said Graham Fleming, UC Berkeley's vice chancellor of research. "Why would anyone's interest be served by stopping this research?"
BP officials also say the company remains committed to funding the Berkeley-based research institute, as well as its other alternative energy research programs.
"The spill hasn't changed our commitment to investing in biofuels and wind and solar development," said BP spokesman Tom Mueller.
The BP-Berkeley partnership has stirred debate about corporate funding of academic research at a time when UC is grappling with deep cuts in state funding that have led to faculty furloughs, course cutbacks and steep tuition hikes.
Critics say corporate money steers university resources toward certain types of research, and widens the financial disparity between faculty members in science and engineering and those in the humanities and social sciences.
"It creates an apartheid within the university between the haves and have-nots," said Miguel Altieri, a UC Berkeley entomology professor who is concerned about the environmental impact of biofuels. He recently wrote a newspaper article urging UC Berkeley officials to terminate the research partnership.
UC Berkeley receives research grants from other corporations, mostly in the technology sector, but none are as big as the BP grant.
Partnering with private industry helps university researchers get their ideas and discoveries out of the laboratory and into the real world, said UC's Fleming.
The Energy Biosciences Institute funds nearly 70 projects involving about 350 researchers at UC Berkeley and its two partner institutions — Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The academic researchers determine what research to pursue, their participation is completely voluntary and their home institutions own the patents on their discoveries, university officials said.
"The corporate influence is really minimal when you look at how it's managed from day to day," said Susan Jenkins, the institute's assistant director. "We accepted a grant to work on bioenergy and that's what we're doing."
Online: http://www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org/


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This may not be the world's longest post but it may be the most important one I've written in a while.
I had a list of things I wanted to talk about but I put them all aside for the day.
Every now and then I do a little reflecting. There was a time I doubt I could even spell that word but now I find myself doing it all the time.
Call it older and wiser or maybe my brain is getting weird. On the other hand maybe I still have some of the hospital drugs floating inside me. But I'm going with weird.
Weird is the new cool, by the way.
I wanted to take a moment and talk about my blog, or better yet, the people I've met because of it.
My goal when I started this thing was to entertain and have fun. I'm pretty sure all of us have the same goals. Some of you are teachers and when it comes to the craft of writing you are the best. Others are entertainers doing your best to make us smile and make our day a little brighter.
For that we thank you.
I am a sociable person, just ask my buddy Jo. By the way, Jo loves a shout out but she never comments. Don't let her shyness fool you.
When I started my blog I figured my topics would be the most important thing. After all if I couldn't write anything good nobody would read it.
Somewhere along the way I made an interesting discovery: I was wrong.
As I mentioned I am a social person. Place me in a crowded room and chances are I'll find my way in the middle of it. I guess it's the Irish in me. We tend to be a little loud.
But the joy of this blog is you. Sure, I need to write the good stuff and do my best to create interesting topics but I have discovered the true good stuff is talking to my fellow bloggers.
A good laugh, a serious talk, you name it. The true joy is the unexpected and pleasant surprise of the friends I have made.
In a way it reminds me of an old fashion neighborhood where I walk out to collect my morning paper. Humor me. Let's pretend it's 1986.
I wave at K.M. Allan as she desperately searches for her morning paper. She can never find it, by the way. I want to help but it's so much fun watching the search.
Speaking of K.M. she always drops by during taco night. Weird.
As my rambling slows to an end I would like to add one final thought:
We all need a reason to write our blogs and for me the reason is you. It's an awesome way to meet people from all over the world and because of that we have created the world's coolest neighborhood.
Many of us dream of that special neighborhood to call home and this is pretty close to that dream.
Thanks everyone!!!!!


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Police: 4 accused of killing USC student
Xinran Ji found dead Thursday
Four teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder in the killing of a Chinese student who attended the University of Southern California, Los Angeles police said Monday.
Jonathan DelCarmen, 19, and Andrew Garcia, 18, along with a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, were being held for investigation of murder with special circumstances and other charges, police spokesman Andy Smith said.
A 14-year-old girl was also arrested on suspicion of a separate robbery, Smith said. He said police believe she had some connection to the killing and were investigating the extent of her involvement. Police did not know whether the suspects had attorneys, and contact information for family or associates could not be found.
Xinran Ji, 24, was found dead at about 7 a.m. Thursday in his off-campus apartment. The graduate engineering student was walking home at 12:45 a.m. from a study group when he was attacked and robbed, Smith said. The victim managed to walk back to his apartment and left a trail of blood from where he was attacked.
Smith said investigators believe the suspects went to Dockweiler Beach and committed another robbery before DelCarmen and Garcia were arrested. He said they could not disclose how the suspects were connected to the student's death because the investigation was still ongoing.
In 2012, two Chinese graduate students were shot during a robbery near campus. One of two men charged with those killings has pleaded guilty to murder.


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2 Cabinet Officials Say U.S. Likely Won't Arm Libyans
WASHINGTON — President Obama's top two national security officials signaled on Thursday that the United States was unlikely to arm the Libyan rebels, raising the possibility that the French alone among the Western allies would provide weapons and training for the poorly organized forces fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's government.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made his views known for the first time on Thursday in a marathon day of testimony to members of Congress. He said the United States should stick to offering communications, surveillance and other support, but suggested that the administration had no problem with other countries sending weapons to help the rebels, who in recent days have been retreating under attack from pro-Qaddafi forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who pushed the president to intervene in Libya, was described by an administration official on Thursday as supremely cautious about arming the rebels "because of the unknowns" about who they were and whether they might have links to Al Qaeda.
Earlier Thursday, the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told reporters in Stockholm that he believed that the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the air campaign in Libya did not even permit individual countries to arm the rebels. But there was considerable disagreement within the military alliance, including from the United States, which has taken the position that the resolution does in fact allow arming them.
In Libya, as the opposition forces began a cautious regrouping after a panicked retreat on Wednesday, an atmosphere of paranoia descended on the capital, Tripoli, after the defection of the foreign minister, Moussa Koussa.
Fears that the government could be cracking were deepened further when a second top Libyan official, Ali Abdussalam el-Treki, defected Thursday to Egypt.
In Washington, the unified position of Mr. Gates and Mrs. Clinton appeared to dull a debate within the administration about the merits of the United States' supplying weapons to the rebels, a disparate, little-known group. Publicly, Mr. Obama has said only that he is still weighing what to do. France is the only nation that has said it intends to supply arms to the anti-Qaddafi forces.
"What the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some command and control, and some organization," Mr. Gates told members of the House Armed Services Committee in a morning session. "It's pretty much a pickup ballgame at this point."
But, he said, providing training and weapons is "not a unique capability for the United States, and as far as I'm concerned, somebody else can do that."
Mr. Gates told Congress that he strongly opposed putting any United States forces in Libya. Asked if there would be American "boots on the ground" — uniformed members of the military — Mr. Gates swiftly replied, "Not as long as I'm in this job." He refused to address reports that the Central Intelligence Agency had sent clandestine operatives to Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the rebels.
Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were summoned to testify in a highly politicized atmosphere on Capitol Hill, where members of both parties charged them with either "mission creep" in Libya or with not doing enough.
Many demanded to know how the conflict would end, and others admonished the administration, saying it had gone to war without seeking Congressional authorization.
Still others said the president had not told the public the truth about the operation. The White House describes it as a humanitarian mission to protect Libyan civilians, but it has involved more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at Libya and the bombing and strafing by American and allied planes of Colonel Qaddafi's ground forces.
"These are combat operations," said Representative Mike Coffman, Republican of Colorado, during the morning session. "I don't know why this administration has not been honest with the American people that this is about regime change."
He concluded, "This is just the most muddled definition of an operation probably in U.S. military history."
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, was first on the offensive in the afternoon, charging the administration with walking away from the conflict now that the United States has said it will be in a military support role behind NATO.
What that means, Admiral Mullen told Mr. McCain and the rest of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is that the United States will no longer conduct airstrikes in Libya unless requested by NATO.
"This would be a profound mistake with potentially disastrous consequences," Mr. McCain said. He said that withdrawing the muscle of the American military was out of alignment with Mr. Obama's policy goal of ousting Colonel Qaddafi.
"Hope is not a strategy," Mr. McCain said, "and it certainly does not degrade armored units."
Mr. Gates, stony-faced throughout the day, found himself in the awkward position of having to defend a military action that he had been reluctant to get into in the first place.
The defense secretary had been the most skeptical of the president's top advisers about imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, and said repeatedly that it would require the kind of missile and airstrikes that began raining down on Libya on the night of March 12.
Members of Congress repeatedly asked how the president would avoid a stalemate, particularly as the rebels had backtracked in the previous 48 hours.
Admiral Mullen placed some blame for the retreat on two days of heavy clouds and blowing sand and dirt, which had prompted allied pilots to hold fire — making it apparent that Qaddafi forces had taken advantage of the lull in airstrikes to push the rebels into retreat.
Military officials later said that while American and allied aircraft could fight in all weather and at night, pilots were using extra caution before deciding to fire at targets on the ground, for fear of inflicting civilian casualties when fighters from both sides mingled with the population.
"As I know you know, we've been very badly impeded in the last few days by weather," Admiral Mullen told Mr. McCain.
Democrats told Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen that they had been left in the dark by the White House, even though they acknowledged that Mr. Obama had made his decision on military action less than 48 hours before the attack began.
"Even before the White House knows exactly what it's going to do, there is some benefit to bringing leadership in Congress into the discussion in terms of building support here," said Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House panel.
At the same time, Representative Howard P. McKeon, Republican of California and the chairman of the House committee, said history had shown that the Libyan government could be resilient in the face of allied air power.
"If Qaddafi does not face an imminent military defeat or refuses to abdicate," Mr. McKeon said, "it seems that NATO could be expected to support decadelong no-fly zone enforcement like the one over Iraq in the 1990s."
Mr. Gates said that he expected American involvement to be limited and that the conflict would probably end with Colonel Qaddafi's removal from power, either by economic and political pressures or by his own people.
But under questioning from Mr. McKeon, Mr. Gates said he did not have a time frame for Colonel Qaddafi's ouster. "The bottom line is, no one can predict for you how long it will take for that to happen," he said.
Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the Armed Services chairman, pressed Mr. Gates to weigh the pros and cons of arming the rebels.
Mr. Gates expressed caution, saying that the United States knew very little about the rebel leaders, whom he described as "disparate, disaggregated," nor how they would act if they toppled the Qaddafi government and came to power.
"I think that one of the concerns that we have to have is that we don't know very much about the opposition," Mr. Gates said.
He noted that a substantial supply of small-caliber arms already was available to the opposition, and that rebels needed training to become a more effective force. "I believe that requires advisers on the ground, as would more sophisticated weapons," he said.


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He won the presidency by capturing slightly over half of the Catholic vote. He probably can't count on that in the next election.
Back when he went to Notre Dame to deliver the commencement address, George Weigel made the prescient point that Obama walked into the Catholic divide and declared which side was authentic.
What was surprising, and ought to be disturbing to anyone who cares about religious freedom in these United States, was the president's decision to insert himself into the ongoing Catholic debate over the boundaries of Catholic identity and the applicability of settled Catholic conviction in the public square. Obama did this by suggesting, not altogether subtly, who the real Catholics in America are.
He's trying that again now, same methods perhaps expecting the same results. So he must have been surprised recently when it backfired in his mangling of the HHS mandate "accommodation" pathetically put forward in a press conference from the White House as a compromise to the US Bishops and Catholics and religious groups acting in solidarity to protect religious liberty.
The administration "shifted" on nothing. It simply decreed that insurers, not employers, must provide "preventive services" (including sterilization and abortifacient drugs), a shell game that has been variously and accurately described as a "fraud" (Andrew McCarthy, in the Corner) and an "absurdity" (the Wall Street Journal). More to the point, as Yuval Levin pointed out shortly after President Obama and HHS Secretary Sebelius announced their "accommodation," the newly tweaked regulations "would not actually change the moral circumstances at issue in any way."
So, Weigel says, Obama continues trying to divide and conquer Catholics, and in doing so, he's misreading them.
Everyone understands, for example, that Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for the Church in the United States in a singular way, especially when he speaks for a united bishops' conference on matters of first principles.
Everyone, that is, but the Obama White House.
In his appearance on Fox News Sunday on February 12, White House chief of staff Jack Lew discussed with host Chris Wallace what the administration was determined to sell as an "accommodation" to Catholic concerns, an "accommodation" that tweaked an HHS mandate requiring that all health insurance provide no-co-pay abortifacients, sterilizations, and contraceptives. Lew tried, unsuccessfully, to shore up the administration's pretense that something in the moral calculus of the original mandate had changed with the administration's "accommodation" — which, of course, it hadn't. What was truly striking about the administration spin, however, was Lew's suggestion that the Catholic Health Association (whose president, Sister Carol Keehan, had quickly and publicly applauded the administration's "accommodation") trumped the bishops' conference when it came to who-speaks-for-the-Catholic-Church-in-America.
It's not going over well, except for Sr. Keehan and another high profile Catholic or two. That escaped no one's notice paying close attention to this unprecedented challenge to people of faith.
[Obama's] brief statement was meant to get a hot story off the media front burners (a qualified success) and to telegraph to progressives that he wanted them back in the fold.
To that end, the White House seemed to have conferred not with the concerned Bishops but with members of the "Catholic Left" whose criticism of his original plans had had a weighty effect on others, and whose progressive credentials made their alliance vital to retain; he effectively went to Sr. Carol Keehan, President of the Catholic Health Association, and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, and sought imprimaturs that were not theirs to give, on what the press has taken to call (in apparent ignorance of the word's meaning) his "compromise."
Even before the president spoke, Keehan's approving statement was released through the White Houses own press portals, with Dionne's endorsement swiftly following. The one-two punch of Keehan and Dionne was meant to knock out the Bishops before they'd had a chance to find their mouth guards or rise from their corners, and also to signal that it was safe for the "Catholic Left" to regroup behind Obama.
It has not gone precisely as planned. If the matter has successfully been driven from the front pages–and why wouldn't it be, since the press had initially tried to ignore the story–no one has yet been knocked down by members of the "Catholic Left" racing back into Obama's corner. Stunned by Obama's initial plans (which, by the way, were codified last Friday, in their original form, even as Obama was speaking) the "progressives" are paused and perhaps skittish.
Focus for a moment on that reference to the HHS mandate plans which "were codified last Friday, in their original form, even as Obama was speaking," because there's been very little media attention on that. On my radio show the following Monday, American Center for Law & Justice senior legal counsel Ed White said he hadn't seen media coverage of the fact that just hours after Obama's Friday press conference declaring an 'accommodation' to the concerns of religious leaders, the HHS mandate was officially released in its original and unchanged form.
Whether the "Catholic Left" can "hope" for more from Obama is questionable, as the White House Chief of Staff said over the weekend that the administration was finished with the issue.
This unwillingness of staunch Obama supporters to quickly embrace his latest idea and perform a full-pivot from the bishops has become for me the most interesting part of the story. As a rule, I think any of these men would be all-too-happy to leave the Bishop's corners for Obama's on this particular issue, but–in good conscience–they simply cannot. His stated mandate was so shocking to ideas of justice and constitutionality that whether the president is dealing in good faith has now become an unknowable—why did Obama feel a need to ensnare the churches in an issue that could have been attended to in other ways?
This is forcing an open examination of policies and goals.
If, upon gauging the dismay of his allies within the church, Obama had truly meant to assuage the consciences of his Catholic allies, he could have done so easily and clearly; instead his words suggested to some that even the narrow conscience clause offered in his first decision was at risk, and his solution looks like a shell game, analogous, as blogger Marc Barnes put it, to trying to force Orthodox Jewish restaurants to sell bacon, but then "accommodating" them by forcing them to "pay a Gentile with a bacon cart to serve pork" for them.
For that matter, if Obama had been genuinely interested in pleasing believers in general and Catholics in particular, he would have conferred with the bishops, and gotten their thoughts on the nuances between direct and indirect co-operation with evil, rather than going around them.
But Obama's move on Friday wasn't about nuance; it was about destroying the surprising unity of the "Catholic Right" and the "Catholic Left" on this issue; it was about dividing and conquering.
What the HHS Mandate has revealed is that the preservation of the freedom of religion–of the churches rights to be who and what they are and to exercise their missions–is worth going to the mat for, no matter which corner you're coming from.
The USCCB has tried again and again to make that clear.
And as Yuval Levin warns, the White House sees religious freedom as a dangerous thing. Follow this through…
As [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney or his boss might say: Let's be clear. As things stand today, employers don't have to provide insurance coverage to their employees, though many choose to do so, and if they do so they can provide whatever kind of insurance they choose (within the constraints of existing state laws and mandates)—based on their or their employees' preferences and needs. Obamacare will require them to provide insurance or else pay a large fine to the federal government. And under the new HHS rule, it will also require that insurance (in the case of religious and non-religious employers alike) to include coverage for contraceptive and abortive drugs and sterilization. Senator Blunt's [conscience protection] bill would allow employers to avoid being put in the impossible position of having to choose between providing access to services or products that violate their moral or religious convictions or paying a large fine.
Many of the bill's supporters (though not all) would no doubt like to repeal Obamacare altogether—since the very nature of that statute means that situations like this are unavoidable. But at this point, in response to the HHS rule's particular offense against our constitutional order, they have proposed a narrower measure that rolls back only a small portion of the law's offenses against our basic liberties and merely restores the conscience protections that existed before Obamacare. And even that modest measure, simply allowing employers to have some measure of control over the services they will now be compelled to purchase for their employees, is asserted by the administration to be dangerous and wrong. The idea that "any employer could restrict access to any service they say they object to" is not some crime against humanity. It's called freedom.
The White House's reaction is yet further proof that the debate surrounding the HHS rule is about much more than religious liberty—and indeed is about much more than the HHS rule. It is about liberty as such, and the threats posed to it by Obamacare as a whole. It powerfully reinforces the case for replacing this detestable law, and for replacing its authors, with alternatives far more friendly to freedom and a properly limited government—not to mention far better able to actually address the problems with our health-care system.
As Carney says: "Decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her doctor, not a woman and her boss." Quite right. And we might add: not by a woman and her federal bureaucracy either. The desire to have those decisions be made by a woman and her doctor does not point to Obamacare. It points to a reform of our health-care system that would give individuals more options and more control, and would use robust competition among insurers and providers—rather than yet another layer of oppressive regulations—to reduce the cost and improve the quality of American health care. It points to freedom, which means it points to the need to elect a new president.


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The competition is underway at the Mulberry Town Pokémon Contest, where Harley has teamed up with Team Rocket to plot May's downfall. While May is getting ready for her first opponent, Team Rocket lures her friends into a sealed transport container and sends them up, up and away with a Meowth balloon! But they didn't count on Drew being there to save the day. He frees Ash and the others, only for all them to then fall into one of Team Rocket's old-fashioned pit traps. While James and Meowth gloat, our heroes realize Team Rocket is working with Harley, and they have to get back to the Contest to help May.
Up on stage, May and her Squirtle are preparing to face Jessie, who's disguised as Jessebella and using Harley's Cacturne. Below the stage, Harley and Team Rocket are preparing some more tricks when our heroes catch up to them. Harley points out that there's no rule against using someone else's Pokémon in a Contest, but his plans are foiled for now.
Meanwhile, Jessie's initial delight wears off when even Banette can't easily win her the match. Banette gets annoyed by Jessie's complaints, and it looks like the odds are back in May's favor. But as time runs out, the two Coordinators are matched in points, and it goes into overtime! Jessebella is eager to win, but she's snapping at Banette and without a good understanding between Coordinator and Pokémon, it's only a matter of time before May wins and the ribbon is hers. Harley gives up on Team Rocket in disgust. May meets Drew and the two are looking forward to a match-up at the Indigo Plateau. As for Ash, he's looking forward to the Battle Pyramid!


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Red Sox miss playoff clinch in 5-3 loss to O's
BOSTON (AP) — Chris Davis has rewritten the Baltimore Orioles record book with 51 homers, and he leads the majors with 92 extra-base hits.
Sometimes a single is good enough.
The Orioles slugger drove in the game-winning runs with his 12th-inning single to beat Boston 5-3 on Wednesday night and help Baltimore avoid elimination in the AL East. Matt Wieters had a pair of RBI doubles for Baltimore, which moved one game behind Texas in the race for the AL's second wild-card spot when the Rangers lost 4-3 in 12 innings to the Tampa Bay Rays.
"Any time you're in a game like that you want to be the guy to get the hit — whether it's a squibber up the middle or a home run or whatever it is," Davis said. "You can feel the intensity of both teams trying to get a run. I'll take it whatever way I can get it."
The Red Sox magic number to clinch the AL East remained at three. But Boston moved one game closer to guaranteeing itself at least a wild-card berth when the Kansas City Royals beat Cleveland 7-2.
"We know where the playoffs are. We know how far away we are. We're not stupid," catcher David Ross said moments after the clubhouse TV showed the Tampa Bay Rays beating Texas. "So we feel pretty good about our chances."
T.J. McFarland (2-1) worked the 11th for the win and Jim Johnson got the final three outs for his AL-leading 47th save.
"We ended up with a 'W' at the end of a long challenging night," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "I'm so proud of everybody. You can see why Boston's had a great year."
The Orioles played their 114th errorless game, surpassing the 2008 Houston Astros for the majors' most since 1900.
J.J. Hardy and Brian Roberts had consecutive one-out singles and both advanced on a wild pitch by Franklin Morales (2-2). After pinch-hitter Steve Pearce was intentionally walked, Manny Machado fouled out before Davis' grounded one up the middle into center field.
Boston had runners on first and second with one out in the 11th, but Stephen Drew grounded into a double play.
David Ortiz hit his 28th home run — a two-run shot — and Mike Napoli added a solo homer for the Red Sox.
Baltimore had pulled in front 3-2 in the sixth on Wieters' RBI double, but Napoli hit his solo homer into the center field bleachers leading off the bottom of the inning against Wei-Yin Chen.
Boston jumped ahead 2-0 in the first on Ortiz's long homer into the seats about 15 rows back in right field. Victorino singled before Ortiz hit the first pitch, holding his bat and admiring his drive for a while before rounding the bases.
Boston starter Jake Peavy went seven innings, allowing three runs, six hits, striking out eight and walking one.
Chen gave up three runs on 11 hits, striking out five without a walking a batter in 5 2-3 innings.
Boston closer Koji Uehara pitched a perfect 10th one night after having his club-record streak of retiring 37 consecutive batters snapped and taking the loss.
Baltimore tied it with two runs in the fifth. Danny Valencia had the Orioles' first hit — a leadoff single — and scored on Wieters' double into the center field triangle just over the glove of Victorino's running bid. Roberts' RBI doubled tied it.
Mixing a well-spotted fastball with a slider and change up, Peavy struck out seven and opened the game with four hitless innings. He walked Roberts on for the first base runner with two outs in the third.
The Red Sox had the bases loaded with no outs in the third, but Napoli lined to short and Jonny Gomes bounced into a double play.
NOTES: Boston CF Jacoby Ellsbury, sidelined for his 11th straight game after breaking a small bone in his right foot, said he's still planning to be back by the end of the regular season. "I'm making great progress. The doctors are pleased with how things are going," he said. "I'm taking it day by day." ... Showalter said he'll know Thursday whether Miguel Gonzalez (sore right groin) or Bud Norris (sore right elbow) will be able to start Saturday. "Miguel feels pretty good today. That's pretty encouraging," Showalter said. "I was surprised. He might be a choice for Saturday. He's going to throw (Thursday). I'm going to make a decision (Thursday) whether it's Miggy, Bud or somebody else." ... Boston manager John Farrell said "I can see us going with 11 pitchers," when asked his plan for a probable Divisional playoff series.


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Flood surges prompt new evacuations
OBRENOVAC, Serbia — Serbia ordered the evacuation Monday of this town and 11 others along the raging Sava River, but Bratislava Pavlovic won't budge, even as water rising six feet in an hour lapped outside her third-floor apartment. "I grew up in this town," the 58-year-old postal worker said.
The worst rainfall in more than a century has flooded large swathes of Bosnia and Serbia, threatening Serbia's main power plant and unleashing landslides that have swept away homes and unearthed land mines left over from the region's war, along with warning signs pinpointing their locations.
At least 35 people have died and tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes.
Churning floodwaters inundated the town of 15,000 some 20 miles south of the capital, Belgrade, when the Sava overflowed its banks.
"It happened in one hour," said Pavlovic, whose two sons and their families fled.
Another surge of floodwaters on Monday prompted the evacuation order for a dozen communities, including Obrenovac, where soldiers, police and volunteers worked to protect the coal-fired Nikola Tesla power plant, which supplies electricity for half of Serbia and most of Belgrade. Some of the high sandbag walls were destroyed when a powerful 9-foot-high surge of floodwater burst through them Monday.
Hundreds of people were evacuated by helicopters and buses, joining 7,800 residents already forced from their homes since Friday. Hundreds more were believed trapped in the higher floors of buildings, without power or phone lines.
The death toll is expected to rise as floodwaters recede after the worst rainfall since records began to be kept 120 years ago.
In Bosnia, Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija called the flood damage "immense" and even compared it to the carnage during the country's 1992-95 war that killed at least 100,000 people and left millions homeless. He said the flooding had destroyed about 100,000 houses and 230 schools and hospitals and left a million people without drinking water.
"The only difference from the war is that less people have died," he said. "The country is devastated. ... This is something that no war in the history of this country" ever accomplished.
In Orasje, a Bosnian border town, frantic efforts were being made to prevent the Sava from rushing through broken barriers. Ideas included dropping old trucks from helicopters or covering gaps with wire frames and then reinforcing with sandbags.
The emergency commander in the town, Fahrudin Solak, said the decaying corpses of drowned farm animals littered the area. "We are sending out mobile incinerators and we have asked for international assistance, to send us more incinerators," he said.
The floods have triggered more than 2,000 landslides in Bosnia. Aside from sweeping away homes and barns, the walls of mud and earth have carried some of the estimated 100,000 land mines left over from the region's war, along with their warning signs, to entirely new, often unknown, locations.
"Landslides and land mines devastated very fertile land," Lagumdzija said.


text:
Edward Gordon Craig
Base, New York, New York, 2009
Actor, director and writer Edward Gordon Craig published texts, designed sets and wardrobes, and made revolutionary changes to the field of set design. An exhibition at La Casa Encendida in 2009 presented his legacy through drawings and sketches, stage conceptualizations, pictures, radio interviews and magazines. To properly represent Gordon Craig's vast universe, we designed a book that presents all of these various facets and relationships with people like Isadora Duncan, Oscar Wilde and Stanislavski. We used two opposite typographies—Akzidenz-Grotesk and Newzald—to differentiate Edward Gordon Craig's essays from contemporary texts, and gave each type of content its own layout.
Juror Notes
Chockfull of odd, inspired juxtapositions: gold color, broken asymmetrically by a die-cut revealing a fluorescent green underneath; a strong grid that constantly surprises the viewer. All the choices are as refined as they are unexpected.
- Design firm
- Base
- Client
- La Casa Encendida


text:
This just floors me:
… Of Rivals.com's top 20 prospects in the '05 class, five bypassed their senior seasons and were selected last month in the NFL draft. Two of the five, Oregon running back Jonathan Stewart and Miami safety Kenny Phillips, were first-round selections.
Yet 11 of the 20 have been arrested. [Emphasis added.]
By the way, it's not all little stuff, either. One sample:
4. DE Melvin Alaeze Randallstown, Md. Maryland
After failing to meet academic requirements to play for the Terrapins, Alaeze was arrested in February 2006 on five marijuana-related offenses. He wound up with Ron Zook at Illinois later that year but was quickly suspended for missing classes and left for what he cited as personal reasons. He was arrested that December in Randallstown for his involvement in a robbery and shooting and was sentenced this past November to eight years in prison.
Meyer and Fulmer sound the alarm bells.
… Speaking to Florida boosters recently in Miami, Meyer said the NCAA is pulling coaches away from the recruiting process and making it more difficult to judge character.
"I'm not allowed to go out anymore," Meyer said. "I'm not allowed to text-message. I'm trying to find out as best I can. You just keep re-evaluating.
"If you just look around and see some of the things that are going on, it's amazing. It's concerning. It's alarming."
Fulmer agreed, admitting he doesn't know as much about today's prospects.
"I think it's the whole environment that's been created," he said. "You don't know as much about them, and it's hard sometimes to find out information about them because people aren't completely honest with you about them. That's a concern.
"There are issues with some young people trying to go so fast in their athletic career because they're not looking as much for an education as they are the NFL, so they're going to school for the wrong reasons, and that in itself is very, very dangerous."
I think blaming a text message ban for causing evaluation problems is beyond silly, but it's obvious that coaches are having a hard time judging character, or, perhaps more accurately, their ability to manage character.
Is that because the system doesn't build in sufficient accountability for recruiting players like these? Will the APR have any effect? Hard to say, although it's fairly certain that winning big cures lots of faults.
UPDATE: More thoughts on this from Tyrone Willingham:
COACH WILLINGHAM: I would say, also, that the statement that Mark made about the information and the source of the information is critical because there are very few communities that you go into that someone wants to be known as the person that denied Johnny a scholarship. There are not going to be many of those in most of the communities you go into. So even for the assistant coach to get the information is very difficult.
Hopefully that's where the experience of the staff comes in, when the coach says he's all right, you understand that there's something in that statement, he's all right. And that's very difficult.
So the gaining of the information I think is probably the most difficult thing in the process, which allows you to gauge and really understand the character. I think we can assess the academic information; I think that's pretty straightforward. But the character issues I think you have to reach deeper. And if you were to have a young man that at a youthful age did have a problem, anything on him is probably sealed, so how do you get that information? Even with a service working for you, it's very difficult to get to the heart of what all the problems were.


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Hunt for new WCU chancellor in the homestretch
It's not a bad job, really. There's a nice house, more than 7,000-square-feet, that's currently undergoing a nearly $300,000 facelift. You don't have to pay for utilities, grounds keeping or for a housekeeper. Then there's the salary, ranging from $236,979 to $379,180. Oh, and free use of a car.
So perhaps it's not that surprising a whole lot of people apparently want to become Western Carolina University's next chancellor. Longtime leader John Bardo exits the scene in fewer than four months. He'll leave July 1 after more than 15 years on the job.
Steve Warren, WCU's board of trustees' president, indicated the search is progressing well and is in the homestretch. He said the 16 members of the search committee (which he also chairs) believe they will have Bardo's replacement hired when the position officially opens. A search firm started with a pool of 22 candidates; the committee has since winnowed that to an unspecified number.
The committee has been tightlipped about exactly who they are talking to about the job, but Warren said during a recent trustees' meeting that the candidates are of extremely high caliber.
"In terms of the quality of the candidates we have reviewed, they are just outstanding," Warren said, then added, "everyone wants to play for a winning team."
The chancellor-to-be has to meet some towering expectations, including interpreting what the board of trustees mean by "the importance of a successful athletics program" (the football team went 2-9 this fall, with the last winning season in 2005); the unique culture of Western North Carolina; the relationship between WCU and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; WCU's "passionate dedication" to teaching and learning; and so on, according to a job description.
Related Items
What's absent from that shopping list is mention of the difficulty any chancellor is going to face given the anticipated cutback in state dollars. The university is preparing for $8.6 million being slashed, tumbledown from a state facing a more than $2 billion shortfall.
Bardo has been dealing with much of that financial fallout now. The university is cutting 10 positions this spring and another 15 come July 1.
"I'd rather deal with it myself than to leave it for the next person," said Bardo, who told the university's board of trustees this month that the two most difficult parts of his job are telling parents when a child has died, and informing faculty or staff they no longer have jobs.
Bardo makes a base salary of $280,000.


text:
This is the single sheet notice that was included with the LBA1 CD-Rom edition. It talks about a few issues with the game, most notably the red card bug. The full text is also available below.
Twinsen is unable to break into the Museum without the Red Card. If he attempts to force
his way through the main door without it, he will be unable to progress further on in the
To get the Red Card, Twinsen must first talk to the forger who has been imprisoned at
Funfrock's headquarters on Principal Island. (At this point, if you haven't already obtained
the Jet-Pack, go and see the scientist on the west side of town.)
Play with only one saved game, do not use the copy option.
The 'Save' action will only preserve your current inventory, not your location in the game.
Certain actions, or 'milestones' within the game will trigger an automatic save function, and if
you are captured, or killed, the game will take into account your current actions and
achievements and then penalise you by putting you back to a point before you lost the game.


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January 2, 2012— -- "Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid," read graphics of a TV ad in which a young girl tells of how she doesn't like going to school because she's bullied over her weight.
It is part of a video and print campaign to combat childhood obesity in Georgia, which has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the nation.
But could the ads end up stigmatizing overweight kids instead of solving the problem?
"Blaming the victim rarely helps," said Dr. Miriam Labbok, director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "These children know they are fat and that they are ostracized already."
Some public health experts fear Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Strong4Life campaign is too blunt to cultivate action. Still, the group is standing by its decision to feature the ads to raise awareness about childhood obesity.
"We needed something that was more arresting and in your face than some of the flowery campaigns out there," said Linda Matzigkeit, senior vice president of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
An estimated 1 million children in Georgia are considered overweight, ranking the state second in the nation for childhood obesity.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta chose the straightforward approach after its survey of two towns in Georgia found that 50 percent of parents did not know childhood obesity was a problem and 75 percent of parents with obese children did not think their child was overweight.
"If we do not wake up, this will be disastrous for our state," said Matzigkeit.
She said the health system often sees children come in with adult health issues like heart disease and joint pain that can be attributed to their weight.
"We are hearing parents say that it's time we do something about it," she said.
Sedentary lifestyles and the availability of processed foods over fresh foods are contributing to weight issues in children. In Georgia, cutbacks on school nutrition programs, physical education classes and recess could also be contributing factors, Matzigkeit said.
But certain variations of the ad may not be doing much to fix the problem, some experts argued. They pointed to one print ad, in particular, that says, "It's hard to be a little girl if you're not."
"While guilt and fear are motivators, they have to be meted out with the answer to the situation," Labbok said. "The ads with the children do not offer help to them."
According to health communication experts, successful public health campaigns offer a clear call to action. Labbok says the Georgia ads address the problem, but don't give viewers a clear solution.
More physical activity, breastfeeding, consuming fresh foods, limiting television viewing and decreasing consumption of sugar beverages are all actions that could potentially turn the tide on childhood obesity, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"There is no mention about what a parent can do other than to say 'stop sugarcoating the problem,'" said Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, professor of pediatrics at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
But Dr. John Morton, director of bariatric surgery and surgical quality at Stanford University School of Medicine, said the ads are a crucial first step in addressing the issue of childhood obesity.
"To change deep-seated social and physiologic behavior like eating will require enormous work, and these ads will help the family start thinking about prevention," said Morton.
The current ads are the first in a series of phases estimated to be a total $50 million project. The campaign is geared toward parents and caregivers of children who have control over their diet and physical activity.
Stormy Bradley's 14-year-old daughter, Maya, was one of the young girls featured in the ads. Bradley, 40, of Atlanta, said she's had discussions with her daughter about weight and about healthier eating.
Maya wanted to take part in the ad to draw awareness to the issue, Bradley said.
"We knew they were going to be controversial," Bradley added. "But from my point of view, it was necessary to spark a conversation."
But there is another aspect of the campaign raising questions: One of the television ads portrays Maya as having diabetes when, in reality, she does not.
"I don't think it takes away from the credibility of the ad because the emotions and the things she says are similar to what someone who could have the health issue would have," said Bradley, adding that her daughter had high blood sugar levels. "I think she's a face they can relate to."
But the situation may cross an ethical line, according to Timothy Edgar, graduate program director in health communication at Emerson College.
"I would be concerned that if somebody finds out that she doesn't have diabetes, that it could undermine the campaign," said Edgar.
Public health campaigns that have been successful often portray real people with real problems. While the current ad implies a real public health issue, the dramatization by an actor could weaken the message, Edgar said.
Weight issues are among the top reasons why some children are bullied, and some critics said the campaign also singles out the overweight child and could potentially exacerbate the bullying.
"At what point should looking out for their health mean losing the fun of being innocent and young?" one person wrote on the campaign's Facebook page.
Matzigkeit said the children featured in the ads have all been offered nutritional counseling. Maya was paid for her contribution and also took advantage of the counseling.
"This is not about how somebody looks, it's a serious medical issues," said Matzigkeit. "And if they don't believe me, I offer them to come see our clinic."
Bradley knows that discussions about weight can be uncomfortable because she, herself, is battling weight issues.
"This has made her more conscientious about the actions we choose," said Bradley. "You can hate it or love it, but you're still talking about it."