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Avatar: the real-life science behind the fantasy
Floating mountains? Glowing plants? They're in 'Avatar,' and they're not beyond the realm of scientific possibility.
The producer of "Avatar" is fond of saying that writer and director James Cameron does not write science fiction, he writes science fact.
From the reclining, cup-holdered seat of a local multiplex, that seems a generous statement. Neither mountains floating in midair or fauna that lights up like the Las Vegas Strip at night would seem to have the slightest foundation in reality.
And yet they do.
To be sure, Mr. Cameron likes to bring his fair share of Hollywood to the cosmos, painting his scenes with the brush of fantasy. But beneath some of his most outlandish visions is often a kernel of scientific possibility.
The floating Hallelujah Mountains
The topic of how an entire mountain range can bob over the landscape like corks is never explicitly addressed in the film, yet the explanation is woven throughout the story.
It all has to do with superconductors.
When superconductors are in the presence of a magnetic field, they can float. "Avatar's" alien world of Pandora, it turns out, is simply a massive superconductor.
At the very beginning of the story, we are told that humans have come to Pandora to mine unobtanium. Unobtanium is the ultimate superconductor. (The very name, "unobtanium," is a nod to sci-fi afficionados, who coined the word to describe a material with mythical properties.)
In Cameron's world, unobtanium can conduct electricity without resistance at room temperature; the best current superconductors work only when the temperature is below minus 200 degrees F.
The discovery of unobtanium, which exists only on Pandora, revolutionized technology on Earth, the story goes, and the future human economy is dependent upon it.
On Pandora, however, entire mountains loaded with unobtanium float in the world's massive magnetic field.
In a glimpse of how thoroughly Cameron has thought through the science behind his creation, he and his team have written a 380 page "Pandorapedia" that explains (among other things) the tectonics behind how such mountains could form.
In effect, they crumble upward.
This happens because Pandora is not a planet but a moon of a gas giant the size of Saturn – the fictional planet Polyphemus. Moons of gas giants are constantly tugged and deformed by the stresses of gravity.
One of Jupiter's moons, Io, is pulled so violently by the gravitational forces of both Jupiter and Jupiter's other large moons, that it has ground tides – the ground literally rises and falls like a sea tide on Earth. On a second moon of Jupiter, Europa, these tidal forces have heated the interior of the moon to the point that part of its crust has melted, creating a sea of liquid water beneath a surface of ice, scientists say.
On Cameron's Pandora, those tidal stresses have fractured the landscape, and, in the case of the Hallelujah Mountains, sent it up into the sky. A companion book to the movie explains the larger process: "This … energy drives continental drift at a much faster rate than on Earth, causing tectonic plates to fracture more extensively because of the increased stress."
Glowing plants
Cameron's fascination with the deep sea has already led to one of the most successful films of all time: "Titanic." It appears to have shaped "Avatar," too. The oceans' depths have a curious answer to sunlight, which has never been seen there. It's called bioluminescence – organisms' ability to create their own light.
Fireflies are perhaps the most obvious example, but the bioluminescent fish of the deep sea tell a different story – that nature, when deprived of light, sometimes creates its own.
On Pandora, where the nights can be many Earth days long, Cameron has suggested that an entire bioluminescent ecosystem could emerge.
This is where Cameron's decision to make Pandora a moon – and not a planet – comes in. Moons, including Earth's, are typically "locked" to their planets, with one side eternally facing the planet and one side eternally facing out into space. What this means is that one day on a moon equals the time it takes to orbit its parent planet – a long time.
To watch the phases of our Moon is actually to watch the lunar day in real time. A full moon is midday for the side of the Moon facing the Earth. A new moon is midnight for the side of the Moon facing the Earth. In other words, a lunar day takes more than 27 Earth days. And that means a very long night.
Home Sweet Moon
But could a moon hold life?
Potentially, yes. Actually, making Pandora a moon appears to be an acknowledgment of recent science. Astronomers are still looking for planets like Earth – small and rocky – within the so-called "Goldilocks zone": Not so close to its star that its life-giving water evaporates, yet not so far away that it freezes into ice.
But small planets are hard to find. Instead, scientists have found gas giants like Saturn in the habitable zone around stars. Those planets are not inhabitable – but their moons could be.
That makes moons a good place to start looking for alien life. "All of the gas giant planets in our solar system have rocky and icy moons," Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., told AP. "That raises the possibility that alien Jupiters will also have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold onto an atmosphere."
The problem is that gas giants emit tremendous amounts of radiation. The daily radiation on Jupiter's Io, for instance, is 4,000 times the lethal dose.
Yet here again, Cameron uses science to solve science's own problems. The robust magnetic field created by Pandora's superconductivity deflects the radiation.
At one point in the film, a spectacular aurora dances overhead. Striking filmmaking, yes. But also pure science. The companion book, "Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora," adds that the interaction of the magnetic fields of Pandora and its parent planet "causes a giant increase in electrical activity on both bodies, with massive auroral storms and other electromagnetic phenomenon."
Such a magnetic field could also be responsible for the telltale arcing formations of rock apparent at the climax of the film.
Other tidbits
• Everything on Pandora – including the 10-foot, blue-skinned Na'vi – is big because the gravity is 80 percent of what it is on Earth.
• Cameron has put Pandora and Polyphemus in the real Alpha Centauri star system, the closest star system to Earth. The system is actually three stars all revolving around one another. The biggest is 20 percent larger than the Sun, the second is 15 percent smaller than the Sun, and the third is a red dwarf 80 percent smaller than the Sun.
• Polyphemus is named for the one-eyed Cyclops in Homer's "Odyssey." In the film, a gigantic storm similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot is visible.
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Clinton House Museum chooses flower to represent Melania Trump
The Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville has chosen lily of the valley to represent First Lady Melania Trump in its First Ladies Garden.
The museum is housed at the first home of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Its First Ladies Garden includes one flower to represent each of America's first ladies through history.
The museum had contacted the White House to learn what Trump's favorite flower is, but has not heard back, museum director Angie Albright told 40/29 News. The museum settled on the lily of the valley, as it was the official flower of Yugoslavia, where Trump was born.
Trump's flower will be planted by the end of the summer, Albright said.
The First Ladies Garden was dedicated by former President Bill Clinton in 2010. Historians helped research the appropriate flowers to match each of the country's former first ladies.
Melania Trump became the 45th First Lady of the United States when her husband, Donald Trump, was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The is the second First Lady, after Louisa Adams, to have been born overseas. Trump was born in Novo Mestro, which was part of Yugoslavia at the time. It is now part of Slovenia. Trump is a former fashion model who became a U.S. citizen in 2006.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bloody standstill in Damascus
Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic spent a month in war-torn Damascus documenting the struggles of rebel fighters on the front line.
He watched as they coordinated and carried out complex attacks, treated their wounded and lost their lives. But with opponents who were equally disciplined and much better armed, the result of the fighting was little more than a deadly stalemate.
Battle For Damascus: Frozen But Bloody
Rebel fighters in Damascus are disciplined, skilled and brave.
In a month on the front line, I saw them defend a swathe of suburbs in the Syrian capital, mount complex mass attacks, manage logistics, treat their wounded - and die before my eyes.
But as constant, punishingly accurate, mortar, tank and sniper fire attested, President Bashar al-Assad's soldiers on the other side, often just a room or a grenade toss away, are also well drilled, courageous - and much better armed.
So while the troops were unable to dislodge brigades of the Free Syrian Army from devastated and depopulated neighbourhoods just east of the city centre - and indeed made little effort to do so - there seems little immediate prospect of the rebels overrunning Assad's stronghold. The result is bloody stalemate.
I watched both sides mount assaults, some trying to gain just a house or two, others for bigger prizes, only to be forced back by sharpshooters, mortars or sprays of machine gun fire.
As in the ruins of Beirut, Sarajevo or Stalingrad, it is a sniper's war; men stalk their fellow man down telescopic sights, hunting a glimpse of flesh, an eyeball peering from a crack.
Fighting is at such close quarters that on one occasion a rebel patrol stumbled into an army unit inside a building; hand grenades deafened us and shrapnel shredded plaster, a sudden clatter of Kalashnikov cartridges and bullets coming across the cramped space gave way in seconds to the groans of the wounded.
From Jan. 14, having reached Damascus from Lebanon by way of undercover opposition networks, I spent four weeks in Ain Tarma, Mleha, Zamalka, Irbin and Harasta - rebel-held areas forming a wedge whose apex lies less than a mile to the east of the walled Old City, with its ancient mosques, churches and bazaars.
Once bustling suburbs are all but empty of life, bar the fighters; six months of combat, of shelling and occasional air strikes have broken open apartment blocks to the winter winds of the high Syrian plateau and choked the streets with rubble.
Battling the cold in woollen ski-hats or chequered keffiyeh scarves, swathed in layers of cotton and leather jackets, a few thousand unshaven men, many from nearby peasant villages, some who deserted Assad's army, defend a patchwork of barricades and strongpoints, served by cars ferrying ammunition and rations and led by commanders using handheld radios and messenger runners.
Days are punctuated by regular halts for prayer in a conflict, now 23 months old, that has become increasingly one pitting Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, stiffened by Islamist radicals, against Alawites led by Assad; they have support from Iran, from whose Shi'ite Islam their faith is derived.
Typical of the frontline routine was an attack that a couple of dozen men of the brigade Tahrir al-Sham - roughly "Syrian Freedom" - mounted in Ain Tarma on Jan. 30, aiming to take over or at least damage an army checkpoint further up the lane.
I photographed one two-man fire team crouch against a breeze-block garden wall, about 50 metres from their target.
In blue jeans, sneakers and muffled against a morning chill, their role was to wait for comrades to hit the army position with rocket-propelled grenades then rake the soldiers with their AK-47 automatic rifles as they were flushed out into the open.
There was little to make a sound in the abandoned streets. The attackers whispered to each other under their breath.
Then two shots rang out. One of the two riflemen, heavy set and balding, screamed in pain and collapsed back on the tarmac.
The day's assault was going wrong before it even started.
Another fighter crept over to help. Realising the casualty was gravely hurt, two more came up and they dragged the man's inert bulk back across the street, through a narrow gap to relative safety.
Battlefield first-aid is helpless in the face of single shot to the belly. The man died in minutes, his gut ripped through and his blood warming the bare concrete floor. But there was no time to mourn - the army was alerted to the squad's presence.
As the rebels regrouped, a tank shell struck the deserted building, sending shattered concrete and dust raining down on us and the survivors ran for cover, ready to fight another day.
Having captured large areas last July before the front lines again congealed in the capital, the rebels stepped up attacks last month, trying to weaken Assad's grip on the outlying neighbourhoods surrounding the fortified centre of Damascus and pushing across the main ring road in the neighbourhood of Jobar.
Among the boldest offensive moves I saw was an assault by what appeared to be several hundred fighters on a sprawling army barracks in the Irbin district. It was striking for the level of coordination it displayed among numerous units which, lacking uniforms, donned bandannas in bright pinks, reds and oranges to identify their loyalties and reduce the risk of "friendly fire".
One group also brought up a Soviet-built T-72 tank to take part in the Feb. 3 attack. Crewed by men who evidently had been trained in the army, it may have had little ammunition, however.
The infantry skirmish for control of the barracks involved teams of fighters, their colourful headscarves at odds with grim faces and attempts at camouflage, stealing up to a two-metre perimeter wall that stretched for hundreds of metres around.
On a misty morning, they tried to maintain surprise, but once the shooting began there was no turning back, no sign these men might recently have been fearful civilians. They poured sustained rifle fire through gaps in the wall, tossed grenades over it and did what they could to avoid incoming rounds.
One man poked the head of a store-window manikin, fixed on a pole, into a hole in the perimeter, hoping a sniper could be tempted to betray his position. It was a wise precaution. I saw another man picked off later as he aimed through a similar gap.
By afternoon, helped by their tank, they had breached the defences and were inside the compound, looking for enemies, intelligence and, especially, more weapons to carry off. They knew the position itself would be hard to hold - too big and open and vulnerable to familiar retaliatory air strikes.
In the end, at dusk, they pulled back. One commander said 150 of the attackers had been wounded and 20 were killed, a toll to add to the 70,000 the U.N. estimates have died in this war.
The bulk of the rebel armoury is made up of Soviet- and Chinese-made AK-47s, similar to those among Assad's troops. Most rebels have one, though not always many magazines of bullets. I also saw U.S.-made M4 carbines and Austrian Steyr assault rifles not commonly supplied to the Syrian government. Western-allied Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf have been arming the fighters.
Snipers use Russian Dragunovs and I also saw an American Barrett, a heavy-calibre rifle capable of puncturing metal.
The rebels also have rocket-propelled grenades and some heavier anti-tank weapons - at least enough to discourage their opponents from trying to roll their armour through their lines.
One day, I watched a man fire an antiquated, probably 1960s vintage, Soviet B-10 recoilless rifle, a heavy, bazooka-style cannon normally mounted on a little trolley and weighing about 70 kg (150 pounds); the rebel fighter simply hefted it onto his shoulder and blasted a heavy round somewhere down the road.
Capable of improvising, I also saw men use a shotgun to blast a fuse-lit, home-made grenade at their enemy.
Further from the fighting lines, some vestiges of ordinary life goes on for those civilians who have not joined the army of refugees. Often without electricity or running water, residents try to survive; a few shops sell vegetables, or meat kebabs. Moving around, glimpses of normality can be startling, as I found, turning a corner to find children playing in the street.
Other surprises were less pleasant. One Saturday, Jan. 26, I was following a rebel patrol in Mleha, crawling from house to house through holes smashed in walls to evade the snipers.
Just ahead, those in front emerged to find themselves face to face with some equally astonished soldiers. Gunfire, grenades and screams followed. I threw myself to the ground. Both sides quickly pulled back, the wounded gasping and dragged to safety.
The battle for Damascus grinds on.
(Writing by Dominic Evans and Alastair Macdonald)


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So sue me. That schoolyard taunt may become political strategy, according to The Hill, as Democrats insist that the President can raise the nation's debt limit unilaterally. Why not get the courts involved by having Barack Obama do so and force Republicans to sue him in federal court?
And you thought that the trillion-dollar coin idea was as dumb as it gets:
Democratic lawmakers are urging President Obama to force Republicans to take him to court over the controversial issue of raising the debt ceiling.
They believe the Supreme Court will have to ultimately resolve the battle over spending now raging between Republicans and the president.
But how the courts will rule is shrouded in uncertainty because little case law exists to serve as meaningful precedent, say legal scholars.
Democrats in Congress argue Obama should not feel constrained by the 1917 debt limit law, which the federal government is projected to hit in late February, because it conflicts with other laws.
"The president I think has the authority under the Constitution and under the various statutes that are passed — if nothing is done — he must do something about paying the bills," said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). "That issue may well go to the courts in our system."
"He's got two different statutes telling him different things and he can resolve — multiple statutes telling him different things — he can resolve that issue," Udall added.
Supporters of this newfound presidential power over statute have been pointing to the 14th Amendment, specifically its fourth clause: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." However, that passage doesn't give the executive branch authority to do anything, and in fact requires that the debt "be authorized by law."
Who does the authorizing? The more directly relevant Constitutional reference comes in Article I, Section 8, which specifically assigns Congress the authority to borrow: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States[.]" The debt limit itself is Congressional authorization for the executive branch (through the Treasury) to borrow what is needed.
Whether one likes it or not, the debt limit belongs to Congress. The President can neither borrow or spend without authorization from the legislative branch. That was a key separation of power that the founders intended to keep the executive from overwhelming the people's branch of government and to prevent the creation of tyrants in democracy's clothing. Federal courts would take almost no time in declaring an Obama hike of the debt limit unconstitutional, and hurriedly exiting the debacle between the other two branches of government.
Say, does anyone remember when Democrats insisted that they were a bulwark against what they (ignorantly) called "the unitary executive"? Good times, good times.


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Very irritable mood; snaps and snarls; will not speak or answer civilly; MAD.
Exceedingly sensitive to pain, which makes her mad; numbness alternates with, or attends, the pains; sweats with the pains.
Excessive uneasiness; anxiety; agonized, tossing about; will only be quieted by carrying the child about.
High fever with sweating, especially on the head; thirsty; one cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold.
Dentition diarrhoea; green stools, foul odor like rotten eggs, much colicky pain, abdomen bloated.
Cough dry < at night, WHEN ASLEEP, from tickling in throat pit; < cold weather and every winter.
Especially adapted to children and nervous, hysterical women.
Violent rheumatic pains drive him out of bed at night; compel him to walk about.
Burning of soles at night; puts feet out of bed.
Numbness with the pains.
# # # #
Charles J. Hempel called this "the catnip of Homeopathy," because it was particularly adapted to nervous affections, especially of children. This is one of the remedies that finds its leading characteristic symptoms in the MIND of the patient. To "boil down" all the different ways in which the CHAMOMILLA mind can be and is expressed: "THE PATIENT IS CROSS, UGLY, SPITEFUL, SNAPPISH. She knows it, admits it, and so does every one else. She
will return mean, uncivil, spiteful answers to her best friends, and then confess her fault, to repeat it again and again, and stoutly affirms she cannot help it, she feels so." This state of mind is always present in the marked CHAMOMILLA case, whether it be adult or child.
Of course the young child cannot give vent to its feelings by talking, so it comes as near to it as it can by whining and crying, sometimes it seems without cause, and also when it shows by fever, diarrhoea, teething and many other complaints that it is actually sick and suffering. It wants this or that thing, puts out its little hand for it, and when it is offered pushes it away and points to something else, to reject it in turn. Now the child does not know what it wants, but the homeopathic physician does. It wants a dose of CHAMOMILLA. This peevish disposition in which nothing pleases, takes possession of the child, mother, father or any and all grades and classes of subjects when CHAMOMILLA is the remedy, and it is found in connection with all kinds of diseases. It is also especially adapted to ailments BROUGHT ON by fits of anger. In short, it is the leading ANGER REMEDY of the Materia Medica.
The other leading anger remedies, or, for ailments brought on by anger, are ACONITE, BRYONIA, COLOCYNTH, IGNATIA, LYCOPODIUM, NUX VOMICA, STAPHYSAGRIA.
It is also one of the leading remedies for pain, and there is this peculiarity about it, the pain is not always in proportion to the gravity of the case, and we often see, for instance, in labor, a great deal harder pains of which the patient does not complain half SO loudly. But in the CHAMOMILLA case the patient is exceedingly SENSITIVE to the pain and exclaims continually, "Oh; I cannot bear the pain." Many times have I met this condition in labor
cases, and in the majority of them the cross, peevish snappish, condition of mind accompanying, and seen it changed in a short time to a mild, uncomplaining, patient state, by a single dose of CHAMOMILLA 200th.
This sensitiveness to pain is not confined to labor cases, but I have often observed it in neuralgias, toothache, rheumatism, etc., and the same happy results follow its use.
This condition of sensitiveness is often found in coffee drinkers, or in those who have been addicted to narcotics. CHAMOMILLA is very useful here. There is another sensation which is often found in conjunction with, or sometimes alternating with, this pain or sensitiveness, and that is numbness.
It is found in rheumatism or paralytic states and is very characteristic. The pains of CHAMOMILLA are oftener aggravated by heat than otherwise, but are not on the other hand, like PULSATILLA, ameliorated by cold. In fact, the patient is often very sensitive to cold, and cold air brings on troubles for which this remedy is specific. I now call to mind a very painful case of rheumatism of the left shoulder in a middle-aged man. It was in my earlier practice, when I was prescribing for names more than I do now, and of course he got ACONITE, BRYONIA and RHUS TOXICODENDRON, etc., but no relief. A wiser man was called in consultation and the patient was quickly cured by CHAMOMILLA. When I asked the counsel what led him to prescribe this remedy he answered NUMBNESS WITH THE PAINS.
Another condition which is met by this remedy is RESTLESSNESS and SLEEPLESSNESS. You will remember that we gave as the great trio of restless remedies ACONITE, ARSENICUM and RHUS TOX. That was right, but we did not say that those were all the restless remedies. Here we have another in CHAMOMILLA. Let me quote: "VIOLENT RHEUMATIC PAINS DRIVE HIM OUT OF BED AT NIGHT, AND COMPEL HIM TO WALK ABOUT." (RHUS TOX., FERRUM MET., VERAT. ALB.) "EXCESSIVE UNEASINESS, ANXIETY, AGONIZED TOSSING ABOUT, WITH TEARING PAINS IN THE ABDOMEN." "THE CHILD CAN ONLY BE QUIETED BY CARRYING IT ON THE ARMS WILL NOT BE QUIET UNLESS CARRIED." (Opposite BRYONIA.) These symptoms represent in a few words the restlessness of this remedy. But some will ask, isn't this similar to your TRIO of restless remedies? It is; but there are shades of difference and concomitant symptoms that decide between them all. And the true Hahnemannian is the man to recognize them. There is no particular overwhelming fear, fear of death, etc., under CHAMOMILLA as there is under ACONITE. The patient is maddened; driven to desperation under CHAMOMILLA; does not care whether she dies or not; had RATHER die than SUFFER SO, and so we might draw lines of differentiation between this and other restless remedies, but it would take too long. Each physician must get a habit of doing this for himself. In his ability to do this lies the superior skillfulness of the homeopathic practitioner. Without this he can only hope for indifferent success at most, and will be driven to all sorts of experiments, adjuvants, surgical measures and so forth which might be avoided, much to his own credit, and the advantage of his patient. The sleeplessness of the CHAMOMILLA patient is owing to the pain and excessive nerve sensibility and this remedy procures sleep by overcoming these troubles, which make the patient sleepless. Now there are a few symptoms, when occurring in conjunction
with the peculiar mind and nervous symptoms of this remedy, that confirm the choice of it, such as
"Warm sweat on the head wetting the hair."
"Pressing earache in spells; tearing pain extorting cries."
"Ears particularly sensitive to cold air."
"Face sweats after eating or drinking."
"Toothache if anything warm is taken into the mouth." (PULSATILLA.)
"Toothache recommences when entering a warm room."
"Teeth feel too long."
"Dentition with diarrhoea of green stools smelling like rotten eggs."
"Hot and thirsty with the pains; also fainting." (HEPAR SULPHATE)
"Gastralgia in coffee drinkers; constrictive pain, or as if a stone were in the stomach." (NUX VOM.)
"Wind colic; abdomen distended like a drum; wind passes in small quantities without relief."
"Stools green, watery, corroding (SULPH.), like stirred eggs."
"Stools hot, smelling like rotten eggs."
"Metrorrhagia dark coagulated blood, flowing in paroxysms."
"Menstrual colic, also following anger."
"Labor pains press upward, or begin in back, and pass off down inner side of thighs."
"Rigidity of os, pains unendurable."
"After-pains also unendurable."
"Children have spasms, from fit of anger in the nurse."
"Cough from tickling in throat pit."
"Cough dry, worse at night, especially WHILE ASLEEP, does not waken when coughing." (CALCAREA OST., PSORINUM.)
"Chronic cough, worse in winter or cold weather."
"Body chilly and cold; face and breath hot."
"Heat and chill intermingled." (ARS. ALB.)
"Skin moist and burning hot." (BELL.)
This does not by any means cover all the symptoms which indicate CHAMOMILLA, but when they do occur it is strongly indicated and shows something of the range and usefulness of this remedy when given according to homeopathic rules.


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Shirley Temple's Fantastic Grim Life of Sexual Derangement and Pizazz!
There are three ingredients needed to make a perfect obituary: a peculiar life, an anticipated death (hence: ample time to write the thing), and at least one story about tap dancing. So you knew going in that the New York Times obituary of Shirley Temple Black, who many people were sad to learn had died Monday night (but also, briefly, happy and surprised to learn had been alive up to that point), was going to be sensational.
Like a precocious Depression-era child dancing with a black man on down the stairs of a pretend house, it did not disappoint.
There were details you might expect, like a brief survey of the various horrible ways in which the parents of Shirley's characters were killed in her films, so that she could emerge a plucky orphan (suicide, plane crash, shipwreck, hit by a car while carrying her birthday cake, etc.), and a funny anecdote about how Shirley's 12th birthday party was marked by her discovery of the fact she was actually 13 (her mother realized early on that while a 6 year old who can do the rumba is really something, a 7 year old who can do the rumba is just kind of blah).
But, like all of the greatest obituaries, there were also a few surprises. For instance, even if you already knew that, the year she turned 4, Shirley appeared as a cutie sexy adorable sensual baby in what the Times describes as "a series of sexually suggestive one-reel shorts" titled "Baby Burlesks" (like this one), you might be surprised to learn that Shirley and her fellow professional toddlers were disciplined by being forced to sit on a block of ice in a windowless box:
When any of the two dozen children in "Baby Burlesks" misbehaved, they were locked in a windowless sound box with only a block of ice on which to sit. "So far as I can tell, the black box did no lasting damage to my psyche," Mrs. Black wrote in "Child Star." "Its lesson of life, however, was profound and unforgettable. Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble."
Then there was the time the novelist Graham Greene was sued by her studio for libel, after he decried Shirley's "mature suggestiveness" and "well-shaped and desirable little body" in a negative review of her film "Wee Willie Winkie." (Greene had previously speculated that the actress was a 50-year-old dwarf pretending to be a child.)
Years later, a meeting with an MGM producer culminated in his exposing his genitals to a 12-year-old Shirley (and then banishing her from his sight).
On her first visit to MGM, Mrs. Black wrote in her autobiography, the producer Arthur Freed unzipped his trousers and exposed himself to her. Being innocent of male anatomy, she responded by giggling, and he threw her out of his office.
Temple became engaged to her second husband, Charles Alden Black, 12 days after meeting him, the same year she officially retired from showbusiness (at age 22). She said that J. Edgar Hoover's lap was the most comfortable she ever sat on. In later life, she served as the U.S. ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia. Her first real film contract (two weeks; $150 per; with Fox) stipulated that she provide her own tap shoes.
[Image via AP]


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Google is looking to replace physical sticky notes with Keep, a new product designed for storing notes and other pieces of information.
The company is positioning Keep as a simple organizational tool that lets users jot down literally anything, either by hand or by voice, as they go about their day. Google is calling the product, launched Wednesday, "a central place to save what's on your mind."
[ Get your websites up to speed with HTML5 today using the techniques in InfoWorld's HTML5 Deep Dive PDF how-to report. | Learn how to secure your Web browsers in InfoWorld's "Web Browser Security Deep Dive" PDF guide. ]
A video describing the product shows a musician using Keep to jot down song titles for a concert set list and telling himself to finalize the guest list. The product includes voice-recognition technology to automatically transcribe spoken memos.
Keep works similarly to Evernote, the popular suite of services for saving ideas and other personal content.
"With Keep you can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what's important to you," software engineer Katherine Kuan said in a blog post.
Also, as with the company's Google Now personal assistant service, users can open Keep with a widget on their Android phone or tablet so that it is "front and center all the time," Google said.
Notes that are made in Keep are stored in Google's Drive file storage system and can be synced to all of the user's devices, the company said.
Drive is the platform that Google uses to house its suite of Google Docs products, but the company did not specify whether Keep would be able to interact with content residing in Google Docs.
Overall, the product is "a useful addition to Google Drive and Android," said Greg Sterling, senior analyst with Opus Research, though "I don't think it's an Evernote killer by any means," he noted.
Keep is available both on the Web and on mobile devices running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above. Keep's functionality will also be incorporated directly into Google Drive in the coming weeks, Google said.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's email address is email@example.com.


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Pa. judge blocks photo ID rule for Election Day
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania voters won't have to show photo identification to cast ballots on Election Day, a judge said Tuesday in a ruling on the state's controversial voter ID law that could help President Barack Obama in a presidential battleground state.Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson delayed Pennsylvania's voter ID requirement from taking effect this election, saying he wasn't sure the state had made it possible for voters to easily get IDs before Nov. 6."I am still not convinced ... that there will be no voter disenfranchisement" if the law took effect immediately, Simpson wrote.Gov. Tom Corbett, who had championed the law, said he was leaning against an appeal of the decision, which was widely viewed to favor Obama in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's biggest electoral college prizes. Obama has been leading in recent polls over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.Pennsylvania's 6-month-old law, among the nation's toughest, has sparked a divisive debate over voting rights ahead of the presidential election. About a dozen primarily Republican-controlled states have toughened voter ID laws since the 2008 presidential election. But states with the toughest rules going into effect - including Kansas and Tennessee - aren't battleground states, making their impact on the presidential election unclear.One civil rights lawyer said the decision cemented the principle that a photo ID law can't disenfranchise voters. Opponents had said young adults, minorities, the elderly, poor and disabled would find it harder to cast ballots."The effect of the decision in Pennsylvania is not just theoretically, can voters get ID, but actually, can they get ID," said Jon M. Greenbaum, chief counsel of The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.Simpson - a Republican first elected to the bench in 2001 - based his decision on guidelines given to him two weeks ago by the state Supreme Court to determine whether the state had made photo IDs easily accessible.He ruled after listening to two days of testimony about the state's efforts to ease requirements, as well as accounts of long lines and ill-informed clerks at driver's license centers.On Nov. 6, election workers will still be allowed to ask voters for a valid photo ID, but people without it can use a regular voting machine in the polling place and will not have to cast a provisional ballot or prove their identity to election officials afterward, the judge ruled.The law could still take full effect next year, although Simpson could also decide to issue a permanent injunction."This decision is a big win for voters in Pennsylvania," said Witold J. Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped challenge the law.The plaintiffs included the Homeless Advocacy Project, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.Corbett, a Republican, said he still believed that his administration would have made it possible for every registered voter who needed a valid photo ID card to get one.Election law and voting rights scholars say voter ID requirements stop some people from voting, although it's very hard to determine how many."The thing I'm concerned about is that it will lead to confusion on Election Day," said Nathaniel Persily, who teaches election law at Columbia University in New York. "There will be spotty enforcement ... and there could be lines and slow voting as a result."Michael J. Pitts, who teaches election law at Indiana University, said Pennsylvania's decision is distinctive because of the court's discomfort with changing voter identification requirements so close to an election.The law was a signature accomplishment of Corbett and Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Legislature, which passed it over the objection of every Democratic lawmaker. Republicans, long suspicious of ballot-box stuffing in the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia, justified it as a bulwark against any potential election fraud.Democrats, accusing Republicans of using old-fashioned Jim Crow tactics to steal the White House from Obama, turned their opposition to the law into a valuable tool to motivate volunteers and campaign contributions.Other opponents of the law, including labor unions, good government groups, the NAACP, AARP and the League of Women Voters, have held voter education drives and protest rallies.Other courts have issued conflicting rulings on strict photo ID provisions. A federal court panel struck down Texas' law, while a state court blocked Wisconsin's voter ID law from taking effect for now. A federal court is reviewing South Carolina's law.


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http://mmajunkie.com A middleweight bout between Rob Kimmons (23-6 MMA, 3-3 UFC) and Dongi Yang (9-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) will be part of the UFC on Versus 3 lineup in March.
A source said told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) at least one fighter has signed a bout agreement for the fight, which MMAWeekly.com first reported.
UFC on Versus 3 takes place March 3 at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., and the night's main card airs on Versus.
Kimmons vs. Yang likely will be part of the untelevised preliminary card.
Kimmons entered the UFC in 2008 with a stellar 21-3 record. However, he's since rotated between wins and losses with victories over Rob Yundt, Joe Vedepo and Steven Steinbess, and defeats came to Dan Miller, Jorge Rivera and Kyle Noke. The Missouri-based fighter's most recent win, which came over Steinbess, was his first victory via decision in 10 fights and four years. Nineteen of his 23 career wins have come via stoppage, 14 via submission.
Yang, a former DEEP and Sengoku fighter, signed with the UFC in 2010 after posting a 9-0 mark, which included eight consecutive TKO victories. However, in his octagon debut, the Korean fighter suffered a split-decision defeat to Chris Camozzi at UFC 121.
The latest UFC on Versus 3 lineup now includes:
- Martin Kampmann vs. Diego Sanchez
- C.B. Dollaway vs. Mark Munoz
- Maiquel Falcao vs. Alessio Sakara
- Brian Bowles vs. Damacio Page
- Shane Roller vs. Thiago Tavares
- Takeya Mizugaki vs. Francisco Rivera
- Alexandre Ferreira vs. Rousimar Palhares*
- Eric Koch vs. Cub Swanson*
- Cyrille Diabate vs. Steve Cantwell*
- Matt Brown vs. Mark Scanlon*
- Rob Kimmons and Dongi Yang*
* – Not officially announced
For more on UFC on Versus 3, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.
(Pictured: Rob Kimmons)


text:
|Venue Information
|Cambridge Innovation Center
50 Milk Street
Boston, MA 02109
|8:00 - 8:45
|8:45 - 9:00
|9:00 - 9:30
|9:30 - 11:00
|Finalist Presentations
|11:00 - 12:00
|Speaker Presentations
|12:00 - 1:00
|1:00 - 2:20
|Round-Table discussion
|2:20 - 3:00
|Advance Biotech Grant Award Ceremony
|3:00 - 4:00
|Market Place Networking Session
Join us for an enlightening dialog and networking with biotech community executives throughout the day.
Agenda Topics
Celebrate with us as we announce the three winners for the Advance Biotech Grant Program and hear the presentations of their molecules' journey. Breakfast and lunch will be served.
*Agenda subject to change. Attendance to the Biotech Start-up Summit: 'Advancing Molecules to Market-Is Yours Next?' and announcement of the 6th edition US/CA Advance Biotech Grant Winners is limited to 60 attendees maximum, by invitation only, and available to Pharma or Biopharma companies only. The offer does not extend to any company that provides Pharma or Biopharma products or services. Please register for an invitation. We reserve the right to revoke or refuse participation at any time. Refreshments, and lunch are provided courtesy of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Travel costs, hotel accommodations and any other costs incurred are at the expense of the attendees.
The life science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada.


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While dining out last week, I periodically looked up at one of the television monitors to see the score of the first game of the NBA finals. As there was no sound on to interrupt diners' conversations, the monitor was in caption mode: One could read rather than hear the words spoken. At the conclusion of the game, an announcer was interviewing a member of the victorious Miami Heat players. I saw from the captions the player saying the words "they isn't."
Closed captions display the words spoken. They don't correct for poor grammar.
All I could think was: How can a grown man in America today say "they isn't" rather than "they aren't"?
First, how is it possible for anyone to graduate an American elementary school, not to mention a high school or, most incredibly, attend college, and leave with an inability to conjugate the verb "to be"?
Second, has anyone — a parent or another relative, a teacher, a friend, a coach — in that player's life ever corrected his grammar?
I assume that the answer to the second question is "No."
And I assume that the answers to both questions are related: The left, which dominates our culture and educational institutions, has too often lowered standards for black Americans. Even worse, it has declared that if you are black, "they isn't" is not only not to be corrected, but many in academia have declared it an acceptable form of English, i.e., Ebonics, or Black English.
It doesn't end.
I saw "they isn't" the same week the Democrats and others on the left virtually unanimously condemned all Republican attempts in state legislatures to pass legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID. The Democrats labeled it a means of "disenfranchising" blacks. Many Democrats compared it to Jim Crow laws.
"Jim Crow, move over — the Wisconsin Republicans have taken your place," charged Wisconsin Democratic State Sen. Bob Jauch, referring to his state's new voter ID law.
It is hard to imagine a more demeaning statement about black America than labeling demands that all voters show a photo ID anti-black.
This is easily demonstrated. Imagine if some Democratic politician had announced that demanding a photo ID at the voting booth was an attempt to keep Jewish Americans from voting. No one would understand what the person was talking about. But why not? Jews vote almost as lopsidedly Democrat as do blacks. So why weren't Jews included in liberal objections to voter ID laws?
We all know the answer. Jews are generally considered intelligent and therefore no one would assume that obtaining a photo ID was demanding too much of even poor Jews (yes, there are poor Jews).
Therefore, one can only infer that the argument that demanding photo ID for voting will disenfranchise many blacks suggests that many blacks lack the capacity to obtain a photo ID.
If that is not a legitimate inference, then only one other inference is possible: The argument is made solely in order to score political points by portraying black Americans as victims of Republican racism. Of course, that argument simply takes us back to the original question: Why does requiring a photo ID to vote prevent blacks from voting?
It is, however, effective. Calling Republicans racist has worked for half a century and will not be abandoned until it is universally recognized as the libel that it is.
What we have in both instances — the poor grammar that too many blacks use and the argument that demanding a photo ID is too hard on blacks — is not Republican racism. What we have are two more examples of the destructive consequences of leftist policies on black America.
It is difficult to overstate the negative impact making lesser demands on individuals, especially members of select groups, has on them. The message is as clear as day: We expect less of you. Why? Because we think less of you.
Do most of those on the left really think less of black Americans?
Given the lack of demands, given the rationalization for poor speech (before the left took over education, both blacks and whites spoke and wrote far better), given the advocacy of lowering standards for blacks from everything from civil service tests to college admissions and given other examples, it is hard not to conclude that many on the left really do think black Americans are not equally capable of excellence (outside of sports and entertainment). It is what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
If this is not the case, there are two other explanations.
One is guilt. White liberals are so filled with guilt over historic American maltreatment of blacks that they have somehow concluded that making the same demands of blacks as of all other Americans is somehow unfair.
The other is political opportunism — portray liberals and their policies as the saviors of black Americans. Aside from its constituting cynical exploitation, the problem is that in order to portray oneself as another person's savior, one must portray the other as in need of saving.
Conservative Americans, on the other hand, actually believe there is no difference between black and non-black abilities, and therefore see only harm in depicting a substantial percentage of the black population as essentially incapable of obtaining a photo ID.
Which group has more respect for black Americans? The answer is obvious. And one day, most black Americans will know the real answer to that question. That will be the beginning of the final stage of black liberation, as well as the end of the Democratic Party as we now know it.


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Dec 30, 2020
I just can say that it was an awesome course. The instructors as well as the contents were clear, easy to understand and everything with a focus on how to take the theory and apply it with TensorFlow.
Mar 8, 2019
Good intro course, but google colab assignments need to be improved. And submitting a jupyter notebook was much more easier, why would I want to login to my google account to be a part of this course?
By Ben B•
Mar 17, 2019
This felt like a glorified tutorial for TensorFlow/Keras. I expected more in-depth treatment of the material. E.g. covering more ground (regularization wasn't mentioned at all), or going into more depth on the machine learning theory (why are we using this activation function, this loss, or this optimiser) or practical tips (e.g. discussions of network design) or the tools we are using (e.g. what exactly is TensorFlow, what is Keras, how do they relate to each other, how do they work under the hood).
I also raised some issues and PRs on the github repo for the worksheets to correct problems in some of the worksheets, but these were not responded to by the time I had finished the course over a week later, despite the low volume of issues and PRs on that repo.
I paid for the course upon getting to the first quiz so that I could have my answers graded, but I don't feel that I got my money's worth.
By Kristina P - T•
Mar 14, 2019
I was expecting a more elaborate content and graded programming exercises for those who pay for the course. Instead the major part of the content is based on the FREE tutorials available on TensorFlow website. Besides, the course is split to 4 weeks but the complexity of the content does not fit to the announced period. It can be easily completed within few days or less by any avearage CV researcher. It is populated with a bunch of very short videos with 'surface scratching' explanations. A targeted learner seems to be an undegrad. Also, some important concepts of TensorFlow were not explained (ex: what is tensor? etc.) Overall, I am disappointed and consider this a waste of money. eventhough, it can be useful as an audit for those who need some structure in self-education as it provides the sequence of tasks and some quizes as many other courses by Coursera.
By David T•
Mar 11, 2019
I like the CoLab Intro, and basics of Keras. But I think the 1st course are a bit too basic for someone who took the 5 courses Deep Learning Specialization. And it is too fast for someone who had not taken the DL courses. I would like the instructors to go over these topics in future courses:
1) TensorBoard and how to debug a faulty model
2) TF 2.0 features (Eager execution, etc)
3) hands on example on how to fix the model if validation accuracy is much worse than training accuracy
4) LSTM models
5) how to productionize the model for real life use, like TF edge or TF.js
By Charles I•
Apr 28, 2019
Far too basic - almost nothing about Tensorflow - graphs, tensors, estimators, tf.data, etc. The course is a bunch of pre-built examples using the Keras APIs to hit run on in Google collab. This is a very gentle introduction to Keras APIs, with no discussion of what's actually happening with Tensorflow.
By Irina G•
Aug 2, 2019
I've finished the whole specialization in one week with 100% on all quizzes. I returned to its first course to rate it one star. I would give it 4 stars if the whole specialization was put in one free course "Shallow intro to TensorFlow with non-working and uninspiring examples". The intros with A.Ng are promising, big words and ideas, but the videos and examples are simplistic and don't deliver. There is no much work to do on this specialization, and I developed skepticism and mistrust toward the instructor. He doesn't come across as an experienced ML/TF practitioner, and some of his discussions are intentionally vague. It's incomparable in depth and content to Deep Learning specialization from the same deeplearning.ai. It also dilutes the value of Coursera's Specialization. Please redo.
By Oleg P•
Apr 8, 2019
Really disappointed. Please, give me back my money!
This is not a course of Tensorflow but one page manual from Keras tutorial website. I hoped to learn the Tensorflow but have seen only some very simple examples with API wrapper for simple tasks and passed the course in a day. There was almost nothing from the Title of the course.
The course should be free. There is nothing for $49 in it (except really cool teachers)
By Hao Z•
Aug 18, 2019
Finally, wasted my weekend and 40 euros to finish this specialization. I really dont know the target audience of this specialization. If you have no background of deep learning, going through some code snippets without any explanation wont help you at all. you can't know anything behind it. If you already have some knowledge, you will find nothing new and more in this course. 1) The materials are so shallow and without any depth, just reading the slides and codes with errors. Only some high-level Keras APIs are covered. The official Tensorflow tutorial is much better. 2) The test questions are of no value at all, it cant test any your understanding whether about deep learning or the tool Tensorflow. The assignments are poorly designed, the answers contain errors. 3) I strongly doubt the instructor, I think he does not have much ML experience. Please don't waste your money and time on this specialization. If you want to learn deep learning, go to cs230; cs231n for computer vision; cs224n and cs224u for NLP; cs20 for Tensorflow.
By Mark B•
Mar 9, 2019
Often coursera courses are a bit easy / superficial. This course is a bit too much so. There's just not enough meat-on-the-bone for my liking. The instructor came across very well, the material is polished and professional, there's just not enough material for me to think of this as being a course. It only takes about an hour to do each weeks' material; the programming examples provide almost no challenge. As a first course on the topic this might be okay, but if you've done anything in this space before then it will be too easy. The course also uses the highest-level TensorFlow APIs; in a sense I wonder if this is really about TensorFlow when that same API is usable with other frameworks. I hope the rest of the specialisation has more detail.
By Atakan S•
Mar 9, 2019
Good intro course, but google colab assignments need to be improved. And submitting a jupyter notebook was much more easier, why would I want to login to my google account to be a part of this course?
By Olivier D•
Aug 1, 2019
This course barely touches what Tensorflow is and how it works, it is just a very basic introduction to Keras, and most of the time is spent explaining machine learning concepts rather than Tensorflow ones.
By Rishi•
Aug 14, 2019
Great course to get started with building Convolutional Neural Networks in Keras for building Image Classifiers. This is probably the best way to get beginners into Deep Learning for Computer Vision.
By Ehsan F•
May 27, 2019
Too basic. I took it to learn about tensorflow not deeplearning and it's like just a bit of each which is useless at the end. It's just the 'Hello world' example in TF.
By Raul D M•
Apr 14, 2019
Even if this course it is an introduction to TensoFlow, it is too easy. Good resources and good notebooks, the lectures are not bad and well explained, but the examination part is too soft.
By Henry W•
May 19, 2019
The course demystified simple computer vision classification use-cases by leveraging TensorFlow. This is a great follow-on course to Andrew Ng's 11-week Stanford Machine Learning course.
By Daniel M•
May 15, 2019
Nice course with some flaws. It's a course in Keras with Tensorflow under the hood but you won't see it. It's great it's Keras, however the title of the course is misleading. The videos are only a few minutes per week. Mostly it's self-study on Google-Colaboratory. If you have no clue about Python or Machine Learning you might quickly be overwhelmed by the coding involved. If you have knowledge in Deep Learning you can earn this certificate within a few hours just by answering the (rather simple) quizzes even without watching the videos because the programming assignments are not graded. The course doesn't have the depth of the Deep Learning Specialization by Andrew Ng but Keras is a great Deep Learning Library
By Abdallah A E M W•
Jun 7, 2019
An awesome practical course that helps me to start creating my first neural networks using keras in such great methods, the instructor is very good at delivering the knowledge he has
By William W•
Mar 10, 2019
Very good and concise introduction to tensor flow. Important parameters to methods are explained so they are understood and no longer mysterious. The course starts with a very simple "Hello World" type model and builds to a more complex CNN. During this evolution, the code becomes necessarily more complex but the additional methods are explained as they are introduced.
By Ekwoge E B•
May 12, 2019
I had a great time going through this course. I had a lot of challenges but which made me love the course even more. While I'm excited to start the next course, would still like to go through certain areas of this course to get a better grasp on some areas. I'm grateful to Cousera for such a learning opportunity!
By Tina W•
Aug 12, 2019
There is quite some bugs in the example exercise code. Hope they can improve this in the future. Despite that, the content of the course is well designed and is a good start for beginners in TF
By Moritz R•
Jan 19, 2021
It was a waste of time. The most part is old with tensorflow 1.14 and the code in the course didnt fit with the coursera Lab environment. Also I wanted to do the Tensorflow Engineer Course and thought I doing this in my test time and get a certificate for this...but it brings me to this page and I just get the introduction. It told me I get the full Course material...
By Ashirwad S•
May 12, 2019
I have completed this course lately and trust me this is a wonderful course which is not just well developed and designed but has also been quite understandable to noobies of Tensorflow.All the coding done in the course was explained in a very simple and elegant way. Thanks Laurence Moroney and Andrew Ng for coming with such an amazing course.
By Yash P•
Apr 7, 2019
An amazing start to someone looking to learn AI !
By Abhilash S•
Apr 18, 2019
This course is good at what it's meant to do, introduce the fundamentals. Would love to see more of Tensorflow 2.0 in an improved version of this course.
By Henrique G•
Dec 31, 2019
Some of the material is a little confusing: sometimes the exercises will open on Google Collab, others in a classic Jupyter Notebook; instructions sometimes seem to lack revision to make them more organized and less convoluted. Also, references in videos should be always made into links (e.g. Andrew's videos are usually referenced as links in the class video and they are not clickable. Since the graded course is paid (and is not cheap for most third world countries) it seems that a little more care and polish should be applied. The contents are excellent, but they lack the organization and quality of the original course from Professor Andrew Ng, which was, by the way, 100% free and didn't have exercise grading locked by payment, for example.
By Mahsa G•
Mar 27, 2020
this course was helpful for me to learn more about CNN. it starts from basic concepts and improve that slowly and step by step. i truthfully recommend how what to start working with neural networks.


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Coffee. Whiskey. Cream. Sugar. The ingredients are simple enough for the drink known the world over as Irish coffee.
Yet, like snowflakes, it seems that no two places serve the hot and sweet concoction exactly the same. That's why we here at IrishCentral have compiled a list of the ten best places to grab an Irish coffee in the United States.
First a little Irish coffee history for you.
The first Irish coffee was served in Ireland in the 1940s at what is known today as Shannon Airport by the head chef Joseph Sheridan. Apparently Sheridan added whiskey to coffee to warm up passengers as they got off their Pan Am Flying Boat. When asked the name of this peculiar drink he replied "Irish coffee".
The travel writer at the time for the San Fransisco chronicle, Stanton Delaplane, brought the recipe back to the states and namely to the Buena Vista Café in San Fransisco where the first Irish coffee was served on November 10th 1952.
To perfect the drink, Buena Vista bar owners worked with the town mayor to perfect the art of floating the cream on top of the coffee. They discovered that cream aged for more than 48 hours would work best.
The Irish coffee as we know it today was born.
Here are the best spots in the United States to grab an Irish coffee:
1. Buena Vista
2765 Hyde St (@ Beach)
San Francisco, CA 94109
Email: email@example.com
2. Rochambo Coffee and Tea House
1317 East Brady Street
Milwaukee, WI 53202-1612
(414) 291-0095
3. The Dubliner Irish Pub
Number 4 "F" Street,
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 737-3773
4. Nearys Pub
358 E. 57th Street, New York, NY
(212) 751-1434
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
5. Celtic Crossings
751 North Clark St.
Chicago, IL, 60451
312 337 1005
6. T.S. McHugh's Irish Pub
21 Mercer St.
Seattle, WA 98109
(206) 282-1910
7. Black Rose
160 State St
(between India St & Chatham Row)
Boston, MA 02109
(617) 742-2286
8. McGurk's Irish Pub
1200 Russell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 6310
9. McGuire's Irish Pub
600 E. Gregory St.
Pensacola, FL 32501-9971
(850) 433-6789
10. Rula Bula Irish Pub
401 S. Mill Ave.
Tempe, AZ
Originally published in 2011.


text:
Comcast merger under fire
Snow piled up in Washington on Thursday — and so did quick opposition to Comcast's play to buy Time Warner Cable.
Reports of the $45.2 billion deal, in fact, were barely 2 hours old when statements against the blockbuster merger first landed from public interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge. If completed, the deal will have a major impact on the pay-TV and broadband Internet markets.
"By raising the costs of its rivals and business partners, an enlarged Comcast would raise costs for consumers, who ultimately pay the bills," Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer said in a statement. "It would be able to keep others from innovating, while facing little pressure to improve its own service. New equipment, new services and new content would have to meet with its approval to stand any chance of succeeding."
( Also on POLITICO: Hurdles ahead for Comcast deal)
Washington sees a healthy debate about the competitiveness of the cable and broadband markets even on a normal day. But Comcast's planned acquisition — which has implications for heated issues like net neutrality, retransmission consent and data caps — has further stirred the pot.
"Where we're really concerned is in the ability for a much bigger Comcast to give even more preferential treatment to the content and networks it owns through its purchase of NBC Universal," said Stephanie Chen, telecommunications policy director at The Greenlining Institute. "This merger would make a tough situation even tougher for smaller content providers, especially minority-owned and -produced content."
Comcast and Time Warner Cable executives, aware of the regulatory questions facing the proposal, were quick to pitch the public interest upside of the proposed deal during a conference call with reporters Thursday.
"On a regulatory front, we believe this transaction is approvable," Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts said. "It will not reduce competition in any relevant market as our companies do not overlap or compete with each other; in fact, we do not operate in any of the same zip codes."
The American Cable Association, a trade group that represents small and medium-sized cable operators, said it would be considering whether the deal would hurt consumers.
"ACA has long acknowledged many problems in the pay-TV market, including the soaring cost of retransmission consent and sports networks and the record-setting number of broadcaster-imposed TV signal blackouts," CEO Matthew Polka said in a statement. "ACA will be looking closely to see whether this transaction makes matters worse for small and medium-sized cable operators and their customers."
( Also on POLITICO: Full technology policy coverage)
With most of Washington ground to a halt Thursday and lawmakers skipping town or busy at political retreats, the cable firms largely escaped early concerns from Capitol Hill. Senate antitrust subcommittee chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), for her part, did commit to holding a hearing that would "carefully scrutinize" the deal.
The blogosphere, however, had early detractors.
Salon's Andrew Leonard penned a post titled "Comcast must be stopped." New York Magazine's Kevin Roose said the deal would create a "mega-empire in an industry that is already dominated by a few huge companies."
"For this reason alone — to say nothing of how long you'd have to stay on hold on a combined Comcast-TWC customer service line — the deal must be stopped," he wrote.
Several observers were cautioning that regulators shouldn't toss the deal simply because it would generate one gigantic entity. But cable companies are a favorite punching bag of distressed consumers, and that's likely to color perception in the deal's early stages.
Perhaps the icing on the cake: A White House petition, which has become a popular method of opposition in the past few years, is already collecting signatures.


text:
Summer Sales are here and stores are doing deep cuts. I just saw the most beautiful dress 75% off. What I loved about this dress is that it could easily go into fall and winter with tights and a heavy sweater. When shopping I always think about year round rather then something lasting a season. If you find yourself in need of a few great pieces to breathe some new life into your wardrobe here are a few of my tips on what to look for as well as items that have a season- less theme to them.
#1: Ask yourself if this piece can be layered come cooler weather?
#2: Is there something particular you need regardless of the season? For example, summer boots are a big trend and there are many styles that could go easily go into fall.
#3: Dresses, they were plentiful this season. I say buy a classic sheath in a colorful hue or a silk printed dress that would look chic with a dark blazer.
#4: Can you afford this piece? Regardless if it is $300 or $30 only buy the piece only if it is within your budget.
Remember, the thing with sales is they happen every season. Buy what you need and can afford focusing on the pieces that can be utilize the most the entire year. Happy shopping!


text:
Opie, John
Opie, John, 1761–1807, English portrait and historical painter. Opie showed a remarkable talent as a young man. He became the protégé of the poet John Wolcot, and enjoyed a brief popularity as a fashionable portrait painter in the Reynolds tradition. In 1786 he began a series of seven pictures for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. His portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
See A. Earland, John Opie and His Circle (1911).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies


text:
We are willing to offer "Options of life" including social contributions widespreadly, not limited only by profit. From now on, we expect to plan your art, not just making mass of concrete, But looking at the activities of the people living there, Imagining pleasure and satisfaction, in creating spaces such as houses, Condominiums and shops. Art Plan will keep on flying.
加木屋の家no-5 NEWS


text:
The Working Families Party, an infamous ACORN front group notorious for corruption, was instrumental in organizing the Occupy Wall Street protests, according to radical journalist Laura Flanders of Free Speech TV.
The protests, which have spread to several other large U.S. cities, are part of what ACORN's neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an "anti-banking jihad."
Working Families Party (WFP) organizer Nelini Stamp has "been here since day one and she is part of the organizing team and the outreach team that has managed to bridge the distance between that first day and this day and between the grassroots folks here and the labor movement," Flanders said at the protest in lower Manhattan.
We are "actually trying to change the capitalist system we have today because it's not working for any of us," Stamp told Flanders in an interview. Demonstrators are asking "how do we really reform and bring revolutionary changes to the states?"
The WFP is part and parcel of ACORN. In 1998 the party was officially recognized in New York State. WFP's headquarters is at the same address as ACORN on Nevins Street in Brooklyn. WFP's executive director is longtime ACORN operative Dan Cantor.
One of the SEIU-funded party's co-founders is ACORN's former national chief organizer, Bertha Lewis. Democratic National Committee executive director Patrick Gaspard also contributed to the creation of the party and sat on its board. Gaspard was a political director in the Obama White House and is a former SEIU executive. Gaspard was also an organizer for the radical New Party in the early 1990s. That party's membership consisted largely of individuals from the Democratic Socialists of America, SEIU, and ACORN. The party endorsed Barack Obama when he ran for the Illinois State Senate.
WFP takes credit for raising taxes both in the city and state of New York and for pressuring the state's congressional delegation to oppose Social Security reforms. The party has sister WFP-branded parties in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont.
Working with its radical friends at SEIU, WFP advocates more government spending, higher taxes, universal government-run health care, campaign finance restrictions, free universal higher education, oppressive rent control, same-sex marriage, amnesty for illegal aliens, "greening" the economy by creating heavily subsidized union jobs in the energy sector, and mandatory paid sick leave for all workers.
In 2009 Connecticut WFP sent busloads of thugs to confront American International Group Inc. (AIG) executives at their homes. The protests were calculated to intimidate executives who had been receiving death threats after the company reportedly paid out bonuses using taxpayer bail-out funds.
ACORN allies are also involved in protests aimed at destabilizing the nation's financial system.
SEIU board member Stephen Lerner has vowed to do his part to drive a stake through the heart of capitalism. Lerner says he wants to "bring down the stock market" through a campaign of disruption. He said last week that SEIU plans to terrorize bank executives at their homes.
Last year George Goehl, executive director of Chicago-based National People's Action, said that "the banking crisis" was "the next big thing," and "the way to build a big economic justice movement in this country."
Meanwhile, ACORN's new front groups are also deeply involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In Pennsylvania, Action United said it plans to participate in Occupy Pittsburgh on Oct. 15. Organize Now will be occupying Orlando, Florida, on the same day.
New York Communities for Change (NYCC), led by longtime ACORN lobbyist Jon Kest, is one of the major protest groups leading the demonstrations in lower Manhattan. Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment is leading the Occupy L.A. protests.
New England United for Justice, which is headed by former ACORN national president Maude Hurd, is participating in the related "Take Back Boston" protests in Massachusetts, according to watchdog group Judicial Watch. Hurd is a close political ally of Boston mayor Thomas Menino.
The influence of ACORN on the Wall Street protests should have been clear by the unhinged nature of much of the demonstrations. The question is really only whether the radical outfit will push the mob into more and more extreme behavior. Determining the answer to this question will likely not be pleasant.


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Suppose X is a pure dimensional projective complex scheme, reducible and non-reduced but without embedded components of lower dimension. Let $X=\cup X_i$ be the decomposition such that $X_i$ is set-theoretically irreducible and $\dim(X_i\cap X_j)<\dim(X_i)$.
Let $F_X$ be a torsion free sheaf of $\mathcal{O}_X$-modules. If $F$ is generically locally free on each $X_i$ then one can define its multi-rank. What to do if $F|_{X_i}$ is not generically locally free?
For example let $X:=(x^p=0)\subset\mathbf P^2$ be the multiple line. Let $F_j$ be the $\mathcal{O}_X$ module generated by $x^j$. For $0 < j < p$ it is not locally free at any point.
My guess: let $pt\in X_i$ be generic enough closed point. Let $p_i$ be the generic multiplicity of $X_i$. At the point $pt\in X$ consider the intersection of $X_i$ with the generic plane of the complementary dimension. This gives the sub-scheme $Y\subset X $ supported on $pt$. Take the fraction $\frac{length(F\otimes\mathcal{O}_Y)}{p_i}$ as the rank on $X_i$.
In the previous example this gives the rank of $F_j$: $\frac{p-j}{p}$.
Is this the commonly accepted definition? References?


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5€ discount on your first order for any purchase over 50€ with the code "WELCOME"
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As one of the largest vineyards in France, the Rhone Valley, located in the south-east of France, can also boast some of the oldest vineyards in the country.
The Côtes du Rhône wine is the fruit of history and a vast vineyard! Although initiated by the Greeks, the viticulture of the Côte du Rhône was developed by the Romans. In order to create a large vineyard in Gaul near Italy, they will start important works. The history of the Rhone wine will also be marked by barbarian invasions. Wine lovers, they will increase the cultivation of vines on the Côte du Rhône to support their personal consumption. However, wars led to the destruction of the vines. The clergymen, and more precisely the popes' love for this wine, will then revive the vineyard and contribute to its fame (notably Pope Clement).
The wines of the Rhône represent about thirty appellations and are mainly red. Some famous great growths are hidden, however, among the great local appellations: Côte Rôtie and Crozes-hermitage (for the north), Châteauneuf du Pape and Beaumes-de-Venise (for the south), for example.
Among the grape varieties most commonly used in the composition of Rhone wines, syrah, black grenache and mourvèdre for red wines, marsanne and viognier for white wines are the main ones. However, many other grape varieties are used to make these wines: Vaccarèse, Muscardin, Muscat Noir, Terret Noir, Carrignan Noir, Carrignan Noir, Marselan, Clairette Rose, Bourboulenc, Roussanne, Picpoul, Ugni Blanc, Vermentino, and so on.
The wine of the Rhone is a wine of character, very typical, rich in aromas and fruit.
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In my Business Organizations course this semester, we have been spending some time thinking about the collection and use of consumer data by corporations. We have looked at the types of information that companies gather, how they employ statisticians to "weaponize" this information, and whether (and in what ways) the government might effectively (and constitutionally) regulate in this area.
Our discussion has been particularly well timed, given recent articles exposing corporate practices and proposals floated by the Obama administration to address certain types of consumer data mining practices.
One thing that surprised me in speaking with students was how unworried many of them were about corporations carefully monitoring and cataloging their behavior and characteristics. As one student remarked, "If all of this means that Target knows when I'm in my second trimester and sends me free coupons for lotions, I think that's great!"
I have a hunch that part of the comfort with corporate "data management" is a result of generational differences: many of my 24- or 25-year-old students have grown up in an environment in which life is lived online without window shades and where privacy may be less valued. Another part of the story may simply be a lack of understanding of how manipulative corporations actually are.
This leads me to wonder if with a greater knowledge of the science of advertising and marketing, we will see more restrictions on corporate actions. If so, here is to people like Adam Craig and his colleagues who have just written an interesting new article on neural processing during exposure to deceptive advertising.
Here is the abstract:
When viewing advertisements, consumers must decide what to believe and what is meant to deceive. Accordingly, much behavioral research has explored strategies and outcomes of how consumers process persuasive messages that vary in perceived sincerity. New neuroimaging methods enable researchers to augment this knowledge by exploring the cognitive mechanisms underlying such processing. The current study collects neuroimaging data while participants are exposed to advertisements with differing levels of perceived message deceptiveness (believable, moderately deceptive, and highly deceptive). The functional magnetic resonance imaging data, combined with an additional behavioral study, offer evidence of two noteworthy results. First, confirming multistage frameworks of persuasion, the authors observe two distinct stages of brain activity: (1) precuneus activation at earlier stages and (2) superior temporal sulcus and temporal-parietal junction activation at later stages. Second, the authors observe disproportionately greater brain activity associated with claims that are moderately deceptive than those that are either believable or highly deceptive. These results provoke new thinking about what types of claims garner consumer attention and which consumers may be particularly vulnerable to deceptive advertising.
Related Situationist posts:
- The Situational Effects of Food Advertising
- The Marketing Situation of Doritos (FTC Complaint)
- The Big Game: What Corporations Are Learning About the Human Brain
- Miss Representation – Premieres Tonight on OWN
- Hey Dove! Talk to YOUR parent!
- Barbie Commercials Across the Decades and the Implications on Female Identity and Objectification
- The Marketing Situation of Children.


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Lawyers argue to free man charged in lying
BOSTON - Lawyers for a man charged with lying to investigators after the Boston Marathon bombings are asking a federal judge to release him from jail, saying he had nothing to do with the deadly bombings and isn't a flight risk.
BOSTON - Lawyers for a man charged with lying to investigators after the Boston Marathon bombings are asking a federal judge to release him from jail, saying he had nothing to do with the deadly bombings and isn't a flight risk.
Robel Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, faces a detention hearing Monday in U.S. District Court. Defense attorneys said in court documents filed Saturday that authorities' claim that Phillipos gave them conflicting accounts is "refutable."
"This case is about a frightened and confused 19-year-old who was subjected to intense questioning and interrogation, without the benefit of counsel, and in the context of one of the worst attacks against the nation," lawyers Derege Demissie and Susan Church wrote. "The weight of the federal government under such circumstances can have a devastatingly crushing effect on the ability of an adolescent to withstand the enormous pressure and respond rationally."
Phillipos was charged last week with lying to investigators about visiting bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's college dorm room on April 18, three days after the bombings. Two other friends were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room.
Phillipos was at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where all four men had studied, by coincidence on April 18, his lawyers said in the court papers. He had taken a leave of absence in December and hadn't spoken to Tsarnaev or the other two men for more than two months, they said.
"By sheer coincidence and bad luck, he was invited to attend a seminar on campus on April 18," the night the three allegedly went to Tsarnaev's dorm room, according to the documents. "As such, he did not have much to offer the authorities regarding the investigation of the suspect."
To support their request for bail, the lawyers filed affidavits from friends and relatives of Phillipos who described him as a considerate, thoughtful and friendly young man, the son of a single mother who emigrated to the United States from Ethiopia. They said he wasn't a flight risk, noting that he is lifelong resident of Massachusetts and has many relatives there.
Phillipos faces a maximum of eight years behind bars and a $250,000 fine if convicted.


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In the last years the power consumption of high performance computing clusters has become a growing problem because number and size of cluster installations raised and still is raising. The high power consumption of the clusters results from the main goal of these clusters: High performance. With a low utilization the cluster hardware consumes nearly as much energy as when it is fully utilized. In these low utilization phases the cluster hardware can theoretically turned off or switched to an lower power consuming mode. In this thesis a model is designed to estimate the power consumption of the hardware with and without energy saving mechanism. With the resulting software it is possible to estimate the cluster power consumption for different configurations of a parallel program. Further energy aware hardware can be simulated to determine an upper bound for energy savings without performance leakage. The results show that is a great energy saving potential for energy aware hardware even in high performance computing. This potential should motivate research in mechanism to control the energy aware hardware in high performance clusters.
|Document type:
|Master's thesis
|Date Deposited:
|01 Sep 2010 12:46
|Faculties / Institutes:
|The Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science > Department of Computer Science
|004 Data processing Computer science
|Uncontrolled Keywords:
|HPC , Power Consumption , Energy Efficiency , Simulation


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Ariz. town remembers the 4th, fallen firefighters
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — They remembered the Fourth, but also the 19.
At Bistro St. Michael on Whiskey Row in this old West town, 19 candles burned beneath red, white and blue bunting, one for each firefighter killed last weekend battling a wildfire not far from the place they called home.
In a quiet neighborhood near the high school, which at least five of them attended, 19 miniature U.S. flags were planted in front yards, each pole tied with the purple ribbon that commemorates fallen firefighters.
At the makeshift memorial on the fence that wrapped around the elite Hotshots firefighting team's headquarters, people left 19 potted plants, 19 pinwheels, 19 handwritten cards, 19 religious candles.
On a day meant to ponder the nation's birth, and those who built and defended it over 237 years, Prescott's residents had 19 of their neighbors, their friends, their relatives to remember.
"I just wanted to thank them and let them know that they're heroes and that they're missed," said Susan Reynolds, who hung a piece of fabric with an expression of thanks on a string of panels that hung like a prayer flag on the fence.
Away from the celebrations, public memorials and the fireworks planned for later Thursday, some of the fallen firefighters' families were quietly trying to come to terms with their own personal loss. Occasionally, relatives would emerge to speak about the fallen.
"There's no celebration today," said Laurie McKee, whose 21-year-old nephew, Grant McKee, died in the fire. "We're doing OK, but it's still up and down."
McKee's father and aunt picked up items recovered from his truck on Wednesday night, and were comforted when the fire chief told them that Grant McKee had been part of "the Navy Seals of firefighting," his aunt said. His family was planning to spend the day at home, visiting with relatives flying in for his funeral.
Initial autopsy results released Thursday showed the firefighters died from burns, carbon monoxide poisoning or oxygen deprivation, or a combination of the factors. Their bodies, which are in Phoenix for the autopsies, were expected to be taken 75 miles northwest to Prescott on Sunday. Each firefighter will be in a hearse, accompanied by motorcycle escorts, honor guard members and American flags.
A memorial service planned for Tuesday is expected to draw thousands of mourners, including firefighters' families.
The Hotshots crew had deployed Sunday to what was thought to be a manageable lightning-caused forest fire near the small town of Yarnell, about 60 miles from Phoenix. Violent winds fueled the blaze and trapped the highly trained firefighters, most of them in the prime of their lives. The Hotshots deployed their fire shelters, which can briefly protect people from flames, but only the crew's lookout survived.
The nation's biggest loss of firefighters since 9/11, Sunday's tragedy raised questions of whether the usual precautions would have made any difference in the face of triple-digit temperatures, erratic winds and dry conditions that caused the fire to explode. A team of forest managers and safety experts is investigating what went wrong and plan to release initial findings by the weekend.
Nearly 600 firefighters continue to fight the blaze, and it was 80 percent contained as of Thursday night. The fire has destroyed more than 100 homes and burned about 13 square miles. Yarnell remained evacuated, but authorities hope to allow residents back in by Saturday.
Operations section chief Carl Schwope said the morale of firefighters is going up as they move toward full containment. He said they want to put the fire out as a way to pay their respect to the fallen firefighters.
"I think we're getting to the point now where this fire's almost out, we'll all go home and it's a whole new reality," he said.
Meanwhile, Prescott officials were working to retool the city's traditional over-the-top celebration in the wake of the tragedy. They plan to still shoot off fireworks despite tinder-dry conditions as the community of 40,000 tries to mourn its dead without compromising its history. The mantra for days has been celebration, not grief.
Fire officials say they will be able to deploy the pyrotechnics safely, pouring water on the detonation area if necessary.
Across town from the July Fourth carnival, the wife of the Hotshots leader and founder spoke publically about her husband, Eric Marsh, for the first time since his death.
"Eric was 90 percent a Granite Mountain Hotshot, and the 10 percent was left for us," Amanda Marsh said.
Greg Fine, whose daughter Leah had been engaged to McKee, circled the memorial at the Hotshots headquarters, taking photos of the tributes to the man who was to be his son-in-law.
On his shirt, he wore a laminated photo of McKee with his daughter, who was grinning with short bleach blond hair. They had been engaged for 1 1/2 years. Fine said his daughter is avoiding the crowds. She and her father plan to spend the afternoon with McKee's family at home.
"We're going to probably laugh and cry and have something to eat, and then laugh and cry some more," he said. Then he said he was glad other residents were celebrating the Fourth.
"Life has to go on," he said.


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Two late miscues cost New York Yankees
- Yankees dropped their first series at Yankee Stadium to Toronto in nearly two years.
- Aaron Sanchez (1-0) gave up Carlos Beltran's tying RBI hit in the eighth.
- The Blue Jays won for the seventh time in 10 games.
NEW YORK – Dellin Betances sailed a pickoff attempt into right field. And then, David Robertson didn't even bother to hold Jose Bautista on base.
A day after Brian McCann's indecision at first base cost the Yankees in their first loss to Toronto in the Bronx after 17 straight wins, two more mistakes cost them a chance for a series win.
Betances' two-base error set up a go-ahead sacrifice fly for Munenori Kawasaki in the eighth inning. After New York tied it in the bottom half, Robertson's lapse let Bautista move into scoring position ahead of Dioner Navarro's RBI single.
After rallying three times Sunday, the Yankees lost 5-4 to the Blue Jays to drop their first series at Yankee Stadium to Toronto in nearly two years.
"Our miscues is what cost us in this series," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We've got to be better at that."
Bautista reached on a fielder's choice against Robertson (1-3), stole second without a throw and scored on Navarro's liner to center field for the final lead.
"I just let him slip. I didn't think he'd be going, Robertson said. "I just didn't have my sharp stuff."
Bautista was running on his own.
"I just took a chance and said I'm going to try and take a hop step when he comes set, and if he doesn't fake, I'm going to run," Bautista said. "He went to the plate, and I had the easiest stolen base. I got in scoring position early in the at-bat for Dioner."
Aaron Sanchez (1-0) gave up Carlos Beltran's tying RBI hit in the eighth. Kawasaki had put Toronto ahead with a flyball that followed Betances' wild throw. The first-time All-Star opened the inning with a walk to Colby Rasmus.
"My cleat got stuck," Betances said. "As soon as that happened I had a feeling I was going to throw it away."
The Blue Jays won for the seventh time in 10 games following the All-Star break — the same record as the Yankees. But their first series win in New York against the AL East rival since Aug. 27-29, 2012, sent Toronto to Boston with a one-game lead over the Yankees for the second AL wild card.
"They beat us," Derek Jeter said. "That's the bottom line."
Juan Francisco homered off Shane Greene leading off the fifth to put Toronto up 2-0. But Chase Headley hit his first homer with the Yankees, a drive off J.A. Happ, and two pitches later Francisco Cervelli hit his first homer in 15 months to tie it in the sixth.
Casey Janssen pitched the ninth for his 16th save.
Jeter made two nice stops at shortstop and Brendan Ryan, a shortstop playing second base, also flashed some impressive leather while playing in front of Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who wears No. 2 to honor his favorite player as a kid. The injured star was on the East Coast for a second opinion on his hip flexor from a doctor in Philadelphia.
Jeter said he wasn't aware Tulowitzki was at the game — or that he was hurt.
Bautista had a run-scoring grounder to first base after Jose Reyes led off the game with a single and Melky Cabrera doubled. Francisco led off the fifth with a drive into the second deck in right field for a 2-0 lead.
But Happ gave it all back in a three-pitch span in the bottom half. First, Headley hit a drive deep to left. With a 1-0 count, Cervelli sent a shot to right-center that glanced off a leaping Cabrera's glove and hit the top of the right-field wall.
Rausmus put Toronto back up with a double to left-center in the sixth, chasing Greene after 5 1-3 innings.
"I got to have a short memory, but that one hurt," Greene said of the pitch to Rasmus.
Greene allowed eight hits and three runs in his second straight difficult outing after beginning his career as a starter with two outstanding outings.


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Please join us for the annual LIS Holiday Party on Tues 12/17 from 4:00-6:00pm at American Flatbread in the Marbleworks. Light refreshments will be provided with a cash bar. Families and partners are welcome to attend. An Outlook invitation will be sent to everyone shortly.
Please note that both libraries will close at 3:30pm that day. We hope to see you soon to celebrate the holidays and the end of a great semester!
-The R&R Crew