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Not two years after setting out on her own, Douglas beat Russia's Viktoria Komova for the all-around title Thursday night, becoming the third straight U.S. athlete to win gymnastics' biggest prize and the first African-American to do so. It was her second gold medal of the London Games, coming two nights after she and her "Fierce Five" teammates gave the United States its first Olympic title since 1996.
"It feels amazing to be the Olympic champion," Douglas said.
Puts her in a special category, too. Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin are the only other Americans to win the Olympic all-around gold.
The Americans have been looking for their "next Mary Lou" since she won in 1984, and now they've got her in the 16-year-old Douglas. Throw in her adorable "Flying Squirrel" nickname and sweet backstory, and Douglas' two gold medals certainly won't be her only riches.
"I haven't thought about that," Douglas said. "I just wanted to seize the moment. You have to learn how to enjoy the moment."
Her smile alone is enough to dazzle Madison Avenue, and her personality is bigger than she is.
She's even managed to make Oprah Winfrey cry. Douglas had barely gotten off the medals stand when the talk show maven said on Twitter that she was "so THRILLED for Gabby. Flowing happy tears!!"
Coach Liang Chow told Douglas the gold was hers after an electrifying floor routine, but she had to wait another five minutes until it was official. That's because Komova, runner-up at last year's world championships, was still to come.
Komova's floor routine was impressive, as well. Finished, she stood at the center of the arena staring intently at the scoreboard, fingertips pressed to her lips, teammate Aliya Mustafina rubbing her shoulder. When the final standings flashed, Komova dropped her head and headed to the sidelines, tears falling.
Mustafina and Aly Raisman finished with identical scores of 59.566, but the Russian got the bronze on a tiebreak. The lowest scores for both gymnasts were dropped, and the remaining three were totaled. That gave Mustafina a total of 45.933 and Raisman 45.366.
"I'm still upset because I could have been gold and I didn't get it," said Komova, her silver medal buried in the pocket of her warm-up jacket.
Douglas, meanwhile, was grinning ear to ear. Up in the stands, her mother, Natalie Hawkins, embraced her children and then shared a long hug with Missy Parton, whose family took Douglas in after she moved to West Des Moines, Iowa, and now counts her as one of their own.
"She inspires me," Hawkins said, referring to her champion. "To keep it together in that moment when it meant so much says a lot about her."
When Douglas first told her mother she wanted to move to train with Chow, who coached Shawn Johnson, Hawkins was deadset against it. A single mother, she couldn't uproot her family, and there was no way she was going to allow her youngest child go off by herself.
But Douglas' two older sisters lobbied on her behalf, giving their mother a list of reasons why Gabby should be allowed to move. The only reason to stay: They would miss her.
The move was hard on Douglas, too. Though the Partons treat her like their fifth daughter and are now so close to Hawkins they may as well be related, Douglas missed her family and her dogs. As recently as January, she second-guessed her decision. But she also knew Chow and his wife, Li Zhuang, could get her where she wanted to go.
"We had to work with her consistency," said Martha Karolyi, coordinator of the U.S. women's team. "She had the skills. She had the lightness. She was flying all the time, but sometimes she would get out of control. But we worked on that, and it really helped that Chow has this very nice temper, that very calmly he was able to make the corrections and strongly spell out the expectations to her."
Like 10 days ago.
Douglas has made a stunning rise this year, going from someone who couldn't stay on a piece of equipment at last year's U.S. championships to beating world champ Jordyn Wieber at last month's Olympic trials. She was now one of the favorites, and being in the spotlight became a little too much to take.
"I think she was a little bit scared of what's ahead of her. That's big pressure," Chow said.
Known for his easy smile and warm personality, Chow pulled Douglas aside for a pep talk. Whatever he said worked, because she's been unflappable since she first took the floor in London.
"It takes lots of suffering and hardship until you climb to the top," Karolyi said. "It depends on your character how you take those times."
As she did in Tuesday night's team final, Douglas set the tone with the very first event, vault.
Once again doing the difficult Amanar – a roundoff onto the takeoff board, back handspring onto the table and 2.5 twisting somersaults before landing – Douglas took a small hop to the left and then another, putting her dangerously close to the out-of-bounds line. She never looked down, but it was clear she knew how close she was, twisting her upper body to the left to absorb the momentum and keep her legs from moving.
She stayed in place – and in bounds – and her 15.966 gave her a lead she never relinquished.
Komova cut Douglas' lead in half on uneven bars, where she looks more like a delicate hummingbird as she flies between the bars. Her routine is incredibly difficult, yet she delivers it with such lightness and style. She took a small hop on her dismount, but instantly camouflaged it by thrusting her hands into the air and turning to salute the judges.
When her score of 15.966 was announced, she nodded slightly as she zipped her warm-up jacket all the way to her chin.
Next came balance beam, where Komova and Douglas have struggled. Komova's fall during team competition at last year's worlds hurt Russia's chance of catching the Americans; Douglas might have won the U.S. title if not for a fall on the second day of competition.
With the stakes now higher than ever, both were clutch. Most of Komova's tricks were landed with confidence, and her sheep jump – where she thrusts her head and arms back while kicking her feet behind her – was exquisite, the soles of her feet brushing her ponytail.
But Douglas did her one better. She brimmed with confidence as she whipped off a series of back handsprings, landing as easily as she had during practice. She knocked out a front somersault with such power the thud of her landing echoed throughout the O2 Arena.
She took a small hop forward on her dismount, but it hardly mattered. The look on her face said it all: Yeah, I got this.
"She demonstrated she is an Olympic champion," Chow said. "She dealt with a tough job and I think she did very well."
Her score of 15.5 extended her lead over Komova to more than three-tenths of a point going into the final rotation, floor exercise.
And so the gold came down to the two of them after 2010 world champion Aliya Mustafina and American Aly Raisman fell out of the running after errors on balance beam.
Though Chow told Douglas not to look at the scoreboard, she admitted she couldn't resist. A few times.
"After vault," she said. "And bars. And beam. And floor."
"She's not a good listener," Chow chimed in, smiling.
Turns out knowing where she stood didn't hurt her performance.
Douglas gets more air on her tumbling passes than the NBA's Carmelo Anthony, whom she and her teammates met the other day, and she lands them without a wobble. Unlike most gymnasts, who may as well use elevator music it matter so little, her "We Speak No Americano" is as big a part of her routine as any trick. Every pass is landed on a beat of the peppy techno music, and don't be surprised if kids at the clubs rip off her dance moves.
She had the crowd clapping – even the hard-to-please Karolyi was moving and grooving – and she threw the judges more than one playful grin.
"I love this routine," she said. "I can express myself."
Her score of 15.033 meant Komova needed a 15.36 or better to win. When she didn't come close, Douglas grabbed herself another gold.
The move, sacrifices, doubts, tears – all of it – had been worth it.
"I don't ever recall anybody this quickly rising from an average good gymnast to a fantastic one," Karolyi said. "She's just so much a nice girl and so hardworking and dedicated. … She just loves gymnastics and she really loves to be on the top."
"I love this routine," she said. "I can express myself."
Her score of 15.033 meant Komova needed a 15.36 or better to win. She didn't come close, and Douglas grabbed herself another gold.
"I was like, 'All the hard work has paid off,"' she said.


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League tourneys set to impact NCAA seeding
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Selection Sunday is now days away, making this week the last chance for teams to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, stay close to home — or simply earn a bid.
The Big Ten has already wrapped up its early tournament , with seventh-ranked Michigan playing its way into similar position as last year when the Wolverines got hot late, won the league tournament and went on to the NCAA Sweet 16. And the West Coast Conference concludes with Tuesday's final between No. 6 Gonzaga and BYU in Las Vegas.
Now college basketball's other top conferences are heading into their tournaments. The Atlantic Coast Conference opens Tuesday. The Big East, Big 12, Pac-12, Southeastern Conference open play Wednesday, while the American Athletic Conference Tournament starts Thursday.
Here are storylines to watch:
Top-ranked Virginia, which became the unanimous No. 1 in the AP Top 25 on Monday, begins in Thursday's quarterfinals and looks solid for a No. 1 NCAA seed regardless of what happens in Brooklyn . The Cavaliers are No. 1 in the RPI and in KenPom, won the ACC regular-season race by four games and own a 9-1 record against Quadrant 1 opponents through Sunday's games — Quadrant 1 contests are home games vs. teams ranked 1-30 in RPI, neutral games vs. 1-50 and away games vs. 1-75.
The other question is what happens with rivals Duke and North Carolina.
The fifth-ranked Blue Devils open play in Thursday's quarterfinals while sitting at No. 3 in KenPom and No. 4 in the RPI. A run to a second straight ACC Tournament title could help them snag a No. 1 seed.
As for the No. 12 Tar Heels, they finished tied for third in the standings but ended up as the No. 6 seed due to tiebreakers. Yet they enter Wednesday's second-round game against the Wake Forest-Syracuse winner with 10 Quadrant 1 wins, second only to Kansas (11) — and that could have them in contention for a 2-seed despite their low ACC Tournament seeding.
The ACC has a national-best five teams in the AP Top 25.
Villanova hopped over Xavier to reach No. 2 in Monday's poll, though the third-ranked Musketeers are the No. 1 seed in the Big East Tournament. And Villanova swept the regular-season series.
Both teams open play in Thursday's quarterfinals in New York's Madison Square Garden, with Xavier facing the St. John's-Georgetown winner and Villanova facing the DePaul-Marquette winner. And one — maybe both? — could end up earning No. 1 NCAA seeds.
Ninth-ranked Kansas enters the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, as the top seed and in the running for a No. 1 NCAA seed. The Jayhawks face the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State winner in Thursday's quarterfinals.
No. 14 Texas Tech, the second seed, opens play against the Iowa State-Texas winner, while No. 18 West Virginia faces bubble team Baylor to wrap up the quarterfinals.
No. 15 Arizona enters the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas as the top seed. The Wildcats will face the Arizona State-Colorado winner in Thursday's quarterfinals as the only AP Top 25 team in the field.
The Southeastern Conference Tournament begins Wednesday in St. Louis and ends Sunday a few hours before the field of 68 is announced. No. 13 Tennessee and No. 16 Auburn shared the regular-season title, though the Tigers claimed the No. 1 seed.
Both teams open play in Friday's quarterfinals, with Auburn facing the Alabama-Texas A&M winner and Tennessee facing the LSU-Mississippi State winner.
No. 23 Florida is the other ranked team in the SEC field.
No. 8 Cincinnati and No. 11 Wichita State met over the weekend to determine the American Athletic Conference regular-season title. Could they do it again in the AAC Tournament?
Both look like candidates to be a No. 3 seed at least depending on how things go in Orlando when the tournament begins Thursday. The top-seeded Bearcats open in Friday's quarterfinals against the SMU-Connecticut winner, while the second-seeded Shockers face the Tulane-Temple winner.
Also lurking in Wichita State's half of the bracket is No. 21 Houston, which is closing in on its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2010 and only its second in 26 years. The Cougars face the East Carolina-UCF winner.

subset: commoncrawl


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Taureau VIII is a painting by French contemporary artist Christophe Deputy.
The artist is treating, with this series, a very controversial subject: the bullfight. But rather than depicting the confrontation between man and beast, the violence and slaying or the surrounds, Christophe Dupety focuses on the portrayal of the animal itself, which takes centre stage of his composition in a vertical format (65cm x 50cm) or square format (100cm x 100cm).
It is the animal's brute force which fascinates Christophe Dupety and which he skillfully captures in his painting. All the beauty and power of the animal's movement. A movement full of contortion which the artist reproduces with a single stroke of the brush, excitable and perfectly controlled, resplendent with a multitude of colors.
With this series of contemporary paintings, Christophe Dupety is celebrating life, its wild side, free and untamed, and is offering us a few stills of an animal which is fighting for its life.


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I talked to Orlando City Soccer Club's Kevin Molino and a couple of his teammates who've played alongside him over the past four years for a feature on the midfielder for the Orlando Sentinel.
Molino, who set a new USL PRO single-season record for goals scored last Saturday, is one of five current players looking to wrap up their third title in four years with the Lions when the playoffs open next month.
As much as I've already written about Molino this season, it turns out there was even more to be expressed. Not all of the quotes I gathered from Molino, Orlando City coach Adrian Heath, goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo and defender Rob Valentino could fit into the story. So I've provided them below. Enjoy.
( – Click here to read J.C.'s feature on Kevin Molino for the Orlando Sentinel – )


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For part 87 of our continuing report: "Wealthy People Being Cheap," we turn to Freehold, N.J., where the owner of a Rolls-Royce Phantom needed to stop into Walmart for savings — but didn't want to skimp on the parking spaces.
Notice that not only is the Phantom parked in a deserted portion of the lot, it's positioned to take up four slots, likely to prevent the chances of other shoppers parking nearby and spreading their poverty cooties. But it's also historic: if the driver bought groceries, it would be the first time anything inside a Rolls Royce was labeled "Great Value."
Hat tip to George!


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Decision on Taunton High stadium delayed after joint council, school committee meeting
TAUNTON — City Councilor Donald Cleary doesn't think Tuesday night's nearly three-hour discussion of a $2.7 million appropriation to pay for new high school bleachers, bathrooms and press box was an exercise in futility.
"I think we succeeded in getting the process in motion," Cleary said on Wednesday.
The council's marathon meeting Tuesday night brought together members of the school committee and representatives of architectural firm Design Partnership of Cambridge.
The intent was to discuss a $3.2 million proposal by Design Partnership to replace Taunton High School's nearly 40-year-old bleachers, press box and athletic field bathroom facilities.
The school committee already has committed to utilize $500,000 from its revolving, school-choice fund to help pay for the project.
A decision whether to adopt or reject the $3.2 million plan was delayed after councilor Jeanne Quinn said she would need more detailed information before making up her mind.
She also said it didn't serve a useful purpose to continue pointing out previous mistakes that led to the need to fund the bleacher project.
"We can go on and on rehashing old history, but we can't go back," Quinn said. "But how can we rule on this without real numbers?"
Council President A.J. Marshall backed Quinn, saying that he likewise needed more precise figures.
"We need to do this as appropriately and cheaply as possible and with no fluff," said Marshall, who stressed that the THS field should represent "a sense of pride" as "a reflection of our community."
Design Partnership Principal Daniel Colli said he would provide those cost details within a week to both the council and school committee.
The formal plan presented by Colli would reduce total bleacher seating capacity from 2,879 to 2,020.
The new bleachers would again be built of galvanized steel and aluminum, but would emphasize safety by featuring a 42-inch guardrail, handrails in aisles, footboards that are filled in to prevent falls and special handicap-accessible seating for people in wheelchairs.
In the past year, two children were injured when they fell through the old bleachers.
The press box would include a full-service elevator, as opposed to a "limited use" version, and would be placed within the upper portion of the bleachers.
Councilor Gerald Croteau was highly critical of Design Partnership for what he said is an exorbitant 12 percent rate of $285,000 for its design expertise. Croteau said the firm's "going rate" in 2010, during the high school's construction upgrade,s was only five percent.
Councilor Deborah Carr asked why the bleachers can't be constructed of less expensive, durable plastic. Colli, however, said bleachers need to be made of steel, aluminum or a combination thereof.
Carr also stressed that the city needs to be frugal at this juncture with the spectre of repairing City Hall downtown looming large. That building has been closed since a 2010 arson fire. Previous estimates to renovate City Hall have ranged from $15 million to $23 million.
"City Hall sits in a pile of rubble and the (renovation) plan is about to run out," Carr said.
Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. said he was confident maintenance workers at the high school, which sits next to Parker Middle School, would provide adequate oversight of the new bleachers.
Councilor Sherry Costa Hanlon asked for a cost analysis dating back to 2010 including all soft costs, which consist of unforeseen changes in construction.
It came to light in 2009 that the cost of installing the bleachers, bathrooms and new press box —as first thought when the project was initially proposed — would not be covered by the $112-plus-million it cost to build the middle school and renovate the high school.
A debt exclusion approved by voters covered 17 percent of the first $104 million; the state paid 83 percent of the total $112 million.
Taunton Building Commissioner Wayne Walkden said a previously extended temporary occupancy permit for the field has since expired. A permanent permit, he said, will depend on removing the existing bleachers.
The plan offered by Design Partnership also calls for visiting fans to use bathrooms at the adjacent Elizabeth Pole Elementary School, in order to meet Americans with Disabilities rules requiring easy access to bathrooms.
School Committee member Jordan Fiore reiterated that issue should not be a problem, since the Pole School parking lot has been used by football fans partaking of tailgating activities in the past.
School Superintendent Julie Hackett, in a statement, praised the City Council and mayor for their "sincerity" and "thoughtful questions."
"There was a feeling of unity and camaraderie that makes me proud to work in Taunton," Hackett wrote.


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Read the full story here Web Link posted Wednesday, July 4, 2012, 11:51 AM
Town Square
Steins Beer Garden OK'd by City Council
Original post made on Jul 5, 2012
Read the full story here Web Link posted Wednesday, July 4, 2012, 11:51 AM
Comments (12)
a resident of another community
on Jul 5, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Good for the Mountain View city council for thinking logically on this issue. I think it's stupid to pick on Stein's because of behavior problems from customers of another establishment.
I'm happy Stein's will become an option for visitors to Mountain View. I currently work in north San Jose and frequently use VTA's light rail to visit downtown Mountain View for dinner after work. One can have dinner at an establishment such as Steins and return home on light rail without worrying about getting popped for DUI. I would like support the Mountain View economy by visiting Steins after work but with your proposed hours they'd be shutting down the beer garden by the time I would be showing up after getting off work.
Forcing Stein's to close their beer garden at an arbitrary early hour would defeat its purpose. Especially in the long summer months, Californians like to take advantage of our wonderful climate to enjoy dinner and drinks outside. And Steins' location at 895 Villa Street is in downtown; they should not be governed by rules more appropriate for a quiet residential street.
The economy is still lousy, and Mountain View should be bending over backward to help anyone wanting to bring jobs and tax revenue to your city. Please reconsider your decision on Stein's hours.
Good for Mountain View for figuring this out.
a resident of Whisman Station
on Jul 5, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Agree with Bill Hough. Well done, City Council! Neighbors who are complaining have to realize that they live downtown, and that restauarant building and large outdoor patio existed when they bought. I have no sympathy.
a resident of Shoreline West
on Jul 5, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Well I think we can expect endless noise complaints.
Wonder if they'll complain about freight trains all night and cal train in the mornings.
If nothing else a ratty eyesore will (hopefully) be remodeled. That place looked abandoned even when it was open as Golden Wok.
Welcome to downtown Mountain View...On the left you'll see ratty old house surrounded by chain link fencing, dark old doorways with plants growing out of control, over here we have an lot full of totalled cars, also note the tacky laser and neon signs that glow OPEN 24 hours a day, 14 of which are when the store is closed
Please do not disturb the people dressed like street walkers, those are club patrons and solicitation is a crime.
Enjoy your stay
a resident of The Crossings
on Jul 5, 2012 at 3:07 pm
You could move if you hate it so much. I am sure there is a line of people waiting to take over your place of residence.
Enjoy your new city
a resident of Shoreline West
on Jul 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm
oh noes someone's sarcasm meter is broken. Or was never installed as optional equipment.
BTW when someone is aware of the history of Mt View's downtown, they might not be new to the city.
Just a tip
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Jul 5, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Parking? more people in town? need for more parking... how is that going to work?
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Jul 6, 2012 at 2:06 pm
"A person living in that building" would be affected, not effected, "by where they are living" and there's, not theres, "no way around it."
a resident of Shoreline West
on Jul 6, 2012 at 2:24 pm
" 'A person living in that building" would be affected, not effected, "by where they are living" and there's, not theres, "no way around it. '"
Thank you for the stilted syntax professor. I enjoyed your unnecessary comma as well.
a resident of Willowgate
on Jul 6, 2012 at 3:06 pm
So let me get this right – to be across the street you must have moved in the last 2 years and freely chosen to live one block from Castro St. and half a block from the infamous Monte Carlo night club, half a block from the (BEER) garden of the Tied House brewery and directly across from the outdoor patio still present from the former Golden Wok.
And now you are complaining about noise?
You already chose to be surrounded by some of the city's best (and worst) drinking establishment.
Surely this is exactly what you wanted?
a resident of Castro City
on Jul 8, 2012 at 5:26 am
One must always use caution when deciding if they want to live near problematic alcohol dispensaries. Many of these places have a history of repeatedly violent and unruly situations. You can see them reported here frequently. Location Location Location
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Jul 13, 2012 at 9:21 am
So when, exactly, is the 'diligent' City council going to deal with the complaints(on-going) about the Monte Carlo? In a couple more years like they did with the Slimelite! Maybe after someone gets murdered after closing time.
a resident of Sylvan Park
on Jun 5, 2017 at 5:40 pm
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WASHINGTON — The Internet has been blamed for the death of the mail, but now it's offering hope to the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service.
Amazon on Monday announced it will begin Sunday deliveries using the government agency's fleet of foot soldiers, office workers and truck drivers to bring packages to homes seven days a week.
To accommodate the online retailing giant, the Postal Service said it will for the first time deliver packages at regular rates on Sundays. Previously a shipper had to use its pricey Express Mail service and pay an extra fee for Sunday delivery.
The initiative will begin immediately in Los Angeles and New York and spread to much of the rest of the nation next year, Postal Service officials said. The partnership should help the turnaround effort underway at the financially strapped Postal Service, they said.
The USPS has seen its volume of letters drop by half in the past decade as Americans increasingly pay bills online and use Web chat, texting and social media to stay in touch. The Postal Service is asking Congress for the authority to let it drop Saturday delivery of letters but keep weekend shipment of packages so it can continue to exploit the growth of online commerce.
"As online shopping continues to increase, the Postal Service is very happy to offer shippers like Amazon the option of having packages delivered on Sunday," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a statement.
The arrangement with Amazon could open the doors to more partnerships with retailers that are eager to use the 500,000 USPS employees and 31,000 post offices across the country to satisfy consumers who want to get what they buy online faster.
The Postal Service said it would increase staffing in the locations where Amazon will offer the service but did not offer specific numbers.
The USPS also declined to comment on how much additional revenue the new initiative is expected to bring. In 2012, the number of packages the agency delivered rose to 3.5 billion, from 3.3 billion in 2011 and 3.1 billion in 2010.
Even so, the Postal Service lost $21 billion over the past two years — and predicts it will continue to operate deep in the red — largely because of the growing expense of delivering letters.
For Amazon, the partnership steps up a fierce battle to make online shopping closer to the instant-buying experience at bricks-and-mortar stores. In the near future, e-commerce is expected to deliver a variety of items — designer jeans or a jug of milk — within hours after an online order is placed.
Wal-Mart, Google, eBay and others are experimenting with same-day delivery. Amazon has a pilot project called Amazon Fresh, which offers grocery delivery in Los Angeles and Seattle, and plans to expand it nationwide.
With an eye on these efforts, the Postal Service began experimenting with same-day delivery in San Francisco.
For years, Amazon has wanted to deliver packages seven days a week but was stymied by the cost of getting packages from its distribution centers to doorsteps. United Parcel Service, FedEx and the USPS charges consumers and businesses more to deliver on Sundays. In the new deal with Amazon, the Postal Service will not charge Amazon or its customers extra for Sunday shipments.
"This is part of a continuing effort to make online shopping a normal, seven-day-a-week, any-time-you-want experience," said Dave Clark, Amazon's vice president of worldwide operations and customer service. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Analysts say Amazon has been willing to bear financial losses to expand its business. It sells its Kindle tablets at break-even prices or at a loss in the hopes that consumers will buy more books and other goods through the e-reader. It eats shipping costs for subscribers of its Prime membership service to get them to buy more.
The firm wouldn't specify when the Sunday deliveries will be available for the Washington area, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Phoenix and other major metropolitan areas next year. Sunday service won't be available in Hawaii and Alaska, the USPS said.
The Postal Service said it will use its part-time employees, known as city carrier assistants and rural carrier associates, for the Sunday operations. If the volume of packages is projected to be large for a certain Sunday, the agency said it will increase its staffing.
The agency doesn't need approval by Congress to expand its package delivery schedule to seven days.
"People want instant gratification," said Sue Brennan, a spokeswoman for the USPS. "And letter writing, as wonderful as it is, and as good as a letter smells and feels, is a lost art. People aren't doing it any more."
Lisa Rein contributed to this report.


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Don't Say The M Word
Nissan calls it a "mid-model line full redesign of the Quest." In reality, it's an attempt to put new energy and appeal in a minivan that fell short of the promise of its unconventional body styling. The Quest's swoopy body lines and unusual interior styling did not make a big impact with soccer moms, the biggest buyers of these do-everything vehicles. Here's what Nissan decided to change on the 2007 model:
• "Completely redesigned interior," featuring a new instrument panel.
• Fold-flat third-row seats.
• Driver's-side power sliding door.
• New grille and fascia that lend a more powerful face to the front end.
Unfortunately, not enough of the changes affect exterior body styling. For one, the same sweeping beltline decorates the side view. Given that alone, the 2007 Quest likely faces the same cool reception from buyers that it has garnered over the short two years-plus it's been on sale.
More From Popular Mechanics
The M Word Is Okay
Don't think that the minivan popularity contest has reached its peak. Hyundai--playing catch-up--unveiled Entourage, an all-new van for mom's schlepping service, to the press in Chicago on Tuesday. And Entourage has all the necessary minivan features that buyers look for:
• Eight-passenger seating.
• Fold-flat second- and third-row seats.
• Side airbag curtains.
• A 3.8-liter V6 engine matched to a five-speed automatic transmission.
Look for a low price and a modern drivetrain to quickly establish Entourage as a competitive entry in the still-strong minivan market.--Jim Dunne
Chicago Auto Show 8: Toyota Tundra, Honda Civic Si Sedan Concept
Chicago Auto Show 7: Nissan Quest, Hyundai Entourage
Chicago Auto Show 6: Dodge Rampage Concept
Chicago Auto Show 5: Lexus ES 350
Chicago Auto Show 4: Dodge Caliber SRT4, Lincoln Navigator
Chicago Auto Show 3: M-B AMG Musclecars, GM OnStar Upgrade
Chicago Auto Show 2: Chevy Avalanche
Chicago Auto Show 1: Lincoln MKZ, Dodge Nitro
Photos by Jim Dunne
HYUNDAI ENTOURAGE (Sorry about Mr. Cameraman; sometimes it's tough workin' the shows.)


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My Desires Are Boring
by Molly Young
When I think of porn stars, I picture them as the sum total of their accessories: fake boobs, fake hair, fake nails, fake tan. Sasha Grey has none of these things, and when she dons the mask of porn-y makeup, the effect is that you try to picture her without it. Here is why she is fascinating:
1) She is freakishly young
2) She is lovely to look at
3) She does filthy things with zest
4) She is smart (maybe)
We'll start with #1. Sasha was born in Sacramento, CA, and you can hear the Sacramento in her syrupy stoner-voice. She moved to LA at age eighteen intending to make it big in The Industry, which she did. She is famous for asking porn actor Rocco Siffredi to punch her in the stomach during her first scene. He refused, but the anecdote forged a sort of myth-making reverence that surrounds Sasha and gives her the crossover appeal to do photoshoots in Vice and appear in a Smashing Pumpkins music video.
#2: Her loveliness. Sasha is pretty in a bird-like way, with the frame of someone who fidgets a lot. She has brown eyes and root-beer colored hair. Her MySpace profile describes someone who is part ditzy teenager, (likes makeup and Tetris, plays the "gutiar") part bougie New Yorker (Carl Jung, War and Peace, Antonioni), and part dubious feminist (Anais Nin, the self-actualized porn star schtick). There's also something of the hero's quest to her self-presentation:
"I am Sasha Grey," she writes. "There is no other. This is only a brief dossier because I'm not dead and don't feel that a complete biography is yet warranted." She sounds like the beginning of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield.
#3 is filthy things, ie Grey's willingness to engage with holes and fluids in unconventional ways. Details elided here. Arguably the most fascinating aspect of Grey, since you might expect her to leverage her beauty and settle for a nice paycheck doing vanilla films. But no.
#4: She is smart (maybe). Part of Grey's fame relates to her interest in arty films and books. She was home-schooled, and you can perceive the charmingly untutored and eager tastes of an autodidact in her listed interests. Because she has a modicum of self-awareness, Sasha makes good material for theorizing. Is she a frontierswoman? A genius? An opportunist with no scruples? And what about all the gnarly particulars of her field: the physical demands and venereal diseases and fluids and loveless fucking?
Her stage-name was nearly Anna Karina in homage to Godard
I want to think that Sasha Grey is smart. But smart people are typically funny, and porn is humorless by definition. Mostly, it gobsmacks me to think that a girl like me of the same state, watching the same movies, wearing the same size pants would choose to apply herself to an unforgiving vocation in exchange for a seedy fame and a medium-sized amount of money.
Because I somewhat resemble Grey, she fails the basic porn star test: I can't objectify her. This makes the experience of watching her a fraught one. I'm simultaneously disgusted and titillated; identifying with her and dissociating at the same time. Mostly, though, I'm bored. The riddle about Grey is that she's a great performer in an industry that sets a low bar for greatness. Lauding her is like pointing to a particular issue of Readers Digest and claiming it as the best one ever.
This year she won the AVN Award for Female Performer of the Year, which is the porn equivalent of an Oscar. Having reached the top of her profession, I am hoping she will cash out and go do something else. It would be nice to see her exit grandly, like sister nymphet Traci Lords, with a maximized sense of empowerment and a minimal cargo of cynicism. And we'd get to find out whether Grey is interesting because she's in porn or despite it.
Molly Young is the senior contributor to This Recording.
From Some Creepy Guy's Interview With Sasha Grey:
What were you like growing up?
A child becoming an adolescent becoming an adult …I WAS growing up and …slowly becoming an irreverent little sex tart.
How did you find your way into porn?
First I was bored by what I saw and second I felt I could change that…I researched the subject by reading interviews, watching lots of smut …contemplated what kind of porn I wanted to do wrote a mission statement and basically set out to find a quality no bullshit agent to represent me.
Who are your favorite performers to work with and why?
It's Belladonna… everything about her is sensual. She is an inspiration to me and an electric energy that this universe is lucky to have.
You have quite the reputation as an intellectual porn girl. Is that how you would describe yourself?
Like…what? Like really I'm just like being myself like, seriously. Um I'm not going to describe myself as a mindless fuckdoll idiot bimbo. So yes I'm an intellectual I like to learn about the world we live in and the artistic expressions that surround us .
What is it like being a smart girl on a porn set? Is there anyone you can talk to?
I try to prepare my mind and body before a scene and conserve my energy and wit, I try and find my zen state before a scene…I mean I'm not rude I'll be personable but you have to understand we are like sexual athletes and although it feels fucking great you still have a camera on you…you are still trying to make some half way distant pornography for the consumer.
Who is your favorite philosopher and why?
At the moment Jean-Paul Sartre. I really shouldn't have to explain that if you're into philosophy at all. Also Osho.
Are you the smartest girl in porn?
That's a ridiculous question. I have no idea. What, do I look like a walking IQ test?
Who is the dumbest person you've met in the business?
The person who thinks they are going to be rich and famous like a rock star, hates anal and girls but does it on camera for the right price, stays up for days all methed up spending all their money on shitty drugs and stupid clothes, ends up penniless and a walking porn cliché. You know who I'm talking about, half of the folks in the San Fernando valley. To me that's sounds pretty dumb.
You were the star in Teravision's Broken, what did you think of that project?
I enjoyed it a lot it's closer to the stuff I want to do under my own direction. It's thematic without being lame and it's artsy without losing your erection.
For those who haven't seen you, give us the physical run down.
There are thousands of pictures of me on the web just google my name instead of a lame description you can have a vibrant image of my visage staring back at you from your lcd screen, trust me it's better that way.
We've seen you handle some big dicks. How does someone as petite as you handle that?
You just dig it or you don't. I dig it.
How long do you plan to be in the biz and where would you like to take your career?
Oh don't worry I'll be around for awhile if I can help it. I plan on directing soon and continuing to perform of course, diversifying my different business interests.
What turns you on?
Mental dexterity, sexual ambivalence, Chris & Cosey, Merzbow, Godard, Herzog, Harmony Korine, black metal, real tits, honesty.
What turn you off?
War, our government, that there's not yet a cure for HIV/AIDS, Chelsea Football Club, ignorance.
How long between your first sexual experience and your first porn experience?
How was it different?
It was on camera and it was an orgy with some of the top names in porn.
Are there things you do on screen that you don't like off screen?
Nope. My feeling on this is if you don't like it then don't do it. You really don't make enough money to writhe in pain and risk hurting yourself mentally for some unsympathetic porn company making a shit load more money off of you.
Which celebrity should make the next big sex tape?
Would you want to be in it with her/him?
Hell yeah I'd sport a strap on and fuck 'em in the ass just like he's done to us the past eight years.
Is there anything I forgot to ask that you really want to talk about?
Yes I have music/art project called atelecine, for my part in it I sometimes sing, play guitar, keyboards and tape loops that's right I said tape loops bitches. I like to get naked while I record. It's an experimental death dub orgasm kind of project and I also wanted to say support independent films go to an art house and watch something that confuses you and hopefully gets you to talk about afterwards even if you think it sucked.
How about if you pick a question you have never been asked and thrill us?
Nobodies ever asked me if I support condom only porn. The answer is YES until the health care system in this industry gets a whole lot better, I think folks in the biz need to wake up it's not just about HIV/AIDS. Also, educate yourselves young porn girls and guys.
This Recording Is Like Totez Legal Now? OMFG! Sweet!


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During a press briefing at CES on Thursday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini revealed the LG GW990, a Moorestown-powered smartphone that runs Intel's Linux-based Moblin operating system. The product is expected to arrive on the market in the second half of this year.
When Intel lifted the curtain on Moorestown last year, the company contended that it would finally make it possible to bring the x86 architecture to smartphones. The claim seemed somewhat fantastical, but now Intel and LG could potentially deliver on that promise. Moorestown is said to be considerably more energy efficient than Intel's previous Atom offerings, but it's still not totally clear what kind of battery life we can expect to get from devices like the GW990 in real-world usage scenarios. LG says that the product has a 1850mAh battery and can endure five hours of 3G browsing on a single charge.
In some respects, the GW990—which has an impressive high-resolution 4.8-inch touchscreen display—seems more like a MID than a smartphone. It's possible that we won't see x86 phones with truly competitive all-day battery life until the emergence of Medfield, the Moorestown successor that is said to be coming in 2011. It is clear, however, that Intel aims to eventually compete squarely with ARM in the high-end smartphone market.
Intel originally launched the Moblin project in 2007 with the goal of creating an Atom-optimized Linux platform for MIDs. The focus shifted to netbooks when the company started work on Moblin 2, which began shipping on actual hardware last year.
Some of Moblin's underlying components have great potential for facilitating rich smartphone application development, particularly the open source Clutter scene graph framework, which is used to build the Moblin user interface. Clutter—which was created by OpenedHand, a startup that Intel acquired in 2008—has been shown to be well-suited for building touschreen user interfaces. Although it's not yet known whether Clutter is used on the GW990, it seems likely.
The GW990 will be Moblin's first real test running on a smartphone form factor, but the platform is becoming an increasingly desirable choice on netbooks. Samsung had a large number of netbooks on display at CES, but its N127—running Novell's SUSE-based variant of Moblin—really stood out. Moblin's snappy and visually refined user interface is impressive and demonstrates the value that Linux can bring to the netbook market. It's more responsive than Windows XP on the same hardware and it can clearly be customized with a look and feel that is better-suited for small screens.
Although Moblin has a lot of potential, it still suffers from some weaknesses and limitations. When we conducted extensive hands-on testing of Moblin 2 on the Dell Mini 10v back in October, the quality of the user experience was undermined by the platform's incompleteness and lack of stability relative to other Linux-based netbook platforms.
Power management is still a major challenge, even though Intel is working on a number of ongoing projects to boost Moblin's energy efficiency. The Novell engineers we spoke to at CES told us that the Moblin version of the N127 is at battery life parity with the Windows XP version (which means that a future Windows 7 version would likely do better still)
Another impediment for Moblin are the unanswered questions about the extent to which Intel will support the platform. Intel hasn't been particularly responsive to concerns expressed by the Linux development community regarding the lack of proper Linux drivers for the GMA500, an integrated graphics component that Intel sold to many netbook makers.
During the Intel briefing, Otellini cited Nokia as its other major hardware partner for Moorestown smartphone action. As some readers may recall, Intel and Nokia announced a partnership last year to collaborate on Mobile Linux development. They have been working on a shared open source telephony stack for Linux called oPhono, but they haven't had much to say publicly about what kind of hardware they were planning to build together. Now Intel has confirmed that Nokia is on board for Moorestown.
The GW990 is an impressive step forward for Intel's vision of bringing x86 everywhere. The extent of its viability for real-world smartphone devices still remains to be seen. Engadget, which got some hands-on time with the LG GW990, found some evidence that it could potentially be headed to AT&T when it launches later this year.


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Gymnastics Laurel Mylar Figurine Trophy-Copy
by Mr. Trophy
Original price $4.00 - Original price $6.00
Original price
$4.00 - $6.00
Current price $4.00
Figurine Trophy Detail:
• Approximately 2" tall
• Gold finish with Holographic or Standard Mylar and a white marble base
• Gold flexi plate will be adhered to front of marble base with your custom engraving, free of charge up to 50 characters
Engraving Detail:
Our groovy engravers make your experience even easier by formatting the text for you! All content will be centered and engraved in all capital letters. The first 50 characters are included free of charge. We copy and paste the exact spelling you submit, so be sure to double-check before you order. Trophy engraving is done on a gold flexi plate placed on the marble base.


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By Matt Agorist
A new report by ThinkProgress.com unearthed disturbing figures when it came to the number of police-related deaths that occurred in America in the month of March alone.
Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.
According to the report by ThinkProgess, in March alone, 111 people died during police encounters — 36 more than the previous month. As in the past, numerous incidents were spurred by violent threats from suspects, and two officers were shot in Ferguson during a peaceful protest. However, the deaths follow a national pattern: suspects were mostly people of color, mentally ill, or both.
This high number in March increased the average for police killings from every 8.5 hours, to nearly 1 police killing every 6.5 hours in the US.
These numbers are staggering and show a serious problem of the violent tendencies within the US policing apparatus.
Let's look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year 2014, was 14; that is 78 times fewer people than the US.
From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England's, had 26 fatal police shootings in that same time period.
China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.
On average, US police kill people at a rate 70 times higher than any of the other first world countries as they "protect and serve" the American citizens.
So much for the Land of the Free…..
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/american-cops-killed-people-month-march-uk-entire-20th-century/#ss5Y2R2jl8ssOMqo.99


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Time it right
Try surfing the Web for wallet-friendly airfares Mondays (after 3 p.m. ET) through Wednesday nights, says Rick Seaney, CEO of farecompare.com. That's the window airlines have been using lately to clear out their extra seats. They usually post fare increases on Thursdays, which competitors match on Fridays through Sundays. So even though the weekend is your most convenient time to hunt for bargains, it's when you'll find the fewest.
Fill those empty seats
More From Good Housekeeping
If possible, fly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays; your bank account will thank you. Those days are often the least in-demand among airline passengers and therefore the least expensive; Saturdays and Sundays are typically the priciest. A Wednesday-to-Wednesday itinerary can often knock 20 percent off ticket prices versus a Saturday-to-Saturday schedule, says Mike Fridgen, vice president of product management at farecast.com, a search site that forecasts airfare trends.
Head straight to the source
Use a search engine like kayak.com or sidestep.com or a travel-agency site — expedia.com or travelocity.com, say — to shop for the best airline deals. But before you book through them, visit that airline's own site. You may find a better deal. Since the Web is the cheapest way for airlines to sell seats, they can wiggle prices down a notch, sometimes by nearly $100 for a family. This is especially true for low-fare operators, such as AirTran, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, and Virgin America. Bonus: Most airline sites don't charge fees for booking online.
Find secret sales
Try the airline equivalent of a private sale by signing up with airfarewatchdog.com. It can help you find the best-kept secrets in air travel: "promo code fares," offered by individual airlines for select dates and routes. Another way to save: Sign up for e-mail alerts to hear about discounted fares as soon as they come out; Southwest, for instance, has been touting $49 fares on select routes on southwest.com.
Get a suite deal
Booking a suite for your family instead of a couple of standard hotel rooms has always been a money-smart move, but now the discounts are even deeper. Many suite-hotel chains with kitchen facilities (think DoubleTree Guest Suites, Embassy Suites, and Residence Inn) are dangling deals on weekends and at other times when business travelers are scarce. DoubleTree's "Memory Maker Weekend Getaway Package," for instance, has a discount of up to 20 percent at more than 185 locations through May 22.
Find a home away from home
If you have a big clan or simply want ample space for minimal money, consider renting a furnished condo or house at your destination. Sites such as homeaway.com and vrbo.com also help families save on meals, since they can eat in their own kitchen rather than go out, notes Nancy Schretter, managing editor of familytravelnetwork.com, a family vacation Website. For example, a three-bedroom home in Phoenix with a hot tub, heated pool, and Wi-Fi connection costs $850 a week, versus $2,151 for three rooms' worth of accommodations with similar amenities at a La Quinta nearby.
Book a motel with extras
If you need to stick to a rock-bottom budget, look for promotions currently available from motels. Chains like Days Inn, Motel 6, and Super 8 typically don't nickel-and-dime you on extras like parking or coffee, and many offer free breakfasts, says Lynn O'Rourke Hayes, the editor of familytravel.com and a blogger for GoodHousekeeping.com.
Book late
You can cancel some hotel reservations 24 to 48 hours before your stay with no penalty. And at the last minute, prices may drop. So you can search to find similar accommodations for less, or call the hotel you're booked with to ask that they lower the price you reserved if you find a comparable room for less.


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11:37 AMAV Music Morpher Gold 5.0.41
AV Music Morpher Gold 5.0.41 | 12.9 Mb
AV Music Morpher Gold makes detailed audio edits a snap. It is packed full of powerful features including a multi-track recorder and editor, a whole suite of professional effects and our famous patented vocal remover-extractor. AV Music Morpher Gold turns your humble PC into a fully-fledged recording studio which holds the power to help you create your own pop songs, funky remixes or even backing tracks quickly in the comfort of your own home. When you've finished your masterpiece there's a ready-to-use CD burner so your favorite songs to CD and share them with your friends.
Key features:
- Wave Editor allows you to chop, combine and tidy-up any audio file.
- Multi-channel Music Mixer mixes music and voices together to make your own funky new hit songs (works with whole songs or edited clips).
- Effects Mixer and Editor adds and combines studio-quality audio effects for optimal quality and amazing new sounds.
- Voice Remover and Voice Extractor removes/extracts vocals from stereo sounds. (Due to some audio effects, results may vary depending on quality of recording and embedded effects.)
- Multi-track Session mixes all of your favorite tunes together making the creation of your next groovy remix or mega-mix a snap.
Main benefits:
- Extract/remove vocals or music from songs.
- Mix songs, vocals and sound effects together to create new and unique songs.
- Own a premium wave file editor.
- Manage your music effectively.
- Enhance the quality of your entire music collection better than you ever thought possible.
Home Page - http://www.musicmorpher.com/
|Total comments: 0


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OMG!!! I ordered a Squadt fr0g s001 and K11 spot [SWAMP DWLLR] from the squadt store in March.
Playge screwed up and sent a figure out that hasn't even had product shots or any leaked/released info about it. I don't know if it was meant to be an exclusive for a convention or what not, but according to Playge fr0g s003 and k11 spot was still under wraps and planned for a future release.
Anyways, they shipped me the FR0ZN WH0LE (s003) instead of the SWAMP DWLLR (s001). They are offering customers who received the s003 by accident the chance to keep the figure and pay for the correct one. I decided I want both, so I can't wait for my s001 to be on the way.
Well here is what the fr0g s001 and k11 spot SWAMP DWLLR looks like:
and here is the fr0g s003 and k11 spot FR0ZN WH0LE:
There are a few problems with the figure. The flippers have peeling and the foot seems to have a paint chip... It's Mother's Day weekend, and I didn't have a lot of time to really get to know this figure. I will post additional photo's after this weekend.
And here are some of the problems I have:


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Why you should buy the 2008 Dodge Charger Police Edition:
You need a big cruiser, but need muscle car speed. Your department has a bunch of money to spend after a big drug bust. You've got to reunite your band and save an orphanage.
Why you shouldn't buy this car:
You think high-speed pursuits are unnecessary and dangerous. You complain about high gas prices. You think the police shouldn't carry guns. You're a neo-Nazi from Illinois.
Suitability Parameters:
Speed Merchants: No
Fashion Victims: No
Treehuggers: No
Mack Daddies: No
Tuner Crowd: No
Hairdressers: No
Penny Pinchers: No
Euro Snobs: No
Working Stiffs: Yes
Technogeeks: No
Poseurs: No
Soccer Moms: No
Nascar Dads: Yes
Golfing Grandparents: No
Also Consider:
• Ford Crown Victoria P71
• Chevy Impala 9C1
• '74 Dodge Monaco
• Increasing road safety by encouraging good driving behavior and motorist education instead of focusing on narrow-minded and ineffective speed enforcement
• Manufacturer: Dodge
• Model year: 2008
• Base price: $29,160
• Price as tested: $29,740
• Engine type: 5.7-Liter OHV V8
• Horsepower: 340 @ 5000 RPM
• Torque: 390 @ 4000 RPM
• Transmission: 5-Speed Automatic
• Curb weight: 4150 pounds
• LxWxH: 200.1" x 74.5" x 58.2"
• Wheelbase: 120.0"
• Tires: P225/60R18
• 0 - 60 mph: 5.9 seconds
• EPA fuel economy city/highway: 15/23 MPG
• NHTSA crash test rating: ***** front
Also see:
• 2008 Dodge Charger Police Edition, Part One
• 2008 Dodge Charger Police Edition, Part Two


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Earlier this week, I was talking to my brother on the phone, just chatting and asking after his life up in Toronto, and he told me he was applying for a position at a video game company. Of course, I wished him luck. He then proceeded to describe the job responsibilities and requirements, one of them being strong knowledge of online forums and familiarity with social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. My first reaction: "Oh dear merciful God, you wouldn't have to deal with the community, would you?"
Can you blame me? I mean, don't get me wrong; these days, I think we're very fortunate to have a bigger voice and so many avenues of communication with game companies and developers. On the whole, I feel this has been great for both sides.
But you know…we gamers can also be a pretty hard bunch to please.
Over the last two years of blogging, I've followed the news of many game launches with interest, and always, my first thought when picking my way through the zillions of rage-filled posts on official forums and Twitter feeds is, "Daaamn, I really don't envy the community managers!" And especially not those involved with MMOs. Thankfully (or hopefully), much of the abuse appears to stem from a small minority of the fanbase. But some of it still makes me literally cringe in my seat to read. Honestly, I really don't know how CMs manage to do their job and stay sane at the same time.
So this year for Developer Appreciation Week, I'm going to do something different. For the last two years that I did DAW, I gave my thanks and kudos to the development teams for the MMOs I've enjoyed over the last twelve months (along with plenty of mental hugs). But this year, because of time constraints — but also because I truly believe that as a group they deserve my utmost thanks from the bottom of my heart — I want to express my appreciation for the hard-working men and women who work in MMO community management.
So to all the community managers of the wonderful MMOs I play and love: I thank you for your dedication and your social interaction with the community, for your work in providing us with the news we want and relaying information to creators, and for coming up with new and fun ways for us to enjoy awesome games with our friends. And because I know I'm not above bitching and complaining every once in a while, I also thank you for putting up with the likes of me. Here's to another year of DAW!


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23 Feb, 2022 MHP Arena – Ludwigsburg – Germany
Ludwigsburg - Germany
The Simple Minds '40 Years Of Hits' shows have again been rescheduled to 2022.
If you have already bought tickets for the show then your tickets are still valid for the rescheduled shows.
Keep safe everyone and we hope to see you soon!
Simple Minds HQ
Simple Minds celebrate 40 iconic years by embarking upon a major world tour coupled with the release of a career-spanning compilation '40: The Best Of – 1979-2019' out now! – GET ALBUM
TICKETS ON SALE NOW (inc. VIP packages where available)
"We would like to remind all of our fans and members that despite hearing announcements elsewhere regarding possible concert performances etc, it is only when the date is announced here at simpleminds.com that you can be sure the information is 100% official and that contracts have been agreed" – Simple Minds
Can't get the tickets you're looking for? Try the Official Simple Minds Twickets Page where fans sell tickets at face value. Say NO to ticket touts. Visit Twickets Now !
ACCESSIBILITY QUESTIONS? – See our Venue Accessibility Page


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WASHINGTON (AP) – The killing of Osama bin Laden, first presented as a moment of national unity by President Barack Obama, has become something else: a political weapon.
Obama's re-election campaign is portraying his risky decision to go after America's top enemy as a defining difference with his Republican presidential opponent, suggesting Mitt Romney might not have had the guts to order a mission that put lives and perhaps a presidency at stake.
Obama himself is opening up on the raid again – and opening the secretive White House Situation Room as an interview stage – to hail the one-year anniversary.
The broader goal for Obama, whether through campaign web videos or the trappings of the White House, is not to just to remind voters of an enormous victory on his watch. It is to maximize a political narrative that he has the courage to make tough calls that his opponent might not.
'Does anybody doubt that had the mission failed, it would have written the beginning of the end of the president's first term?' Vice President Joe Biden says in laying out Obama's foreign policy campaign message. 'We know what President Obama did. We can't say for certain what Governor Romney would have done.'
The strategy underscores the fact that the Obama who ordered the raid as commander in chief is now seeking a second term as president. The risk is the political blowback that can come if he is seen as crossing a line into politicizing national security.
'Sad,' said a Romney spokeswoman. 'Shameless,' said 2008 Obama election foe John McCain.
Biden even combined the killing of the al-Qaida leader and Obama's support for a failing auto industry into what he called a re-election bumper sticker message.
'It's pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,' the vice president said in a speech on Thursday.
Obama's campaign followed that Friday with a new web video questioning whether Romney would have taken the same path Obama did. If features a quote from a 2007 Romney interview in which he said it was not worth 'moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.'
That prompted Obama's 2008 opponent, Arizona's McCain, to issue a scathing statement in which he accused Obama of playing politics with the bin Laden killing and 'diminishing the memory of September 11th.'
'This is the same president who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't `spike the ball' after the touchdown,' he said. 'And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get re-elected.'
The president's initial words on the bin Laden mission – a raid for which he received wide praise, including from Romney – were ones of sober thanks. Addressing the nation late that night of May 1, 2011, in Washington, Obama said: 'Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11.'
So much for that, the Romney campaign said Friday.
'It's now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to distract voters' attention from the failures of his administration,' Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment for this story, saying Biden's speech and the new campaign video speak for themselves.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the bin Laden raid is a part of Obama's foreign policy story, and 'I think the way that we've handled it represents exactly the balance you need to strike.'
President George W. Bush, when seeking re-election in 2004, faced criticism that he was politicizing the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including with a video at the Republican National Convention that credited him with 'the heart of a president.'
Steve Schmidt, a spokesman and strategist for that Bush campaign, said the bin Laden killing is fair game as a campaign message for Obama.
'It was a courageous political decision to launch the raid where bin Laden was killed. The stakes were enormous,' Schmidt said. 'Had it gone south, there would have been tremendous political ramifications for the president. It's a real event that happened on his watch, by his command.'
In perspective, Schmidt added, the issue won't be a determining factor in an election to be driven by the economy.
Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs. The terror leader was living in a compound in one of Islamabad's suburbs, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years.
The episode is featured prominently in a longer Obama campaign video, narrated by actor Tom Hanks, as an example of decisive leadership.
Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room, captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama's presidency.
From that room, Obama will relive the moment in prime time. The White House granted NBC News' Brian Williams access to the Situation Room, and interviews with Obama and top members of his security team, for a special that has been taped and will air on Wednesday.
It is unclear if the room has been used before as the setting for such an interview. NBC News called it a first for network television. White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said the room itself is only classified if the topic being discussed is, and that reporters have been inside the room before.
Said Schmidt: 'It's part of the advantage of being an incumbent president.'


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For the last few years since finishing residency, I have been grappling with many things. After my disappointing first job as an academic pediatrician (my "dream job" I thought), and my foray into private practice I realized that the system of medicine many of us practice in, corporate medicine with the primary goal of seeing enough patients in the day, simply didn't fit with the what fuels my heart.
I spent two years during my American Academy of Pediatrics Leadership Innovation Fostering Education Fellowship researching physician wellness and in particular how systems and practices must incorporate wellness and burn out prevention at all levels. It is not enough to tell physicians to meditate if they are being "strongly encouraged" to see more and more patients, have burgeoning administrative tasks (click this meaningful use button), have mountains of debt, or are in jobs that they hate because of loan forgiveness, have less and less control over their schedules, and less time to make meaningful relationships with their patients. A mindfulness seminar won't cut it. Physicians everywhere are saying enough! It's to much! Record numbers of our colleagues are walking away from medicine or are joining the ranks of the hospitalists and specialists. What happens to our system when there are more hospitals, urgent cares, and intensive care units than quality, sustainable primary care practices? What will continue to happen when emergency rooms and surgical suites continue to be more lucrative than wellness centers and small, high quality private practices? Does it mean people will be allowed to get sicker and sicker? Does it mean that large hospital systems will continue to invest less into primary care and more into expanding their Emergency Rooms? Money talks, right?
This year I will be undertaking some exciting new endeavors. To try to get back to what inspired the premedical student who had all of the time in the world to sit with my patients, to commune with them, to build with them. We see it all around us. Patients who can afford it are flocking to naturopaths and integrative medicine doctors. The overwhelming response is that those providers listen. They have the time. So I have to make the time.
I have been hustling and working, but I still felt stuck. Stuck in fear. Stuck in a laundry list of things to do. Stuck in the what ifs. Stuck. So again, I use the tools that I have and start to research solutions. I have been listening to a lot of podcasts about following your dreams and reading books about decluttering and re-envisioning your life (see the list below). I even watched Marie Kondo's Tidying on Netflix. I saw the piles of clothes folks had and thought "yuck! How could things get so bad?" And then I did this while my boys are away:
(clothes stored in my closet, attic, and drawers - don't judge me until you try it! Very eye-opening!)
It's time to get unstuck. The piles and piles of donations, maternity clothes to pass down, and work clothes to pass on won't unseat themselves. No one is coming to save me. I am saving myself. Starting right here. In this moment, again. And I will do it again and again PRN (as needed for those who don't abbreviate on their prescriptions). One day at a time.
Above references mentioned:
- Dreams in Drive
- Side Hustle Pro
- Therapy for Black Girls
- Marie Kondo's "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up"
- Dr. Dike Drummond's "Stop Physician Burnout: what to do when working harder isn't working?"
- Tidying Up with Marie Kondo


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I want to know of you, I want to know of you
Xross breeds in the house representin' queens. I'm gonna send this out to
Um, those fake so-called keepin' it real, ha ha, check it out
Verse 1:
I gets the urge to let loose on shit, bringin' the vibe like phife dog and
Midnight black darkness, it's the area or place thats destincive enought to
The bass, my tune throughout the room, and if you want it, it's here to
Now let's warm things up for instance a witness, as I break it down up in
This sentence
He, who shall not follow the funk shall fall, on they face
Not able to dip di in the place, my style is vintage, doper than any wine
On the market
Mics I spark it, flying tracks is my target, (def squad) I handles my
Without lyrics form jason's, I still get's ill, beeotch
Even from the jealosy I recieve, you can't hold me back I won't retreat
I'm determined to be the nicest creation since devices
Or italian ices, no matter what the problem is, I still, ah 1-2, in your
Face like I'm biz
Boy meets world I want to know of you, I want to know of you.
I wanna know if you feel me though (x8)
Verse 2:
I believe in the power of the conscience mind
And if you think something then it becomes something like
If I had to battle a whole crew, if I couldn't beat them
Then my conscience would defeat them, yeah
I wouldn't put my career in jeopardy, but I will let something off if these
People keep stressing me
This is madness, I wish I was around when that midnight train to georgia
Picked up gladis
Listen close life is just what you make of it, if you wanna be happy like
Mary j.
Then hey, then get rid of negativity in your circumference
Or outside your realm in mass abundance
Knowing that the industry is fulling up with drama got some hype (fakness
From people of all types)
Even the so-called keepin' it real type stars are frauds, get the sword
And the question is asked. who is the fake nigga? who is the fake brother
That is always fuckin' up your shit. you wanna know how a niggas fake?
Check it out. sit back and you focus your shit from a general perspective,
And if your shit ain't lookin' tight, there's a fake nigga in your
Circumference. and that's word is born. for the 9-5 area, cause def squad
Forever, reigning much terror.


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The bells at the bottom of the tower-shaped portion of this object appear to be fairly common among Polish spice boxes. The unadorned steeple and the flags at the top of the tower portion of this container are also common among Polish spice boxes. However, none of these motifs appear to be definitive of Polish spice boxes. As a result, there is some doubt as to the provenance of this object.
Spice Box
19.1 cm (height) x 4.8 cm (diameter) (7 1/2 x 1 7/8 in)
Probably Poland
spice boxes
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Jewish decoration and adornment
Jewish art and symbolism
Jewish arts
Judaism -- Liturgical objects
Jewish art objects
19th century
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Adath Israel Collection
Adath Israel Museum, Middletown, CT


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Mass. Tightens Spending After Revenue Misses Mark
Gov. Deval Patrick's administration on Monday ordered tighter controls on state spending and hiring but opted not to revise its revenue estimate for the current fiscal year in the face of lagging tax collections.
Jay Gonzalez, the state Secretary of Administration and Finance, said in a letter to the governor and key lawmakers that he believed the state would have enough revenue to meet its budget obligations.
Tax collections in Massachusetts, while running ahead of a year ago, fell $95 million short of benchmarks during the first three months of the fiscal year that started July 1.
Gonzalez, who is required to periodically review revenue estimates during the year to determine if changes are needed, said he was immediately imposing a cap at current levels on the number of full-time state employees in executive branch agencies. He also said agencies would face new spending limits and ordered department heads to begin drawing up contingency plans in case future budget cuts are needed.
"Although I do not believe there is currently a sufficient basis to revise the FY13 revenue estimates, I am mindful of a number of potential risks that could subsequently require a downward revision of such estimate," Gonzalez wrote.
Among those risks: the costs of the legal crisis stemming from allegations of mishandling drug evidence at a former state Department of Public Health lab in Boston.
Gonzalez said it was his assumption that the costs to the state of responding to the crisis would be taken from the state's so-called rainy day fund, or other "one-time resources," so as not to directly affect the budget's bottom line. Patrick told reporters Monday that he did not yet have an estimate of how much the state would have to spend to deal with the fallout from the investigation.
It was also possible that, by law, the state's income tax rate could automatically fall from 5.25 percent to 5.20 percent on Jan. 1, Gonzalez said, resulting in a loss of about $57 million in revenue for the final six months of fiscal 2013.
Michael Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said he believed the administration was taking the right approach.
"I agree that we don't have enough information at this point to lower the (revenue) forecast, but I also agree there are lots of warning signs," Widmer said. "The administration is wise to take these actions to squeeze spending in anticipate of having to lower the forecast" in the future.
Recent reports have suggested that Massachusetts, which outperformed the nation through most of the economic downturn, might be sliding back a bit. The state has experienced three consecutive months of slow or negative job growth, including a preliminary estimate of 4,800 jobs lost in August.
This program aired on October 15, 2012. The audio for this program is not available.


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salvage, in maritime law, the compensation that the owner must pay for having his vessel or cargo saved from peril, such as shipwreck, fire, or capture by an enemy. Salvage is awarded only when the party making the rescue was under no legal obligation to do so. A claim for salvage ordinarily is allowed if the salvor's activities had some effect in averting the threatened peril even if they were not indispensable. In the United States, salvage is granted for rescues made on navigable streams and lakes as well as on the open sea. Salvage includes a reward designed to encourage rescue operations besides the payment for the value of the services. In setting the amount of the salvage, courts consider relevant factors such as the expense and hazard of the rescue and the price of the ship or goods saved. Salvage is distributed by the court to the owner, the master, and the crew of the rescuing ship, usually according to fixed ratios. Salvage money is not payable to the captain and crew of ships commissioned by a government specifically for rescue operations.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: International Law


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As your best crafting bud, we're here to give you the scoop on the latest trends in the crafting industry. One trend that's been on the rise lately is paper plants—for your home, parties, and everything in between!
Let us show you what we mean…
Brittany Watson Jepsen of The House That Lars Built is basically the queen of paper plants. She does tons (and we mean TONS!) of paper plant and flower projects on her blog and YouTube channel. Here are 18 of her personal favorite paper plant tutorials.
In a similar fashion, Brit + Co, a media company that celebrates women and creativity, rounded up their top 12 favorite paper plant projects from different bloggers.
Today we want to show you some of our own paper plant creations! We love this trend (especially because it doesn't make you feel like a bad plant parent), and we have a feeling it will really grow on you, too (Eh? Eh?). 😉
Look at these beauties! We cut the shapes using two of our Cricut® collections (see recipe at bottom of post), and then attached the finished leaves to wire with a hot glue gun. Add them to pots filled with paper crinkle, pebbles, etc, and voila! You've got three amazing plants that will live forever!
If making paper plants from scratch seems a bit overwhelming, or if you don't own a Cricut® machine, we've got just the solution for you. Try out our Welcome Home wreath kit, which comes with all the pieces pre-cut AND instructions with step-by-step photos.
Did we mention it's only $18.95 (US)? It can't get much better than that—except that it does, because you can also get it FREE with a qualifying purchase!
The kit's only available until the end of January though, so if it's calling your name, get it before it's gone!
Another fun idea is to play around with arranging paper plants and leaves in picture frames. By slightly bending the leaves here, these plants seem to be growing out of the picture frame.
What do you think of this trend? Yea or nay? Tell us in the comments below!
Ready to make your own paper garden? Then be sure to check out our Cricut® Flower Market collection! It's filled with tons of flowers, plants, leaves, and other shapes that would be perfect for creating paper plants projects, like this wreath:
Have fun! 🙂
Plant Trio
X7216B Hello Lovely Paper Packet, Z3254 Enchantment Fundamentals, X5777 Fern Cardstock, X5783 Emerald Cardstock, X5784 Willow Cardstock, 1282 New England Ivy Cardstock, X5752 Juniper Cardstock, X5789 Sea Glass Cardstock, Z3285 Cricut® Flower Market Collection, Z3167 Cricut® Artistry Collection, Pots, Tray, Paper Crinkles, Wire, Hot Glue Gun
Cricut® Shapes (cut multiples of each shape as desired, depending on pot sizes):
Flower Market
9″ <Succulnt> (p. 40)
4 ½" <Succulnt> (p. 40)
1 ½" Flower-2 <Daisy> (cut multiple, p. 46)
1 ½" Shift+Flower-2 <Daisy> (cut multiple, p. 46)
8 ¼" Shape <Spring> (cut multiple, p. 38)*
7 ½" Shape <Spring> (cut multiple, p. 38)*
*Modified in Cricut Design Space™. Unlock measurements and make shapes these sizes: 8 ¼" x 1 ¼" (h x w), 7 ½" x 1″ (h x w)
Succulent Wreath
CC1210 Welcome Home Wreath Kit, Glue
Fern Picture Frame
X7217B Some Kinda Wonderful Paper Packet, 1282 New England Ivy Cardstock, Z3146 Watercolor Paper, Z3132 Watercolor Paints, Z3224 Waterbrush—Small Round, Z3285 Cricut® Flower Market Collection
Cricut® Shapes:
3 ½" Shift+Flower-1 <G> (cut 2, p. 25)
5″ Shift+Background <Hibiscus> (cut 2, p. 30)
2″ and 2 ½" Shift+Flower-2 <X> (cut 2 of each, p. 32)
2″ Icon <x> (cut 2, p. 32)
2 ½" Shift+Background (cut 2, p. 40)
Flower Wreath
X5782 Pansy Cardstock, X5769 Thistle Cardstock, X5774 Eggplant Cardstock, X5789 Sea Glass Cardstock, X5770 Glacier Cardstock, X5776 Peacock Cardstock, X5762 Lagoon Cardstock, X5639 Sweet Leaf Cardstock, X5777 Fern Cardstock, X5784 Willow Cardstock, X5775 Sapphire Cardstock, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5787 Blossom Cardstock, X5788 Raspberry Cardstock, 1386 Black Cardstock, 1301 Bamboo Cardstock, X5643 Chocolate Cardstock, Z1375 Kraft Cardstock, Z3146 Watercolor Paper, Z3132 Watercolor Paints, Z3188 Paintbrush Set, Z3285 Cricut® Flower Market Collection, Ribbon, Wreath Base, Hot Glue Gun
Cricut® Shapes:
Flower Market
3″ Flower-1 (cut 4, p. 14)
4½" Flower-1 (cut 3, p. 16)
2½" Shift+Icon (cut 3, p. 27)
1½" Shift+Flower-2 (cut 7, p. 31)
1½" Flower-2 (cut 7, p. 31)
1½" Shift+Flower-1 (cut 7, p. 31)
1½" Flower-1 (cut 7, p. 31)
3¼" Icon (cut 5, p. 32)
2¼" Flower-2 (cut 2, p. 32)
3¼" Flower-1 (p. 32)
3″ Shift+Icon (p. 32)
3½" Shift+Flower-2 (p. 32)
2½" Shift+Flower-1 (p. 32)
2¼" Icon (cut 2, p. 33)
2¼" Shift+Icon (cut 2, p. 33)
2½" Flower-1 (cut 3, p. 33)
2½" Shift+Flower-1 (cut 3, p. 33)
4½" Shift+Flower-1 (cut 3, p.36)
2¼" Icon (p. 40)
2¼" Shift+Icon (p. 40)
2½" Flower-2 (p. 40)
2½" Shift+Flower-2 (p. 40)
2½" Flower-1 (p. 40)
2½" Shift+Flower-1 (p. 40)
2″ Shift+Icon (p. 45)
2″ Shift+Flower-2 (p. 45)
2″ Flower-2 (p. 45)
1½" Icon (cut 3, p. 45)
1½" Flower-1 (cut 3, p. 45)
1½" Shift+Flower-1 (cut 3, p. 45)
1¼" Flower-2 (cut 2, p. 46)
1¼" Shift+Flower-2 (cut 2, p. 46)


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|There's more than one way to do things
comment on
|( #3333=superdoc: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
For myself, I think the problematic part of the XP system is that I can feel it pressuring me to write relatively inane, vapid things. If I recommend the "Perl Cookbook" again, that's almost a guaranteed 20 or 30 XP points. On the other hand, if I say something controversial (say, express skepticism about "inside-out objects"), then that's at best 5 points.
Sorry for replying so late, but you did too, in the first place! ;-)
Well, my point of view is that you shouldn't care anyway. At some point I did care, like most involved people here. I suppose that those who really didn't, ever, are the ones who come here for quick spoon-feed-me help. But I don't care much anymore. If I feel like posting something that I know in advance to be at risk of getting downvoted, I still do. A number of experienced hackers whom I greatly admire and respect also say something controversial occasionally, which undergoes a similar fate, so although I'm not at their level, I feel in good company.
My most upvoted nodes are relatively dumb questions. So I may invent all sorts of dumb questions just to get many votes. OTOH quite a lot of well thought and accurate answers of mine went fundamentally ignored or received little or no attention at all. I don't care. I care supplying them if I feel I can contribute something to the person I'm replying to, and to the whole community as well. Perhaps I also care to brag and boast, but for what I write, not for the points it can earn.
So the XP system appears to want me to repeat myself, cranking out mindless little things I can write in my sleep that most of us have heard already, but the things that are hard to write and actually require some thought, those would appear to be a waste of time.
Well, for one thing they say that repetita iuvant, and if we were all to only reveal grand new truths, world would either be a shockingly different place, or this would be a much more boring place. OTOH when you say the same old things over and over again to newbies, you do help them. You can point them to prior art. Increase your ability to address the issue. If you feel like doing it, just do it. Think of the XP system as a mostly orthogonal thing and you'll be happy! At most let it influence the quality and the thought you put in each and every thing you write, however trivial it is, as of its barely technical content.
In reply to Re: blandness is the problem, not plagarism
by blazar


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io9 recently had the opportunity to catch up with Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh, the stars of the long-running fantasy gaming web series The Guild. This duo also co-wrote The Guild: Zaboo, the next Guild tie-in comic book to hit the stands.
Check out an exclusive sneak peek of the comic's first six pages and learn what's up with The Guild's sixth season.
First off, here's a preview and plot synopsis of The Guild: Zaboo one-shot comic, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. This issue's in stores Wednesday, December 28:
Writer: Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh
Artist: Becky Cloonan
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Cover Artist: Evan Dorkin
Zaboo has loved Cyd's game avatar Codex from afar since the two first met playing The Game. Just what he'll do for love comes to the fore as he senses Cyd is in trouble and embarks on a real-life quest to escape his mother and become Cyd's knight in shining armor.
And here's our conversation with Sandeep and Felicia about all things Guild-related...
Sandeep, how did you get involved co-writing the Zaboo comic?
Sandeep Parikh: I think Felicia wanted a different perspective. We've been collaborating for years, long before The Guild and Legend of Neil. We did improv together, and we cowrote the Bollywood Guild song. In writing, I took everything from my experience as a director and tried to be as visual as possible. We have a page per plot point, and it was great to have Felicia help me through the process.
Season Five of The Guild recently wrapped up this October. What's coming up next for the show?
Felicia Day: We're still actually waiting on the pick-up for next season. The show is owned by me, so it's determined by the best opportunity for it, but I fully intend on doing future seasons, particularly with the cliffhanger for Season Five. It's really exciting where we can go with the characters and that story. In the next couple months, we'll see where the series goes.
And what can we expect from future Guild comics?
FD: I have a couple more things on the horizon coming for next year. I can't talk about them right at this second, but I'm definitely doing comics. The Guild really lends itself to the format, so depending on what happens with future seasons, I really want to integrate comics into the future of The Guild.
SP: The Zaboo comic leads up to first frame of The Guild web series. All of the comic one-shots have been before the webseries takes place.
FD: We added a lot of game aspects to this comic, and this issue brings us up to the timeline of Season 1, Episode 1. The origin story of Codex and the arc of all five seasons of The Guild are filled in with this comic.
SP: If you're a gamer and you look real close, you'll see a few shout outs to your favorite games. Zaboo's perspective on the world is through video games, so page by page sends you to a new world. I like that you can actually play the comic. If you read the margins on the pages, you can learn how to gain XP while reading it.
In Season Five, we saw a flip-flopping of Codex and Zaboo's romantic dynamic. How did that come about?
SP: I really love what Felicia did with the characters. The best part of playing Zaboo is that he has some of most interesting arcs of the entire show. He really grows and evolves more every season. Our relationship is the same thing. How she handled our relationship this season felt really believable and honest.
Any sort of crazy behind-the-scenes stuff happen while filming Season Five?
FD: In the DVD that's coming out later this month through Amazon, there's a behind-the-scenes there that you will not believe. There are two characters who were supposed to be identical twins. So we hired identical twins, but they never made it to set. We have a very awesome, behind-the-scenes piece on how we were waiting for these twins, and we ended up choosing an extra, a Guild volunteer from the Twitter account to become two different roles this season. She had never been an actor before!
SP: She had to level up pretty fast!
FD: It's an awesome story because she was a fan, and now she's canon!
What other projects do the two of you have coming up?
FD: I'm launching a new YouTube channel right now called Geek and Sundry. We're producing a slate of three or four shows right now. Not a very restful holiday, but an interesting next year to come out with some more projects!
SP: I'm actually in a writers' session right now for a brand new web series that I'm going to create with My Damn Channel. I can't really say too much, but it's going to be awesome. It's right up the alley of fans of The Guild and The Legend of Neil.


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Who knew hallucinogens were actually good for you? In a recent study, two psychiatrists discovered that patients suffering from agonizing cluster headaches found relief while taking LSD or other hallucinogenic drugs.
The psychiatrists noticed reports of people using hallucinogens to self-treat their headaches and decided to do a follow-up study. Cluster headaches, also known as suicide headaches, are thought to be the worst pain known to man. The pair chose six patients who suffered from these headaches and treated them with a non-hallucinogenic form of LSD.
All six patients reported a decrease in the number of cluster attacks and five said this effect that lasted for months after the study. This is a small study, but I think I smell the beginnings of the Legalize Medical LSD movement. [ScienceNOW; Shutterstock/Stefan Schejok]
You can keep up with Kelly Hodgkins, the author of this post, on Twitter.


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amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research
February 19, 2009—Just one year ago, amfAR announced awards of more than $1 million for the inaugural round of the Mathilde Krim Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Research. This new initiative was created to support young scientists seeking innovative solutions to HIV/AIDS.
The first nine Krim Fellows have already achieved some outstanding results. In January alone, three of the awardees authored papers in key journals describing novel strategies for vaccine development, drug design, and prevention of heterosexual transmission.
Writing in the Journal of Virology, Dr. Rogier Sanders of the University of Amsterdam, hoping to devise new ways of designing an AIDS vaccine, uses the process of evolution itself to force HIV into yielding up some of its secrets. Antibodies, as well as other methods employed by the immune system to kill pathogens, form the mainstay of immunizations we're all familiar with, and, as with most viruses, the outer envelope or coat of HIV is the principal focus of efforts directed at generating a vaccine. But these products have uniformly failed in several large AIDS vaccine trials worldwide. One problem has been that production of isolated pieces of virus envelope do not resemble the AIDS virus itself. In addition, vulnerable parts of HIV are normally shielded in the intact virus by sugar molecules, electric charges, and fat-avoiding regions that further impede protective antibody activity.
The first nine Krim Fellows have already achieved some outstanding results.
Scientists have already tested the straightforward vaccine strategies that have worked for other viruses, but to no avail with HIV. And although tweaking some of the details of vaccine design has increased the potency of vaccine candidates undergoing testing, these changes have not helped enough. So, Sanders reasoned, why not let the virus do this work for us?
HIV mutates extremely rapidly because of its high rate of growth and the genetic errors it makes in the course of that growth. The vast majority of those mutated viruses are effete. But every so often a virus appears with a greater or slower growth rate, accompanied by changes in its envelope that may render it more exposed or malleable, and thus more likely to be a better vaccine candidate. Sanders and associates created sets of mutated envelopes by growing them in Petri dishes with human T cells for up to 18 weeks, thus "forcing" them to evolve by applying environmental pressure. Now Sanders's team has begun testing their putative vaccine products. As the authors conclude, this innovative strategy—"optimization by virus evolution"—may also "provide a powerful tool to optimize [any] vaccine antigens."
Continuing with the theme of HIV evolution, amfAR Fellow Dr. Richard Haaland, of Emory University in Atlanta, collaborating with amfAR Krim Fellow Brandon Keele at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, sought to define the number and types of viruses transmitted through penile-vaginal intercourse. Writing in the journal PloS Pathogens, they sought to relate this information to the function of genital mucosal barriers in blocking viral transmission. This information is critical to designing the means—be it a vaccine or microbicide—to block such passage.
Haaland and Keele examined over 1,750 HIV genetic sequences derived from very early infections in Africa. Despite the great diversity of HIV types that they discovered in a typical infected partner, some nine in 10 HIV transmissions involved a single strain of HIV. But what characterized the one out of 10 people who became infected with multiple types of HIV? Virtually all suffered genital infections leading to an inflammation that compromised their genital mucosa. This lends further support to the concept, which continues to be evaluated in clinical trials, that prevention and treatment of common sexually transmitted infections, perhaps facilitated by male circumcision, should be part of a comprehensive AIDS prevention program.
Finally, Krim Fellow Dr. Bruno Marchand of the University of Missouri, writing in the Journal of Molecular Biology, reviewed the state of the art of anti-HIV drug therapy, focusing on reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Marchand and colleagues concluded that a more comprehensive examination of the structure of this enzyme, alone and in its interactions with existing drugs, "can be used to generate better drugs; in particular drugs that are effective against the current drug-resistant strains of HIV-1." This area of investigation—new drug targets—continues to be a primary focus of amfAR's research program.
These three reports from a single month represent just a sampling of the spectacular work coming out of the labs of Krim fellows. And this is just the first year of what could be three full years of Krim-funded research for each young researcher. The first phase of the Krim awards provides fellowship funds for two years in a senior mentor's lab. Successful completion of that training and promotion to a tenure track position makes a recipient eligible for the fellowship's second phase, which adds additional funding for a third year of research. Given the rapid success of the Krim Fellows thus far, the blossoming of these young scientists into independent AIDS researchers seems all but assured.
Dr. Laurence is amfAR's senior scientific consultant.
© 2021 amfAR All Rights Reserved || amfAR's mission is to end the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research


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Seagull 4113001-845
The subtle details of the Parkfield lighting collection by Sea Gull Lighting make this transitional design perfect for a wide range of décor. The four-sided, glass shades and the supporting sockets feature a graduated step detail which gives each fixture a slightly more masculine and tailored look. Available in both a casual Flemish Bronze finish with Crème Parchment glass or the elegantly modern Brushed Nickel finish with Opal Etched glass, the full lighting collection offers a nine-light or five-light chandelier, a three-light down chandelier; a two-light semi-flush mount; a three-light up pendant; and one-light, two-light, three-light and four-light bath fixture (all of which can mount up or down). Incandescent, LED and ENERGY STAR-qualified fluorescent lamping are available.


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Robert Fortner's penned a fascinating post-mortem on speech recognition software. That's right, post-mortem. Because it's apparently very, very dead! Except that it's not.
Fortner's analysis is thorough, and to be fair, he's speaking mostly about the apparently stagnation of speech recognition research and accuracy improvement, not declaring speech recognition dead outright. The thesis:
The accuracy of computer speech recognition flat-lined in 2001, before reaching human levels. The funding plug was pulled, but no funeral, no text-to-speech eulogy followed. Words never meant very much to computers-which made them ten times more error-prone than humans. Humans expected that computer understanding of language would lead to artificially intelligent machines, inevitably and quickly. But the mispredicted words of speech recognition have rewritten that narrative. We just haven't recognized it yet.
The evidence, to irresponsibly summarize, runs something like this:
• The basic techniques for machine speech recognition haven't truly changed, well, ever
• Speech recognition word error rate fell precipitously from the early nineties to around 2001, but has plateaued at somewhere around 20%
• It's proven difficult to formalize grammar rules in a way that computers can understand and use, leaving speech recognition dependent nearly entirely on interpreting sounds, not context
Anyway, just give it a read. When you do, though, see if you notice what's missing. (Hint: It's in your pocket, probably.)
Fortner makes fleeting references to mobile and phone-centric speech recognition, and that current technology is actually powerful enough to deal with the kinds of input needed for call center phone tree navigation, voice dialing and whatnot. What's conspiciously missing is the speech recognition we're seeing more and more every day: Mobile! Phones. Mobile phones.
Android has it, and Google has taken it to other platforms; Apple appears to be very interested in expanding voice search on their phones, and not just simple, one or two word queries. Apps from the very companies Fortner implies are waning (Dragon Dictation, for one) have proven extremely popular (and impressive) on the iPhone. The implicit assumption in the piece is that if desktop speech-to-text is on the wane—and it's pretty clear that it is—then so follows the entire dream of talking to a computer, period. That's where I disagree. In failing to find a place on the desktop, speech recognition has been forced to a place—mobile—where long-form dictation isn't as vital, and where its uses are much, much wider. I may never be able to tell my PC exactly what to do, but I won't really care—I'll be too busy talking with my phone. [Robert Fortner via Techmeme]