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Bundesliga Wrap: Gotze helps defeat Dortmund
Mario Gotze scored against his former club as leaders Bayern Munich picked up a 3-0 Bundesliga victory at title rivals Borussia Dortmund.
After a goalless first half, Gotze came off the bench to score the opener in the 66th minute of Saturday's much-hyped fixture with a neat finish before Arjen Robben and Thomas Muller made sure of maximum points with strikes in the 85th and 87th minutes respectively.
The result sends Bayern four points clear of second-placed Bayer Leverkusen and seven ahead of Dortmund, while also extending their record unbeaten run in the league to 38.
Dortmund have now lost back-to-back league matches for the first time since September 2011.
Leverkusen kept up their pressure on Bayern by picking up a 1-0 victory at Hertha Berlin.
Stefan Kiessling netted the winner in the first half as Sami Hyypia's men recorded their first victory over the capital club since 2007, pulling them three points clear of third-placed Dortmund.
Wolfsburg lost ground in the chase for the UEFA Champions League spots as they were held to a 1-1 draw by lowly Nuremberg.
Maximilian Arnold gave Wolfsburg the lead in the 39th minute before Daniel Ginczek equalised after 72 minutes for the relegation strugglers, who climb off the bottom of the league on goal difference.
Schalke remain fifth after playing out a thrilling 3-3 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt.
The visitors went two up early on at the Commerzbank-Arena before the hosts scored three goals in 12 second-half minutes to go 3-2 ahead.
But Benedikt Howedes found the net four minutes from time to salvage a point for Schalke, who are now four points adrift of a Champions League berth.
Elsewhere, Augsburg pulled three points clear of Hoffenheim with a 2-0 victory at the SGL Arena, while Freiburg picked up a valuable three points with a 1-0 away victory at Eintracht Braunschweig, leaving the hosts at the bottom of the Bundesliga.
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Japanese Capital Flows: Nature, volume, and direction »
Source: Finance & Development, September 1988
Volume/Issue: 25/3
Series: Finance & Development
Author(s): International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
Publisher: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
Publication Date: 01 September 1988
Keywords: public spending, public finance, tax systems, foreign borrowing, income taxes
This paper describes the need to improve public finance for development. The paper underscores that public finance affects aggregate resource use and, together with monetary and exchange rate policies, influences t...

subset: commoncrawl


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Compare cheap flights to Sapporo
When is the cheapest time to fly to Sapporo?
What to do in Sapporo
Sapporo is the biggest and capital city of Hokkaido, Japan. It's home to parks, fascinating monuments, and exciting winter events. The city is also your gateway to exploring the rest of Hokkaido. So if you want to see the lush side of Japan, it's time you book flights to Sapporo.
Start your Sapporo story with a picture in front of Tokeidai Clock Tower. Bring your camera next to the Sapporo TV Tower and Memorial Tower for great views of the city. Get the best panoramic view of Sapporo at the JR Tower. Then hop on a cable car to reach Mount Moiwa and watch the city light up at night.
Get a blast from the past when you visit the Hokkaido Pioneer Village. If you're looking for art, just head straight to the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art and Miyanomori Art Museum. You can also see massive sculptures and more at the stunning Moerenuma Park and Sapporo Art Park.
For a twist on museum visits, enjoy a free guided tour at the Sapporo Beer Museum. And for a taste of another Hokkaido classic, don't miss a visit to Ishiya Chocolate Factory. Then enjoy the local food of the city with this Sapporo food guide.
Spend time admiring the lush scenery of Sapporo at the famous Odoro Park and Asahiyama Park, which is extra romantic when you visit with your special someone during spring and autumn.
Explore the rest of Hokkaido too! Schedule your trip for July and see the gorgeous lavender fields of Furano. Enjoy a dip at the lakes of Akan National Park. See waterfalls and wildlife at Shiretoko National Park. And don't forget to visit the scenic Shikotsu-Toya National Park.
Check out this Sapporo travel guide and start planning your awesome trip to Japan!
When to visit Sapporo
The best time to visit Sapporo is from April to July for great weather during your trip. Winter from December to February is also the best time to visit Sapporo because the city becomes a winter wonderland, especially during the Sapporo Snow Festival and when you ski at Mt Teine.
Australians can fly to Japan and visit Sapporo and Hokkaido visa-free for up to 90 days as a tourist. Make sure that your passport is valid for at least six months on your return date to Australia. Visit Smartraveller for more info.
Travelling to and around Sapporo
After your flight to New Chitose Airport, take the bus, JR train, or a taxi to reach your next destination. Travel around Sapporo by train, subway, bus, streetcar, and taxi.
It's time you explore Hokkaido! Just pack your bags and grab your passport to book your Sapporo flights with Skiddoo today.
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Lucas selected to Full Court All-America Team
Lucas selected to Full Court All-America Team
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State Lady Lion junior guard Maggie Lucas (Narberth, Pa.) claimed another All-America honor as she was named to the Full Court All-America second team. Lucas is the first Lady Lion to earn Full Court All-America honors since 2004 when Kelly Mazzante was a second team choice. Lucas is the second different Lady Lion to claim Full Court accolades, joining Mazzante, who was a three-time recipient.
The Narberth, Pa. native has added several honors to her trophy case this season. Lucas was a finalist for the Wade Trophy and Wooden Award. Additionally, she was a USBWA All-American, second team Associated Press All-American and honorable mention WBCA All-American. Honored as the 2013 Big Ten Player of the Year, Lucas claimed All-Big Ten first team accolades for the second consecutive season after averaging 20.1 points per game on the year. She is the first Lady Lion to finish the year averaging 20 or more point since Mazzante in 2003-04 and just the third player to accomplish the feat (Mazzante - 2002, 2003, 2004; Robinson 1988). Lucas tallied 644 points on the season to become just the second player in program history to record back-to-back 600-point campaigns (Mazzante). The Narberth, Pa. native netted 98 three-pointers on the season, which is third on the program charts, and connected on 46.2 percent of her shots from downtown, which ranks second in Penn State history.
Lucas improved on the defensive end of the floor during her junior season, notching a personal-best 72 steals. Her 2.3 steals average was sixth among Big Ten leaders and made the Lady Lions the only team in the conference to have three players ranked in the league's Top 10 in steals (Alex Bentley - 1st; Dara Taylor - 5th). She also ranked in the Top 10 in the Big Ten this season in scoring (3rd), free throw percentage (3rd - .900), three-point field goal percentage (1st) and three-point field goals made (2nd - 3.1).
In just three seasons, Lucas has made herself one of the elite players in Penn State history. She enters her final season in the Blue & White seventh in program history in scoring (1,838), second in three-point field goals made (292) and three-point field goal percentage (.433) and 19th in steals (176). She also tops the Lady Lions' career free throw percentage charts with an .887 mark. Additionally, Lucas is tops in Big Ten history in career three-point field goal percentage (.433) and ranks third in career three-point field goals made.
The Lady Lions are on Twitter. Follow sports information contact Kris Petersen (@ladylionsid) and the Lady Lions and coaches (@pennstatewbb) to get the inside scoop. The Lady Lions are also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pennstateladylions.
2013 Full Court All-America Team
First Team
Brittney Griner, Baylor
Elena Delle Donne, Delaware
Skylar Diggins, Notre Dame
Chiney Ogwumike, Stanford
Alyssa Thomas, Maryland
Second Team
Stefanie Dolson, Connecticut
Maggie Lucas, PENN STATE
A'dia Mathies, Kentucky
Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Connecticut
Odyssey Sims, Baylor
Third Team
Kelsey Bone, Texas A&M
Chelsea Gray, Duke
Kayla McBride, Notre Dame
Meighan Simmons, Tennessee
Elizabeth Williams, Duke


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The Wild Hunt is 100% reader supported by readers like you. Your support helps us pay our writers and editors, as well as cover the other bills to keep the news coming to you ad free. If you can, use the button below to make a one-time donation - or become a monthly sustainer. Thank you for reading The Wild Hunt!
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
- Duke Divinity School professor Mark Chaves, author of "American Religion: Contemporary Trends," explores why a growing number of Americans are willing to say they don't belong to a religious tradition. I recently mentioned Chaves in an earlier post about the decline of religon, and what that might mean for modern Pagan religions.
- British shaman/Vodou initiate Peter Aziz has been jailed for 15 months for distributing brews of ayahuasca at a retreat in 2007. Aziz's lawyer said at the sentencing that "It has caused him a considerable amount of worry as far as his personal beliefs are concerned. He has learned what can be learned from this and will not be before the court again." Ayahuasca contains DMT, which is an illegal controlled substance in Britain. In the United States it is legal to import and use ayahuasca so long as you are a member of one of the groups, like O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, who has established that the drink is an essential and central part of their religious practice.
- A memorial benefit celebration for influential author and art historian Merlin Stone, who died earlier this year, is being held on September 24th in Clearwater, Florida (Facebook event link). Stone was author of the seminal book "When God Was A Woman," and a successful Kickstarter campaign was recently held to produce a memorial documentary project in her honor.
- Tombo Studio, a boutique run by Feri Tradition and sacred dance instructor Anaar, has unveiled a new website design for its current line of handcrafted costume clothing, modeled by some well-known West Coast Pagan luminaries (Morpheus Ravenna, Sharon Knight, and T.Thorn Coyle) and photographed by Paul Nordin.
- It's Pagan Pride time again! That means many local Pagan groups are getting their one dose of media attention for the year (maybe two, depending on how media outlets cover Halloween). So far we have reports from Ontario, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Texas, Connecticut, and many more to come.
- If you're in the Pacific Northwest this month, you should check out Faerieworlds Harvest on September 16th-18th in Eugene, Oregon. All the fun of Faerieworlds, but with milder weather! Pagan favorites SJ Tucker, Faun, Woodland, and Stellamara are all slated to perform. Also of note is the Esoteric Book Conference this weekend in Seattle, Washington. I'm planning to attend both, so expect to hear more on these events in the near future!
- Religion Dispatches is featuring an article on Burning Man from Jay Michaelson entitled "Burning Man in the Age of Rick Perry." In it Michaelson says that "a dogmatic religionist cannot abide the inspiration of another. Unless it is within the same religious system, it is damned, or confused, or pagan, or worse. Thus the dogmatist is only left with data which confirm her existing categories of thought. All contradictory data is removed from consideration. Whereas, any religious/spiritual progressive must be inspired precisely by the plurality of revelatory experiences."
- Also at Religion Dispatches is a review of Kevin M. Schultz's book "Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise." Reviewer Edward J. Blum says that the book "helped explain how and why at seventeen I used the language of "Judeo-Christianity" for conservative evangelical ends, while remaining intellectually and morally open to civil rights and liberal crusades." For more on this topic, check out The Wild Hunt's interview with Kevin M. Schultz.
- The latest volume of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture is now out, and it features some articles that should be of interest to my readers. These include "Sacred Nature: Earth-based Spirituality as Popular Religion in the Pacific Northwest" by Mark A. Shibley and "Cinema of the Not-Yet: The Utopian Promise of Film as Heterotopia" by Adrian Ivakhiv. There's also a review of Bron Taylor's "Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future".
- This just in, gluing mirrors to campaign signs isn't a calling-card for Santeria.
- Theology matters on the campaign trail now more than ever.
- The debate over banning black magic in India.
That's it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.


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In a recent edition of Scribes, a column where Rare answers fan questions, the company teased gamers with a little more information about the upcoming Banjo-Kazooie 3. "Banjo won't be a shooter," they said, when answering a question about possible gameplay changes, "but it also won't be a traditional platformer."
While this doesn't reveal much, according to the Rare team there will be some significant changes that they are really excited about. "We somewhat grandly like to think that it will be a different take on the genre," they went on to say, "some would say a brave gamble, but [we're] confident it's the right decision."
Rare took a similarly playful approach when discussing the possibility of a multiplayer component in the new game. "The 'new direction' that Banjo is taking should offer a multiplayer experience unique to anything currently available" they explained. Since the game is headed to the Xbox 360, one can only assume that this "unique" multiplayer experience will have some online component, but other then that, it's hard to infer any more information.
Although announced back in September 2006, Rare has been rather secretive about the details of the upcoming game. Hopefully, this little teaser of information could mean that there is more to follow. Banjo-Kazooie 3 will be the first game in the series released since Rare was purchased by Microsoft, and while no firm release date has been given, Microsoft's Shane Kim did recently reveal that it should ship in time for the holidays this year.


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Regrets? I had a few
Here again, what is the loss of Phipps to Oracle? Phipps, a Sun employee for nearly 10 years and the company's chief open source officer for five of those, has some real open source chops and remains one of the most prolific bloggers on the open source software. Yet, he has ruffled more than a few sets of feathers in dust-ups over the years.
And in a post marking his last day at Sun, Phipps indicated that in addition to several achievements, he also had a few regrets. Amongst those regrets, Phipps listed:
"Of course, no story with highlights like that can be without disappointments too. I'm sad that Apache did not get the TCK license they requested. I'm sad that we didn't get the code for some of those projects permanently outside the Sun firewall. I'm sad we never got to a place where co-developers become a priority for various product teams. And I'm sad that, despite the success of the open source software businesses, it still wasn't enough to rescue Sun in the end. But overall, I am amazed and humbled to see what the open source team at Sun has achieved."
Still, Phipps is certainly an open source thinker worthy of holding onto. And as a member of the Open Source Initiative board, he will continue to show his worth.
Another "drainee," Tim Bray, co-creator of XML and former director of web technologies at Sun, declined an offer from Oracle and joined Google's Android team instead. Bray, whose role at Sun was somewhat amorphous, is perhaps a bit more of a loss than Phipps. Bray announced his departure from Oracle/Sun via a Twitter post.
And he came out swinging the moment he landed at Google by attacking Apple for its proprietary stance vis-à-vis the iPhone. Interestingly enough, Bray lands at Google a couple of years after criticizing the search company for hosting sharecroppers on its "AppEngine plantation."
Another potentially costly loss for Oracle might be that of Zack Urlocker, former vice president of MySQL, which Oracle acquired in the Sun buy. Urlocker has a lot of experience in the software business, having roots that go as far back as respected tools specialist Borland Software in its heyday (and beyond).
Urlocker said he was leaving Oracle to join the board of Revolution Computing to help them "disrupt" the predictive analytics market. In this space he'll have to compete with the likes of IBM, which is betting big on "business analytics." Perhaps Urlocker sees this as another David versus Goliath opportunity, as with MySQL taking on Oracle and other leading database vendors.
Urlocker is an advisor and board member for several startup and open source companies. Maybe he (or Oracle) felt like Oracle had enough advisors.
How much for your love?
Talk to many in Java and open source, and you'll find Oracle engenders respect but few actually like the company. People respect the giant for the fact it's run efficiently and manages to make money. This is also it's downfall, though. Oracle is seen as your classic big vendor: faceless, after your money, and whose goal is to get you into locked into its stack.
Oracle seems to be aware of this, as its top brass and the Sun execs that survived the acquisition have gone forth with the message that Oracle "values" the community and that it wants to engage with those building applications using Java and open source and that will run on its platforms - its database, application server and Java-based business applications. It's made great play, too, of the fact the annual JavaOne conference will be back and better than ever, running in parallel with its OpenWorld event in San Francisco, California, later this year.
Unfortunately for Oracle, by losing Gosling, Phipps, Bray and Urlocker the giant's not just lost experienced technologists with vision that gave it credibility among the very people it wants to win over. It's also lost the kinds of people who could have taken the edge off a technology giant in that community, and who had helped keep important doors open for Sun over the years.
This is talent you can't easily replace and that's going to hurt Oracle as it goes out in to the community to prove it's a good team player. ®
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Arista Networks, the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Andy Bechtolsheim, is chasing a new market by reversing the polarity on its Ethernet switches, turning them into packet sniffers that feed into network analyzer equipment instead of packet shufflers.
As is the case with most hardware these days, the trick is all in the software, not in the ASIC or other physical aspects of the device. In fact, Arista has come up with a way to turn its 7150 Series Ethernet switch into a tap aggregation platform, and thus replace devices from companies that provide these specialized pieces of hardware.
The market Arista is going after includes those who are deeply concerned with network performance and who want to route traffic to network analyzers to sift through it for messed-up bits.
Arista marketing veep Doug Gourlay says that we have come a long way since having to walk around the data center to plug a sniffer into the network to sort out a problem. But even if you buy special TAP aggregation gear and backhaul all of the tapping functions to the network sniffers, the pseudo-switches that do this work – which are available from NetScout, Gigamon, VSS Monitoring, and a few others – are very expensive.
The good news is that networking giant Cisco Systems has left the tap aggregation business – which is worth somewhere between $200m and $400m a year – alone, because it is not big enough for Big John to play in. But that turns out to be a plenty big enough market for Arista to take on with its software engineers.
To that end, Arista is taking the 24-port 7150 Series 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch and allocating 20 ports to the network taps and four of them to the network probes, while using the Extensible Operating System (EOS) variant of Linux at the heart of the switch to run a stack of network analysis software that collectively is called DANZ. (That's short for "data analysis" in the way that only makes sense in Marketing World.)
This DANZ software module costs $3,000, and the switch itself costs on the order of $350 to $400 per 10GE port. If that doesn't sound cheap, though, consider that the tap aggregation platforms from the vendors listed above can cost $2,000 to $4,000 per port.
That's a pretty hefty chunk of change, says Gourlay. "And Cisco has no product in this space, and from a strategic perspective, I like that a lot," he adds.
"We have done well in markets where the market leader is not playing," Gourlay says – like in networks for high-frequency trading, for instance, where Arista has carved out a niche next to Mellanox Technologies.
By converting the 7150 Series switch into a tap aggregation platform, Arista says it can boost the performance compared to hard-coded aggregators by a factor of three, and do so at a factor of ten reduction in price per port, for a factor of 30 improvement in price performance.
That kind of change in bang-for-the-buck could probably expand the market from the niche uses it has among telecom carriers, service providers, and financial services companies that are paranoid about network performance, all the way to cloudy data centers. The companies selling the probes, says Gourlay, are egging Arista on, saying they hope to sell more analyzers if the tap aggregator costs can be brought down.
Of course, Cisco does have its own Network Analysis Module for Nexus and Catalyst switches, which many companies use in lieu of the more sophisticated tap aggregation and probe setups common at HFT and other sites. And Cisco will no doubt pull a similar move and put tap aggregation into its ONE software-defined network, just as Big Switch Networks is doing with its Big Tap network monitoring module for its SDN stack.
Block diagram of the Arista DANZ software stack
There are a lot of difference elements to the DANZ software stack, and most of it is all new and complimentary to the tap analyzer software functions. The latency analyzer, or LANZ, software has been running on top of EOS for a while and is updated with this software release. All of the other bits are new, including a JSON-enabled RESTful API stack that exposes the DANZ functions to third parties.
This latter bit is key, says Gourlay, because Arista is counting on partners to embrace these APIs as they link their tools for network analysis into the DANZ tap aggregation code. This includes wares from established vendors such as Corvil, TS-Associates, Endace, and relative newcomers such as ExtraHop Networks and Splunk that basically act like a shrink for your network.
The DANZ stack runs on EOS 4.11 and higher and will be rolled out for other Arista switches eventually. ®
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Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion
Tanada wrote:On the other hand with a thousand Arcologies each housing each housing 7.5 million people you could have them all housed in tidy 100 square meter apartments and use the surrounding land to supply the food they would need. Inside the arcologies recycling would be extremely important to allow only food being imported. For power you would need a MOHO style well drilled through the crust to the edge of the mantel where heat the helium or other non reactive gas used to generate your power. The arcology building itself would stay warm just from the body heat of the population and by using heat pumps that body heat would be harvested for heating water and perhaps even some of the cooking but would likely not be enough for the industrial services like lighting, moving heavy water through piping for all the levels and so on and so forth.
This plan would require most of the land in North America to feed the Arcologies but it would leave all the other continents free to return to a nature preserve type of existence. Our old abandoned cities would quickly be decayed into piles of rubble growing trees and shrubs if the climate was rainy like most of Europe, South America and Asia. Mostly desert locations like Saudi Arabia or Australia would have some cities preserved for a long time by the conditions in their surrounding locations. Others like the cities of the Brazilian rain forest or the Congo or Indonesia would go very quickly as the wood would decay and metal rust in the warm humid conditions.
Squilliam wrote:I fear that there will be a return to conditions more akin to 1930's Europe. If enough migrants come, or there are enough incidents, then there will be a change in the political climate. They will find themselves very unwelcome at some point because in so many respects they are alien. The more pressure the people are under then the more their baser instincts reassert themselves.
Safa Motesharrei, a systems scientist at the University of Maryland, uses computer models to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that can lead to local or global sustainability or collapse. According to findings that Motesharrei and his colleagues published in 2014, there are two factors that matter: ecological strain and economic stratification. The ecological category is the more widely understood and recognised path to potential doom, especially in terms of depletion of natural resources such as groundwater, soil, fisheries and forests – all of which could be worsened by climate change.
That economic stratification may lead to collapse on its own, on the other hand, came as more of a surprise to Motesharrei and his colleagues.
Under this scenario, elites push society toward instability and eventual collapse by hoarding huge quantities of wealth and resources, and leaving little or none for commoners who vastly outnumber them yet support them with labour. Eventually, the working population crashes because the portion of wealth allocated to them is not enough, followed by collapse of the elites due to the absence of labour.
"The world will not rise to the occasion of solving the climate problem during this century, simply because it is more expensive in the short term to solve the problem than it is to just keep acting as usual," says Jorgen Randers, a professor emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and author of 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years. "The climate problem will get worse and worse and worse because we won't be able to live up to what we've promised to do in the Paris Agreement and elsewhere"...
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Ready for another free SVG electronic cutting file?
Good! Because it's right here!
This file is available from Digital Craft Emporium and this week features a large knotwork background – approximately 11.5 inches square.
If you would like this design, simply head across to Digital Craft Emporium, sign in, add the item to your basket and checkout. Once you have completed that you will be able to find the file waiting in the downloads section of your account. It downloads ready to use; no unzipping required.
FYI, as you will need to sign up for an account in order to get this free file it would be worth signing up to the newsletter there too as I often announce special offers via the newsletter first.
Anyhoo, hope you like it and will make good use of it. Feel free to tag either me or the dedicated Facebook or Twitter page with creations you make with these goodies. I look forward to seeing what you make!
Ok, I'm off. Take care and I look forward to seeing you again next time.


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Veroot necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 146 diseños de 27 diseñadores freelance.
Veroot is a search engine for the air freight and courier industry. The name of the company is based off of "Ver" from verity showing integrity in operation and will be the launch of the Verity alliance which shows transparency through operations. The "root" is a form of digging around. Allowing people to get the good information easily. We are going to delivery relevant searches for the air freight industry based on location of airports and companies. We have a yelp type site with google blood and a niche market in the field of courier and air freight work.
Our audience is more mature in that the industry we are in has been around in some form or another since pre-1940's. Since we are based online we need a logo that can cause people to understand who we are and what we aim for them to get off the site. We created a mock for the "V" in Veroot that is attached. We are not married to the design but that is where we were headed.
I would like a very fast loading logo. Something that could be large and in the middle of the page like Google's but could also be shoved in a corner like 37signals. I would like the entire name "Veroot" to be used in the logo. Color choices are not fixed but we have been experimenting with blues, oranges and purples (even black is fine). We are big fans of less is more and subtle notes of professionalism. We want you to fry our brains with a killer design. We will even take an all text style logo if it looks awesome.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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- Details
- Specs
- Reviews
- What's Included
By connecting the Automatic Security Valve to your Home Automation System, the water supply to your home or business can be controlled remotely giving you total control of your water supply home or away. This product also works great in conjunction with systems that already have water sensors, but lacks the ability to actively turn off the water supply. When combined with an automation system's existing sensors, the Automatic Securty Valve can react fast before significant water damage can occur.
Benefits of Use:
- Fast opening and closing provides control of incoming water supply
- Integrates with existing control systems and sensors
- Provide 24 hours a day access to your water supply
- Compatible with major brands of security systems
- Significantly reduce water damage
- Protect your home and business
- Possible insurance discounts
- Added property protection
- Provides peace of mind
- Conserves water
The Automatic Security Valve is also available in the following sizes, each sold separately.
ASV050 - 1/2 Inch Pipe Connection
ASV075 - 3/4 Inch Pipe Connection
ASV100 - 1 Inch Pipe Connection
ASV150 - 1 1/2 Inch Pipe Connection
Actuator Specs:
- Housing ratings: NEMA 6P (waterproof), NEMA 7D (ignition proof)
- PS100 Power Supply (Included)
- UL listed
- Power Supply Input: 100-240V ~50/60Hz 1.0A MAX
- Power Supply Output: 18V 2.22A
- Actuator provides feedback when the valve is open or closed
- Power requirements are 12/24 volt DC or 24 volt AC
- Extremely rugged high-torque electric actuator
- Waterproof & Weatherproof, can be installed outside
Valve Specs:
- Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) Certification and National Plumbing Code of Canada (cUPC) Certification
- Manufactured in compliance with ASME A112.18.1-2005 /CSA B125.1 2005
- Manufactured in compliance with NSF/ANSI 61-2010a
- Manufactured in compliance with Section 116875 of the California Health and Safety Code
- Valves are pressure rated to 600 PSI (1") & 1,000 PSI (1/2" - 2") at 70° F
- ALL valves are equipped with a manual handle for emergency override
- These valves are approved for use with water, oil, and gas applications
- 316 stainless steel 3-piece construction, includes: body, ball, & stem
- Approved for drinking water applications in all 50 states
- Full port valves for maximum flow
- Threads are FNPT
Compatible Manufacturers:
- Home Automation Inc. (HAI)
- Digital Security Controls (DSC)
- Honeywell
- Interlogix (GE)
- Visonic
- George Risk Industries (GRI)
- Elk Products, Inc.
- Winland Electronics
- Resolution Products
- Secure Wireless
- Tane Alarm Products
- Flair Electronics
- Fast opening and closing provides control of incoming water supply
Specifications Manufacturer GreenField Direct Manufacturer Product No ASV200 UPC 713757824019 Valve Size 2 Inch
1x - 2 Inch Automatic Security Valve
1x - PS100 Power Supply


text:
Kyle Korver was unstoppable Friday night, leading Atlanta to a huge 2OT win with 27 points, including 8 3-pointers made, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. The Korv started his second game in a row in place of Anthony Morrow, and again he took advantage. He was actually calling for the ball in this one too, dude was absolutely en fuego, hashtag could not miss (did I do that right?). In the two games he's started, he has 48 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Sure, we joke here at r-ball because the Korv looks like the Biebs, or more accurately, like the Hilary Swanks–but over the past seven days, this million dollar baby is averaging 16.3 pts, 3.5 reb, 2.3 ast, 1.0 stl and 4.0 (yes, four) 3pm. Sure, that last number is skewed a bit by the eight tres he hit last night, but it sure is pretty. Korv is just 54% owned in yahoo leagues and I expect that number to rise quickly this weekend. In this week's buy/sell, Chris told you to BUY him, and if you need threes, Korver can really be the gold standard. But for seriously, all teams should take notice, Kyle is playing well enough right now to push your team korver the edge.
Here's what else happened Friday night in fantasy basketball:
Derrick Williams – 18 pts, 11 reb, (6-17 FG) in 31 minutes in the start. His second double-dub this month (and year). Williams is seeing the time with the injury woes of the Wolves, he's just not really playing well enough for me to recommend him. I have nothing if not my word, sir.
Mickael Gelabale – 15 pts 7 reb, in 26 minutes. First razzball mention! The former French Olympian from Guadeloupe is making the most of that 10 day contract!
Bradley Beal – 16 pts, 4 blk, 2 3pm. Beal is the real deal. Four blocks?! Are you kidding me. B-Rad, you da man. The starting line up combined for 7 blocks. I guess you could say it was a *pinkie to mouth* block…party.
John Wall – 14 pts, 5 ast, 2 steal. Started his first game of the season. Your buy low window has closed and in its place they built a brick wall.
Emeka Okafor – 8 pts, 8 reb, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk. Emeka is emaking me like him a lot more, he's averaging 10 pts, 11.1 reb, and 1.4 blks over the past two weeks.
Luke Ridnour – 14 pts, 4 ast, 4 reb, 2 stl. The force was strong with this one Friday night. (This will never get old, I'm sorry).
Ersan Ilysova – 30 pts, 7 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl, 2 3pm. Just when you thought your fantasy love for Ersan was Ilyas-over, he goes and drops a gem like this. Okay, fair enough, But you're on notice, Ersan!
Kyrie Irving – 35 pts, 5 reb, 2 ast, Took this game over, Irving is starting to realize what he needs to do for this Cleveland team to win: everything. Bucks. Ya'll been kyrie'd!
Marreese Speights – 10 pts, 6 reb, 2 stl in 18 minutes. Admit it. You raised an eyebrow when you heard that the Cavs traded for Speights. "Oh reaaalllly?" you said. You were right to say that, Speights could see significant minutes now that Anderson Varejao is out for the season with head lice, and Marreese should step right in backing up Tyler Zeller (6 pts, 6 reb). It's fair to assume Speights could see good minutes every night, and if he performs the way he did in Memphis when he saw time he could be worth a look.
Larry Sanders – 14 pts, 11 rebs, 2 blk. Is this your homework, Larry? To be the best shot-blocker in the league?
Greg Monroe – 31 pts, 12 reb (7-8 ftm) The only other Piston to score in double digits was Will Bynum (13 pts, 2 reb). This guy made more shots than the Pistons did last night.
Dwayne Wade – 29 pts, 7 reb, 5 reb, 3 stl, 1 blk. The Flash rolls as the Heat crush Detroit. Natch. I hate to geek out on you all, but no Aquaman in the Justice League movie!? Come on, throw Adrian Grenier a bone. He could use the work.
Reggie Evans – 11 pts, 10 reb. Yeah, we get it. You can rebound.
Kris Humphires – 2 pts, 6 reb, 2 blk. K-Hump is doing nicely adjusting to his new role of being bad at basketball.
Kirk Hinrich – 25 pts, 4 ast, 2 reb, 1 blk, 6 3pm. Hello Hinrich! Kirk's past 5 games points totals: 8, 3, 22, 0, 25. It's that kind of consistency that will make you die a young fantasy-GM.
Jimmy Butler – 16 pts, 12 reb, 2 ast, 1 blk. Starting for Deng the Butler did it, and did it well.
Joakim Noah – 14 pts, 16 reb, 4 ast, 3 blk, 1 stl. It's been a good month for Noah. I heard he's also been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Master of Rebounds.
Nate Robinson – 22 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast, 2 3pm. Also, benefited from Luol Deng's DNP, but I can't hate, Lil' Nate had a big day.
Rajon Rondo – 16 pts, 10 reb, 11 ast. Fifth triple-double of the season for Raj-Ro, he leads the league but couldn't keep the Celtics from losing their 6th straight (the longest losing streak in the KG era) after blowing a 27 point league.
Devin Harris– 14 pts, 3 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk, 2-9 3pm. Harris wouldn't be my top choice if I needed threes, but he remains a choice. So there's that. As long as he's getting minutes in Lou Williams' stead, he's worth a look.
Courtney Lee – 16 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast, 2 stl. The Celtics bench looked strong tonight, Jeff Green added 17 pts, 6 reb, and Jason Terry had 12 pts, with 2 3pm. Unfortunately, none of the three are consistent enough to count on fantasy-wise, and obviously not consistent enough for the Celtics real-life-wise, either.
Roddy Beaubois – 19 pts, 3 reb, 2 ast, 1 blk, 2 3pm in 16 minutes. Ooh la la! 19 points in 16 minutes, is that even possible? Sacre bleu! I love me some, Rodrigue Beaubois!
Elton Brand – 8 pts, 13 reb, 2 blk. I told you to pick him up last Friday. This Friday, he's in the starting five. #humblebrag
Tiago Splitter – 13 pts, 12 reb. Just 37% owned, grab him before he's Tiagone!
Gary Neal – 18 pts, 6 ast, 2 reb, 2 3pm. The Spurs bench scored 46 points, Dejuan Blair added 22 pts, 4 reb as the Spurs took out the Mavs without Tim Duncan. David Stern was not happy.
Carlos Delfino – 14 pts, 3 reb, 2 ast, 4 3pm. Carlos of the Fino is still owned in just 29% of yahoo leagues. What are you waiting for?
Patrick Patterson – 18 pts, 13 reb, 1 blk. Pat-Pat has gotten off to a slow start since returning to the starting lineup, but he has scored in double digits the past two games, so he remains one to watch.
James Harden – 30 pts, 8 ast, 4 reb, 1 stl, 2 3pm, 12-12 ftm. I think I love him a little.
Greivis Vasquez – 2 pts, 6 ast, 1 reb, 1-6 fgm in 24 minutes. Ugh. Where did the real Greivis geaux?
Derrick Favors – 14 pts, 5 reb, 2 stl, 1 blk. Nice game, but you're not doing yourself any favors by picking him up.
Kobe Bryant – 14 pts, 9 reb, 14 ast, 3 stl, 1 blk. Mamba! Did you see Kobe throw that alley-oop to Dwight Howard (17 pts, 13 reb, 2 blk), and D-Wight gave Kobe the nod and point? Yup. That was special. Chills. Even Pau Gasol (15 pts, 7 reb, 3 ast) didn't mind as the Lakers beat the Jazz by 18. Could this be the start of things to come? Will Kobe be happy with just 10 shots next game? Will he manage 10+ assists again in another game this season? Are the Lakers finally starting to come around? Find out next week, in another edition of fantasy basketball recap, as fantasy basketball continues next week, all week long!


text:
2 cups boiling-hot water
1 1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms (1 1/2 cups)
1 large leek
1 piece Parmigiano-Reggiano with rind (at least 6 oz)
1/2 lb fresh cremini mushrooms, caps and stems chopped separately
1/4 lb fresh shiitake mushrooms, caps and stems chopped separately
2 teaspoons minced garlic
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley plus 2 fresh flat-leaf parsley sprigs
2 fresh thyme sprigs
1 (3- to 4-inch) piece celery rib
4 cups cold water
4 cups beef broth
8 black peppercorns, cracked
Fresh pasta dough at room temperature
All-purpose flour for dusting
Pour boiling-hot water over porcini in a bowl and let stand until softened, about 20 minutes. Lift out porcini, squeezing excess liquid back into bowl, and rinse to remove any grit. Finely chop porcini. Pour soaking liquid through a sieve lined with a dampened paper towel into another bowl and reserve.
Trim leek, reserving about 5 inches of green leaves, and rinse greens well. Halve rest of leek lengthwise, then rinse well under cold water and pat dry. Coarsely chop greens and finely chop white and pale green parts, reserving greens separately.
Finely grate enough cheese to measure 1/4 cup, then cut off and reserve rind. Reserve remaining piece of cheese.
Make filling for tortellini:
Pulse cremini caps, shiitake caps, 1/3 cup chopped porcini, leek, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a food processor until finely minced. Heat butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides, then cook mushroom mixture, stirring constantly, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated and mushrooms are golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cool completely. Stir in 1/4 cup grated cheese, 1 tablespoon parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.
Make broth:
Tuck parsley and thyme sprigs into celery and tie together tightly with string to make a bouquet garni. Bring cold water, beef broth, bouquet garni, cracked peppercorns, cremini stems, shiitake stems, leek greens, remaining chopped porcini, porcini soaking liquid, cheese rind, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt to a simmer in a 3-quart heavy saucepan, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and cook at a bare simmer, partially covered, 45 minutes. Pour broth through a large sieve lined with a double thickness of rinsed and squeezed cheesecloth (or dampened paper towels) into a large bowl, pressing on and discarding solids. Return broth to saucepan.
Roll out a thin pasta and form tortellini of 2" rounds with 1/4 teaspoon filling in center of each round. Moisten edges of filling-topped rounds with a fingertip dipped in water and fold in half, letting bottom edge protrude slightly beyond top edge, then press top edge to bottom half to seal. Holding straight edge of half-moon against nail of your little finger, wrap half-moon around fingertip (which will cause curved edge to flip up), overlapping corners and pinching to seal. Transfer tortellini to a dry kitchen towel (not terry cloth). (Tortellini can be formed and not cooked 1 day ahead - chill and arrange in 1 layer on a flour dusted baking pan covered with plastic wrap.)
Cook tortellini:
Bring broth to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Add tortellini and cook at a strong simmer, stirring gently once or twice, until tender, 3 to 5 minutes.
Ladle broth with 8 to 10 tortellini per person into bowls, garnosh with flat leaf parsley leaves and serve remaining piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano on the side for grating. Makes 8-10 servings or about 80 tortellini (which can be frozen to use later)


text:
A new targeted therapy ("CB-839" a "glutaminase inhibitor") clinical trial specifically for CRC patients with PI3KC mutations (e.g. a part of the Foundation report and major cancer center/genomics venders mutation lists). It targets a metabolism enzyme that CRC tumors of that genetic background may be especially sensitive to inhibition, based on preclinical models.
It is combined with Xeloda in the the trial. They saw synergy with 5-FU in preclinical models. You can enter the trial after you have progressed on ANY 5-FU containing treatment plan - so very flexible.
At the Cleveland Clinic
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT ... 300&rank=1
The scientific poster of the Cleveland Clinic's preclinical CRC research:
http://www.calithera.com/wp-content/upl ... g-2015.pdf


text:
Photo by Romulo Yanes
Take a tip from Asian home cooks and use bottled sauces to your advantage.
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Active Time
- 10 min
- Total Time
- 25 min
- 1 lb chicken tenders (not coated or cooked)
- 1 lb fresh or frozen broccoli florets
- 1 lb dried udon (thick wheat noodles)
- 1/2 cup premium oyster sauce (preferably Lee Kum Kee)
- 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce (preferably Lee Kum Kee or Koon Chun)
- 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons Chinese chile garlic paste (preferably Lan Chi), or to taste
- 1/2 cup chopped scallions (from 1 bunch)
- 2 teaspoons roasted sesame seeds (optional)
- Cook chicken in a 6-quart pot of boiling unsalted water, covered, until just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl with a slotted spoon.
- Add broccoli to boiling water and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer with slotted spoon to a colander to drain, then transfer to another bowl. Return water to a boil and cook noodles until tender (check often; cooking time on package may not be accurate). Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain noodles in colander and rinse under hot water.
- While noodles cook, tear chicken into chunks.
- Add oyster and hoisin sauces, sesame oil, chile garlic paste, half of scallions, and 1/3 cup cooking water to chicken and stir to combine.
- Divide noodles, broccoli, and chicken mixture among 4 bowls and sprinkle with sesame seeds and remaining scallions. Serve immediately, stirring just before eating. If noodles become dry, moisten with some of cooking water.
Cooks' Note
If you have to substitute an Asian chile paste without garlic for the chile garlic paste, start with 1/2 teaspoon and add to taste.
Related Video
Nutritional Info
- Calories823
- Carbohydrates116 g(39%)
- Fat24 g(37%)
- Protein36 g(72%)
- Saturated Fat5 g(23%)
- Sodium1664 mg(69%)
- Polyunsaturated Fat6 g
- Fiber6 g(22%)
- Monounsaturated Fat9 g
- Cholesterol47 mg(16%)


text:
The Animal Kingdom
The Animal Kingdom
view pieces
view photos
And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him.
- Jack London, The Call of the Wild
Nucleus presents a collection of visual work proclaiming admiration for the animal world. A global roster of talent seeks to capture the diversity of beasts that tromp the earth, soar its skies, and swim its seas. We live as the minority among majestic and almost magical creatures each having a place in the cycle of nature. They inspire man's imagination and come to us in our dreams. It would be a lonely world without such an amazing spectrum of life.
Over 70 works of art will be on display in a variety of mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolor, ink, graphite, paper cut, stoneware, and more. Select art prints from contributing artists will be released.
Join Us for the Opening Reception ($5 Admission)
Bring your Valentine as part of your romantic night out.
Open to the public. All ages welcome.
Reception Highlights Include:
Exhibiting Artists:
Joy Ang
Patrick Awa
Brigette Barrager
Ryan Berkley
Lucrezia Bieler
Laura Bifano
Michael Brown
Chris Buzelli
Marjolein Caljouw
Bill Carman
Ako Castuera
Alina Chau
Megan Hughes
Bruce Jensen
Sean Kenney
Edward Kinsella III
Mindy Lee
So Youn Lee
May Ann Licudine (MALL)
Rodrigo Luff
Ashley Mackenzie
Adam Matano
Lucy Mazel
Victo Ngai
Andrea Offermann
Mark James Porter
Corinne Reid
Edel Rodriguez
J. Shea
Dadu Shin
Sachin Teng
Juan Travieso
Nicomi Nix Turner
Angie Wang
Teagan White
Jeremy Wilson
Mike Yamada
Victoria Ying
Ping Zhu
Tian Mang Zi
Jaime Zollars
Treacherous Water by Victo Ngai
Elephant by Adam Matano
Mud by Chris Buzelli
Rabbit by Sean Kenney
Impugning the Frailty of Unspoken Words by Nicomi Nix Turner
Process of Beneath a Black Sun by Jeremy Wilson
Top images by Andrea Offermann and Lucrezia Bieler


text: ^You're not making much sense. How big a role could Superman play in the 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie that he's a baby? Nolan's Batman movies are about Batman's adult world, a world that he actively participates in via both identities. Krypton isn't Superman's world, it's the world he came from. There's a difference. All Krypton needs to do is explode in short order, just like Thomas and Martha Wayne just need to get shot sooner rather than later. Give us a couple of brief scenes so we'll give a crap about them, and then they're gone. Krypton doesn't even need that much. We don't need to care about Krypton.


text:
(To all of my readers,
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! But summer is here, I survived my freshman year of college and I am now celebrating by posting a chapter! Originally, I was going to make this MUCH longer but if I am going to do it in a way that makes sense it has to be like this. So, I hope you enjoy! Keep an eye out for more chapters (especially if you read my other stories!)
Love always, RED)
Chapter 19~ The Falling Angel
Can't you see I'm dying here?
A shot of broken heart that
is chased with fear
Angels cry when stars collide ~ Angels Cry, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
I read the letter in stunned disbelief.
"What does it say?!"Jocelyn asked anxiously. She had told me to open it and now wanted, understandably to know what it said. They all did. Even Grandmere.
I had to read it a few more times. I couldn't comprehend it. It made no sense.
"What does it say?!" Bee asked impatiently.
I was rendered speechless by my confusion.
"What is it, mon cheri?" Grandmere repeated the question but her voice was all concern.
"I have to go to England. He says its urgent and I must come home."
Bee scoffed scornfully.
"He's ordering me to come back," I said, anger beginning to build in my chest. "The letter says 'this is not a request' and 'it isn't optional'."
There was a moment of charged silence in which I seethed and my companions contemplated. Then, Grandmere broke it with words I did not want to hear.
"Then you must go."
Up in our room I seethed with rage. I paced back and forth and threw my possessions into my trunk with unnecessary vigor. My friends watched with cautious faces. They knew that I was getting ready to blow.
"Uurrrgha!" I screamed. "I hate this! I hate this! I hate this! I don't want to go back there! I don't want to be forced to spend time with them! I just want them to leave me be! I just want them to leave me in peace! Why is it so hard for them to understand that I'm happy here? Why is that such a baffling concept?" I was ranting and I knew it but I couldn't stop myself. I was being a drama queen but I couldn't help it. I was a train speeding down the tracks toward a cliff but I couldn't be stopped. "Summoning me like I'm a house elf! Expecting me to drop everything at his beck-and-call! UGH!This could not get any worse!"
I saw a dark look pass between my three best friends and stopped dead.
"What?" I demanded flatly. Perhaps I'd spoken too soon. "What are you three not telling me?"
They looked wide-eyed and totally guilty.
"What do you mean?" Leah said, a bit too innocently.
At the same time Lynnie said, "We're not hiding anything from you."
I looked at Bee, who grimaced under my gaze.
"Leah got her latest issue of TeenWitch before we came up here."
"Okay," I said slowly, carefully. I still wasn't getting what this had to do with me. "And?"
"Well..." She hesitated.
"Brigitte, just tell me," I said sharply.
"Perhaps I should just show you," she answered before rising from her seat on one of the beds and crossing the room. She approached the desk and picked up the magazine in question. She turned a few pages and then turned back to me. She handed it to me cautiously and I took it just as carefully.
And for the second time this morning, I read in disbelief. I read it several times, staring at the page in even more shock than I'd stared at my dad's letter. My dad's letter fit into a schema, my brain could eventually handle it because it fit his personality, his pattern. But this did not fit a schema, this was completely foreign to me. I didn't know how to process it.
The article that Brigitte had turned to was titled, "HAS OUR PRINCE FOUND HIS PRINCESS?" It read;
Sorry ladies, recently the first born son of the Chosen One has been spotted at several
high profile events with eyes for only one girl. Just last week, he attended her seventeenth birthday bash in France. It seems that James Potter, the "Prince of the Wizarding World" has found his princess, Beauxbatons beauty, Alexa Swan (who was also once linked to the lead singer of the Asphodels, Archer Delray, who just so happened to sing at her previously mentioned birthday bash).
The romance between the two is rumored to have started when they met at King's Cross this past December. But we at TeenWitch have done some digging and found a far different love story. Sources have revealed that the fancy started long before this Christmas Holiday.
Before Swan was Beauxbatons' most lusted after young beauty, she inhabited the same castle that James Potter does. She spent her first three years of magical education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where, sources say, she and James were not only in the same house (Gryffindor) but always spotted in the corridors together.
"Everyone could see that they'd eventually end up together. It was so obvious," a Ravenclaw girl in the couples' year insisted.
This seems to be the unanimous conclusion among both current and former Hogwarts students who remember the two in their early years.
"They always used to bicker like an old married couple. It was adorable!" said one former Gryffindor who was a few years ahead of the two in school. "I think James was really torn up when she transferred."
Bright Alexa left James, her friends, and siblings (one older brother and a littler sister) and transferred to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic in France to study under the watchful eye of headmistress, Madame Olympe Maxime, a close family friend. So close, in fact, that Alexa was recently a bridesmaid in her wedding to Hogwarts teacher and (incidentally) close family friend of the Potters', Professor Rubeus Hagrid. She even sang at the reception and enchanted all by the lovely ballad that was clearly meant for only one. James was also, of course, in attendance and it was noted by one guest that the two were both conspicuously absent for part of the celebration (held at Miss Swan's grandparent's chateau). Coincidence? We'll let you be the judge.
What we do know is that only the best will do for the First Born of the Chosen One. Sources tell us that Alexa Swan is the crème de la crème of Beauxbatons Academy. There she and her three best friends (her cousin, Brigitte Gardiner; Jocelyn de Lancret; and Leah Kline- who is rumored to be dating Derrill of the Asphodels {see sidebar on page 30}) have affectionately been dubbed "Les Anges" meaning "The Angels" in French. A most appropriate nickname for these four stunners. Alexa, herself, is known as "Angelique" ("Angelic") among the Beauxbatons set. But, we at TeenWitch think that her surname says it even better. "Angelique" has all the beauty and elegance of a swan. And we're just as enchanted with this new couple as the rest of the magical world is soon to be.
"What?!" I finally managed to exclaim after the fourth reading. "Are they on crack?! What moronic Ravenclaw said it was 'obvious' that James Potter and I were going to be a couple? This is ridiculous!"
I looked up from the article to see my friends with worried, apprehensive looks on their faces. They got even more concerned a minute later because I began to laugh.
"Ange?" Lynnie said uncharacteristically tentative.
"That is so..." Laughter. "That is so.... James Potter and me in..." Fits of laughter. "So ridiculous... Potter and me a..." Peels of laughter. "Love story... preposterous...rubbish" Giggles. "What a load of..." More giggles. "...dragon dung...this rag..." I doubled over and completely collapsed on the floor in uncontrolled, manic laughter.
"Ange, are you okay?" Leah asked, her voice sounded worried but I couldn't see because of the tears streaming from my eyes.
"I'm..." More laughter. "I'm fine..." Giggle fit. "I just...can't...breathe..." More laughter.
At that, they began to laugh with me. We laughed and laughed, leaning against each other, clutching our sides, until my grandmother knocked on the door.
"Alexa, darling, are you done packing, yet?" She said, voice muffled. "Your father sent another owl saying he expects you to be there before noon."
I stopped laughing instantly.
"I'm not done yet!" I called back, attempting (unsuccessfully) to keep the irritation and anger from my voice. It wasn't Grandmere's fault I had to go back, after all. I turned back to my suitcase and began slowly packing again. Noon my ass. I'd be there when I was good and ready. It was bad enough he was ordering me to come back to begin with, he wasn't going to dictate the time of my arrival to me as well.
"So, you're really not angry about the Potter article?" Brigitte asked.
"No," I scoffed. "It's rubbish and it just makes them look like a rag. The Quibbler is more credible."
"I still say that we should NOT let her read Rita Skeeter's article," Jocelyn said.
"How d'you know Rita Skeeter wrote an article?"
"Because, her article from the Daily Prophet was syndicated in le Présage," Brigitte told me.
"Ugh," I groaned because I had a feeling that her article would not make me laugh. Rita Skeeter was notoriously vicious. "Yeah, I think that one I can go without seeing, thanks."
"Probably a wise decision," Leah replied. "It wouldn't improve your mood. And we don't want to send you back to your parents in a homicidal rage."
They laughed but I didn't. I didn't want to be sent back at all.
My bad feeling about this summons was increasing by the hour. What could he possibly want? Why would my father, of all people, want me to come back to England? He was far more comfortable having me in France, despite his clear disapproval, it meant he was spared at trying for an actual father-daughter relationship.
I grudgingly stepped into the fireplace at half past noon (no way was I arriving on time, it was bad enough I had to go at all) trying to calm myself. I was unsuccessful. My nostrils flared, my pulse quickened and my jaw locked as I spun round and round. When I arrived, Saundra and my parents were there in the sitting room.
"Alright, what is so bloody important that I had to be summoned back here?" I demanded, brushing off my clothes.
When I got no reply, I looked up to see my parents on one side of the room, each standing with their arms crossed across their chests and eyebrows knit together, and Saundra on the other sitting on the couch with much the same body language. Her chin stuck out stubbornly, as if she was defying someone but that would mean-
A few seconds too late, it dawned on me that I had just interrupted a very rare situation. Saundra and my parents were arguing. And, by the looks of it, they were currently at an impasse.
Upon my arrival, Saundra looked at the fireplace and the disgust that crossed her face made something inside me ache.
"Oh, of course, by all means, call the golden child home!" She exclaimed in outrage, rising to her feet. "As if we didn't have enough drama! Heaven forbid the angel miss all the fun!" And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed from the room.
The three of us stared after her for a moment, me in shock and my parents in something like resignation.
"What was that all about?" I ask, breaking the silence. Completely forgetting that I was also supposed to be angry about being here to begin with.
They looked at me and my stomach sunk into my shoes. It was bad.
Whatever they'd brought me here for, it was bad. I was not going to like it.
I was about to dart head-first back into the fireplace before they could give me this news that I was not going to like but they were too fast.
"Sit down, Alexa," my father ordered gravely.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He sighed irritatedly and barked, "please."
I shrugged, that was about as good as it was going to get, and sat down in the seat my sister had just vacated. My heart was beating so fast that I could feel the pulsing in my temples. I braced myself for the unhappiness that their news would bring, what I did not brace myself for was the next sentence out of my father's mouth.
"Your mother and I have decided that it would be good for you and good for your sister if you returned to Hogwarts for your final year."
Just like that my world did a back flip. It blew up and froze over and then blew up again.
'Your mother and I have decided that it would be good for you and good for your sister if you returned to Hogwarts for your final year.'
'Your mother and I have decided that it would be good for you and good for your sister if you returned to Hogwarts for your final year.'
'Your mother and I have decided that it would be good for you and good for your sister if you returned to Hogwarts for your final year.'
My body processed the statement before my mind did. Without orders to do so, it stood and grabbed my bags then ran to the fireplace, shouting the name of my destination before they could stop me.
I was in too much shock to be nauseous like any other time using Floo Powder, it wasn't until I'd stopped spinning and stepped out onto the hearth that I had my breakdown. I collapsed on the rug and began to sob, alerting my friends and Grandmere to my return. In nanoseconds, they'd converged on me, hugging me and uttering words of comfort that I did not hear.
They stayed up all night trying to calm my hysterics when, finally, around dawn, I had cried myself dry and fallen asleep. I slept a lot over the next few days, perhaps my mind was using it as a defense mechanism. Shutting down my brain to help me cope with the inevitable. And, while I was sleeping, the rest of my family was arguing.
In between long naps, I gathered information from Brigitte. She informed me that the reason my parents wanted me back at Hogwarts with Saundra, was that Saundra didn't want to go back there at all. When my mother had suggested to her that she attend Beauxbaton with me in the coming year, she vehemently refused that option as well. My father also opposed this, apparently saying that he didn't want to teach his children that running away from their problems was okay. And that's when he came up with his own option. I would return with Saundra to Hogwarts and we'd both face our problems with the place ("whatever they may be" said my father) head on, together. Right, that was likely.
But, evidently, he had dug his heels in on the issue. My mother, Grandmere, and (shockingly) Michael argued that it was hardly fair to rip me from Beauxbaton when I was entering my seventh year just because Saundra was having problems. My father and Granddad, however, were firmly convinced that this was the only fair solution. Despite this fact, Saundra was insisting that she was not going back to school, no matter what they did and most especially if I was going with her.
I didn't bother arguing. They couldn't make me go back if I didn't cooperate. They couldn't force me to do anything if I didn't budge. I was NOT going back to Hogwarts. I remained firmly set on this for the next two weeks. While the rest of them argued, I planned how to evade capture. I was not going to go quietly. They were not going to take me alive. I was staying in France if it took every ounce of my will and determination to do so. I was confidently and fully prepared for my parents to come to the chateau and attempt to drag me back to England kicking and screaming. I was fully prepared to outsmart them when they did. I was fully prepared to escape them and end up back at Beauxbatons for my seventh year.
What I wasn't prepared for was what actually happened.
I woke up midmorning with the rest of them (a rarity these days) and we went downstairs to eat breakfast together. We were raving over my Grandmere's excellent cooking and I was actually laughing with my friends (another rarity in recent weeks) when we heard a swoosh. And, to the shock of the room at large, out of the fireplace stepped my brother, Michael.
There was a long silence during which most of us looked from Michael to Leah and back and the two of them just stared back into each others' eyes. Then, Grandmere cleared her throat and the two seemed to snap out of their trance. Michael tore his eyes from Leah and spoke, and what he said surprised everyone.
"Allie, can I speak to you?"
I blinked back at him in confusion.
"Alone?" He prodded. "Please?"
I shook my head, trying to get the cloud surrounding my comprehension to dissipate. I rose and,with a quick glance back at a crestfallen Leah, proceeded to lead Michael out of the chateau, into the garden.
We walked in silence for several more minutes before he finally realized I was waiting him to speak. He had after all been the one who had interrupted my morning and said he needed to talk to me.
"So, I know the last time we talked we both said some things," he began. "Some things we didn't really mean."
I remained silent. Waiting.
"And I just wanted to let you know that I don't blame what happened to Saundra on you," he went on, looking down at his shoes. "But, she's having an incredibly hard time right now."
"I know," I replied defensively.
"I know you do. And that's what makes this so hard to say..." he went silent.
"What?" I said after a moment. "What is hard to say?"
"I-I think you should go back to Hogwarts."
Silence. Deafening silence.
"B-but-" I sputtered in confusion.
"I know," he says. "I know that I've been fighting Dad on it with Mum and Grandmere but I talked to Saundra last night-"
"She doesn't want me there either," I cut across him, a bit venomously.
"I know that, too. But I think you should go just the same." He told me. "Yeah, she doesn't want you there. But she needs you. She doesn't want to admit it but she needs you. I can't help her the way you can."
"Michael, I can't help her at all," I tell him in disbelief. "She'll barely speak to me."
"You can help her. You have no idea how much you can help her, just by being there."
"She. Doesn't. Want. Me. There." I repeated through gritted teeth.
He sighed. "Will you promise me that you'll just think about it?"
His eyes pleaded with me and, despite the fact that I was mad at him just half an hour before, I couldn't say no to those eyes.
I huffed in irritation. "Fine. I'll THINK about it," I lied.
"Thanks, Allie." He grinned at me, leaned down and kissed my cheek then gave me a hug.
"Yeah, yeah," I replied flatly with no intention of actually giving it a second thought.
However, that night, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't turn my mind off. My brothers words echoed in my head, making it impossible to sleep.
She doesn't want you there. But she needs you. She doesn't want to admit it but she needs you.
You can help her. You have no idea how much you can help her, just by being there.
But how? How could I possibly help someone who does want my help?
You have no idea how much you can help her, just by being there.
I huffed in frustration, punching my pillow into a new formation and turning onto my side. Saundra didn't want me there, why was I actually taking this seriously? What did Michael know? He was probably just looking for an excuse to see Leah.
Of course!
Michael had just been looking for an excuse to see Leah! Why else would he come all the way to France to convince me to do something he'd been arguing against to my father? Why would he try to make me go back to Hogwarts when he was the one who had helped me leave to begin with? Stupid git, messing with my head just because he wanted to see his ex-girlfriend rather than growing a pair and just talking to her.
Gosh, it was probably because of that stupid article that mentioned her and Derrill. Rita Skeeter probably followed suit and harped on their fake relationship just as much as she had harped on my supposed romance. My stupid brother had actually believed that twit. Ugh!
Cursing my brother's stupidity and renewing my vow never to go back to Hogwarts, I finally went to sleep in peace.
When I woke, my peace was shattered.
As much as I wanted to believe that Michael's motives for coming to the chateau were completely selfish, I knew my brother better than that. He would not dangle both of his sisters' futures over the edge of a cliff just for a glimpse of a girl. Any girl. Even Leah.
She doesn't want you there. But she needs you.
The words seeped under my skin and into my bloodstream like audible poison. I sighed and felt a heavy sense of dread settle back into the pit of my stomach. My heart seemed to freeze and then shatter in my chest, leaving it hallow.
Michael wouldn't lie about something like that, something so serious. I knew my big brother and he was as noble as his house at Hogwarts suggested. With this certain revelation, I began to cry silently because I knew what I had to do.
I wasn't dangling at the edge of the cliff any longer. I was falling off of the edge.
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Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the treatment of HIV infection has saved 2.8 million years of life in South Africa since 2004 and is projected to save an additional 15.1 million years of life by 2030, according to a new study published online in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. The analysis suggests these dramatic benefits could be even greater if more aggressive HIV testing and treatment strategies are implemented.
"We hope that this study reminds stakeholders of the astounding efficacy of the global ART rollout while simultaneously invigorating efforts to redouble commitments toward expanding the availability of ART," said lead study author Michael D. April, MD, DPhil, of the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium.
South Africa's HIV epidemic is the largest in the world, with an estimated 5.6 million people infected in 2011, according to UNAIDS. Although about half of those infected are eligible for treatment with ART, based on current guidelines for when to start therapy, one-third of those eligible remain without treatment, despite progress in expanding access since ART was introduced in the country in 2004. In this study, researchers used a mathematical model based on real world data to quantify the direct impact of the rollout of ART on survival among HIV-infected patients.
The researchers estimated that substantial survival gains from ART have already been achieved in South Africa: 2.8 million years of life gained as of December 2011. These years of life already saved represent just 15.6 percent of the 17.9 million years of life that will be saved by 2030 among patients currently receiving ART, according to the researchers' analysis.
Notably, these estimates exclude those who might benefit from starting ART in the future but who are not yet receiving it, Dr. April said. Continued international investment in the global response to HIV, including the U.S. President's Plan for Emergency AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), will be required to maintain the gains already achieved and efficiently expand access to ART. "Policymakers have the power to magnify the future trajectory of survival gains further still by pursuing more aggressive HIV testing and treatment strategies," Dr. April noted. "Increased case identification, early ART initiation, and expanded treatment options might catapult our conservative survival projections even further."
Despite earlier political decisions to limit ART scale-up in South Africa, the country's aggregate survival benefit from ART during just eight years (2004-2011) is similar to the considerable benefit reported previously for the U.S. over 15 years (1989-2003), wrote Sten H. Vermund, MD, PhD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, in an accompanying editorial commentary.
"The magnitude of the benefit of South African ART-based programs is astounding," wrote Dr. Vermund, who noted his hope that the bipartisanship in the U.S. that has characterized support of PEPFAR, which has been instrumental in the fight against HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, "will continue to bolster this essential investment for the future of the African continent."
The findings underscore the need to maintain the successes of an effective ART delivery system that today provides treatment for 1.4 million HIV-infected South Africans who need it—and to build on these accomplishments, the study authors said. National surveys suggest that only half of South Africans have ever been tested for HIV; there are likely large numbers of people infected with HIV in the high prevalence country that have yet to be identified and linked to lifesaving care.
"Our results suggest that rather than a debate over continuation of current funding commitments for the global response to HIV, policymakers and researchers should be examining strategies to most effectively and efficiently expand HIV testing and treatment efforts, to help increase future potential survival gains," said study author Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
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It's been a hard month or so here.
Six weeks ago I tripped over the preschooler and tweaked my back while keeping myself from falling or dropping the baby. The following day, I walked into my bedroom after bathing the kids and collapsed on the floor in agony. My L4 disc blew. Again. For the third time in 2 years. My screams terrified the baby while I begged my husband to call my mother and then an ambulance, in that order. Within three minutes, the room filled with firemen and a medic was pressing his knee into my back to ease the tremors that the shock were causing. They rolled me onto a frigid metal board and carried me down a flight of stairs and the stone steps leading from my front door before loading me and my exposed nursing bra into the ambulance. I refused any pain medication on the ride, not knowing what was compatible with breastfeeding. The medic called me "one tough cookie" upon our arrival at the ER. One IV of morphine later, the pain subsided and I was both high as a kite and severely nauseous. I spent a week in a haze of codeine and bed rest, only to suffer a seven-day regimen of oral steroids that brought on a severe (but temporary) depression.
Four weeks ago, I contracted what I can only describe as officially the world's worst cold. Not quite the flu. More than a cold. Body aches, fever, congestion, fire throat, zombie brain, and finally a hacking cough. It's still not completely gone.
Eight days ago, I woke up at 1am with my heart racing, almost jumping out of my chest. My first thought was a random panic attack and I wondered where my Ativan was. Then the vomiting began. And continued every ten minutes for three straight hours. The heart palpitations only increased and between my fatigue and signs of dehydration, I graced the ER with my presence once again. The male nurse who placed my IV tossed each vial of blood he took for tests onto the bed as if it was the bane of his existence. I have never had such a painful needle stick. And yet I could kiss him for bringing me the Zofran. And though the nausea ended early in the morning, the following day's fever, body aches, and fatigue had no magic cure. It took until Saturday – seven days – before I felt like myself again.
Six days ago, my mother took the preschooler overnight so DH and I could focus on my recuperation. DH took some Tums in an attempt to cure his indigestion and I prepared for the worst. At 10:01pm, I watched on the video monitor as the baby threw up over the side of her crib. There is nothing worse than the sound of a baby attempting to cry in-between dry heaves. I started nursing her in-between bouts of nausea just so she wouldn't have an empty stomach. We snuggled in the guest bed until morning, when her nausea subsided and her body relaxed into a deep sleep.
Three days ago, we packed everyone up and drove 40 minutes north to my parents' home. It's not easy for me to ask for help, but DH was still on the mend, the baby needed my constant attention, and the television is incapable of providing my preschooler with any babysitting care other than distraction. They were, as they always are, amazingly helpful and I started to think we were out of the woods.
Two days ago, No1 woke up at 5am and was sick every 30 minutes for six hours. After the first hour, she began fighting the illness, insisting she was fine and wrestling with anyone who tried to help her. She seemed to bounce back the quickest and yet this evening brought a relapse, complete with fever and nausea.
Yesterday, we left my parents sitting on the couch with saltine crackers.
And today, my preschooler threw up in the parking lot of my psychiatrist's office on my $300 Clarks riding boots. The fear in her eyes brought me to my knees beside the car and I held her through all three fits of coughing.
But when my psychiatrist asked me how I've been the last three months, I was honestly able to answer, "normal." I've been overwhelmed. Stressed. Short-tempered. Exhausted. And in desperate need of some intensive self-care. But I think my reactions in every situation were typical. And though not ideal, typical is a pretty great place to be if you struggle with mental illness.
I'd like to think it can only get better from here. Knock on some wood with me, will ya?


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Published: Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 12:00 AM Updated: Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 6:38 A By DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-News
Eight of the drilling companies with representatives on the Pennsylvania governor's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission were cited with environmental violations last year. One of them led the state in violations. All of them contributed to Gov. Tom Corbett's campaign. That lends some ammunition to environmentalists' complaint that Corbett populated the commission henhouse with industry foxes favored for their largesse rather than careful business practices. Industry officials say the representatives bring valuable expertise and talent to the panel.
According to an analysis of violations from the Department of Environmental Protection conducted by Clean Water Action, an environmental group, the companies represented on the governor's commission accounted for 42 percent of all drilling violations last year — 514 out of a total 1,227. "It's pretty shocking," said Myron Arnowitt, Clean Water Action's state director. "Some of the very worst companies are on the commission." With 174 violations, Chief Oil & Gas led the state last year; Chief's vice president of government and regulatory affairs, Terry Bossert, sits on the commission. Attempts to contact Chief for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful. Chesapeake Energy had the third-highest number of violations at 132; Chesapeake's vice president of government relations, Dave Spigelmyer, was appointed to the commission, but chose to step off prior to the beginning of its work. Other companies with violations serving on the commission are: East Resources (74 violations), Exxon Mobil (66), Range Resources (32), Chevron (16), EQT (15) and Consol (5). The violations range from administrative oversights to illegal discharge of industrial waste. About one in six wells had problems.
"We're concerned that some of the folks on the commission are really part of the problem, and we don't see how they're going to be part of the solution," Arnowitt said.
Companies represented on the commission also donated more than $790,000 to Corbett's campaign, he said. Ray Walker of Range Resources is serving on the commission as the representative of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group he chairs.
"The commission's objective is to develop a comprehensive, strategic proposal for the responsible and environmentally sound development of Marcellus Shale," said the coalition's spokesman, Travis Windle. "Having subject matter experts — like Ray Walker and others — whose understanding of these highly technical issues is second to none only makes sense." Range is also widely recognized as one of the most environmentally responsible of all the companies drilling in Pennsylvania. It was Range that told DEP the state's regulations had to change or its rivers would be destroyed.
That's not good enough for Clean Water Action. It's one of 17 groups that plans to stage a rally outside the commission's meeting at the Rachel Carson Building in Harrisburg at noon today. The groups are calling for the governor to disband the commission unless citizens groups are given seats at the table. "The rally is really to address the fact — from our perspective — [that] the makeup of the commission is not what it should be to address the problems Marcellus Shale drilling has brought to the state," Arnowitt said.
Arnowitt was part of an April 13 meeting between environmental groups and both the governor's energy executive and the DEP secretary. The groups were denied seats on the board, but the officials asked them to supply specific ideas of how to incorporate more public comment into the proceedings. That has not been done. "We're still putting together ideas," Arnowitt said. "We're happy to talk more about how to include more input, but that's a separate question."
That disparity between public and private action is telling, said Chad Saylor, spokesman for Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, who leads the commission.The proceedings are open and transparent, he said, and public comment is still welcome.
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Filed under: drilling in pa | Tagged: Chesapeake energy, Chief Oil & Gas, clean water action, Dave Spigelmyer, department of environmental protection, drilling in pa, east resources, exxon mobil, gas drilling violations, industrial waste, Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, Marcellus Shale Committee, Marcellus shale drilling, natural gas environmental violations, natural gas wells, pa gas drilling, Pa governor, range resources, Terry Bossert, Tom Corbett, tom corbett campaign contributions | 1 Comment »


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Game 40: Chicago at Toronto pregame
With it being photo day today for the fans, and no batting practice scheduled for the Blue Jays, it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere in the clubhouse. Well, except maybe for catcher Rod Barajas, who was being held down and pummeled by Aaron Hill and Vernon Wells. Boys will be boys.
Outside of the clubhouse, in the tunnel underneath the stands, Marco Scutaro and Alex Rios were testing out Rios' new toy — a 3-foot long high-powered remote control sportscar. Rios, who has quite the collection of remote-powered helicopters as well, said the car can get up to 40-45 mph.
Today, Rios just had to warm up the engine. No driving it just yet. So, the car sat idling behind a tarp in the tunnel between the clubhouse and the dugout. Scutaro and Rios revved the engine a few times, but we didn't get to see the car in action. I suggested Rios put his bobblehead in the driver's seat.
Today's lineups:
1. Scott Podsednik, LF
2. Chris Getz, 2B
3. Jermaine Dye, RF
4. Paul Konerko, 1B
5. Jim Thome, DH
6. Alexei Ramirez, SS
7. Josh Fields, 3B
8. Corky Miller, C
9. Brent Lillibridge, CF
Starter: RHP Gavin Floyd (2-3)
1. Marco Scutaro, SS
2. Aaron Hill, 2B
3. Alex Rios, RF
4. Vernon Wells, CF
5. Adam Lind, DH
6. Scott Rolen, 3B
7. Lyle Overbay, 1B
8. Rod Barajas, C
9. Travis Snider, LF
Starter: RHP Roy Halladay (7-1)
4 Comments
Tough injury for Scutaro , it knocks the wind out of you and it hurts to breath . I have been hit with a spiked volleyball and I am sure mine didn't hurt near as much as being hit by a baseball . I hope he isn't out too long
I have a co-worker who is a sox fan , always whining about the Jays' easy schedule . I finally told him he obviously has never looked at their schedule or he would have seen that the Jays have played more games than any other team, therefore less days off ( Sox have had 5 , Jays 2 ) and when the Jays played out west they had a night game, flew back to TO after it and had to play later that same day , no day off for them . In the end they all play 162 games . They all play every team in the ALE 18 times and the Jays don't make the schedule . Here's to a sweep of the sox, both white and red …..go Jays
Good game today , minor bump for Doc in the first but he tosses it aside and wins number 8 . I hope Snider finds his bat soon and that his lack of offence isn't taking a toll on him mentally . Couple years back Hill went through a slump but Gibby stuck with him and he eventually turned it around , I think Snider will also
Roy Halladay is having a great season again! You gotta love the guy. It's unfortunate that he's being "out-dueled" by another "out of the blue" guy again this year in Zack Grienke.
I'm hoping for the same thing about Snider. He seemed to turn the corner briefly but has seemingly been back in a funk.
This may be bias but here goes….I don't like football, so having seen that gigantic poster outside the Rogers Centre (the one Jordan mentioned in his other post) yesterday I wasn't exactly happy. The Jays attendance is down this year so I feel they should be focusing more on that as opposed to pomoting a guy whom I have no interest in. I thought it looked out of place too but that may just be me.
Indigo, well said about the schedule.


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Little new as Senate candidates tangle in second debate
Storrs — U.S. Senate hopefuls Linda McMahon and Chris Murphy squared off Thursday on foreign policy, Bush-era tax cuts, personal finances and the plethora of "character assaults" in this year's race during the second of their four one-on-one debates.
Yet they covered little new ground.
Murphy, currently the state's 5th Congressional District representative, appeared to draw the warmer response from the debate audience of several hundred inside the University of Connecticut's Jorgensen Center. The three-term congressman claimed throughout the evening that McMahon, a Republican, is "addicted to personal attacks."
The audience applauded when Murphy called for more substantive talk in the race and fewer attacks. And at one point in the evening, McMahon was laughed briefly and then booed by some audience members.
The boos followed McMahon's response to Murphy's assertion that he had handled his past financial troubles — late mortgage, rent and car tax payments — more admirably than McMahon had when she and her husband, Vince, discharged their debt in a 1976 personal bankruptcy.
Murphy said that McMahon "ran away" from the nearly $1 million in obligations until the list of creditors surfaced last month — and only then repaid some of them for political reasons.
"For 36 years, she's been pulling in salaries of $30 million, $40 million a year and still couldn't bring herself to pay back the people of Connecticut she owed," Murphy said of the former WWE executive.
"Well, I did eventually pay," McMahon replied.
"Thirty-six years later," Murphy retorted. McMahon responded: "But I did it with my money. You got a special loan from the bank. You got a special loan."
That last remark from McMahon — interpreted as personal assault — prompted a mix of booing and clapping.
The candidates presented a clear contrast on the question of extending the Bush-era tax cuts for high-earning individuals and families.
Murphy said the tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or more a year should be allowed to expire on Jan. 1. But he is for making the Bush tax cuts affecting the middle class permanent.
McMahon argued that the economy is still too weak to raise taxes on anyone, but said she would consider raising taxes on high earners in later years "as long as those taxes are used to pay down the debt and the deficit."
On a foreign policy question, Murphy said he believes the country should be "more stingy" in deploying resources abroad. He described how he disagrees with President Obama's timeline for withdrawing nearly all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Murphy wants the troops home much sooner.
McMahon criticized Obama for announcing that the country has a timeline for troop withdrawal. But said she supports the president's timetable. She called for careful use of troops abroad in general, and said she adheres to the idea of "peace through strength" when it comes to the country's military.
Murphy mentioned his "Buy American" legislation efforts and said that despite McMahon's repeated claims to the contrary, he indeed has a plan for creating jobs and economic growth.
"Linda McMahon should stop staying that I don't," he said.
McMahon disagreed. She also blamed Murphy for having contributed to the nation's debt problems and stubbornly high unemployment rate.
"'Buy American' is a slogan, it's not a plan," McMahon said, later noting that Murphy twice voted against his own Buy American provisions that were in defense spending bills.
McMahon vowed several times that she would be an "independent thinker" in the U.S. Senate, criticizing Murphy for "trying to paint me in the corner" as a Republican who would empower a right-wing agenda.
"Why are all these Republican senators coming to Connecticut to campaign for Linda McMahon?" Murphy said. "It's because they know she's … the 51st vote for a Tea Party majority in the Senate."
"It's time to elect a senator who's a job creator with a real plan," McMahon said in her closing remarks. "We don't need another senator whose primary aspiration is a political career."
The Day is sponsoring the candidates' third debate at 7 p.m. Monday in the Garde Arts Center in New London.
Thursday night's debate was sponsored by The Hartford Courant and FOX CT. It was broadcast live on television and radio.
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UH President announces nominees for 2007 Governors Awards for Distinguished State Service Employee of the Year, Manager of the Year and TEAM ExcellUniversity of Hawaiʻi
Office of Human Resources
Courtney Baum, (808) 956-9083
External Affairs & University Relations
PEARL CITY, HI- University of Hawaiʻi President David McClain announced to the Board of Regents at the July meeting, the University's nominees for the 2007 Governor's Awards for Distinguished State Service. The awards are part of the State's employee recognition and incentive program administered by the Department of Human Resources Development. The three awards: Employee of the Year, Manager of the Year and Team of Excellence Award of Merit (TEAM), are designed to honor the State's executive branch employees and managers who exemplify the highest caliber of public service and dedication to serving the people of Hawai'i.
The University's nominee for Employee of the Year is Milton Yamasaki, Agricultural Research Technician at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), Hawaiʻi County. Yamasaki oversees five West Hawaiʻi county research stations as a farm manager, ensuring the well-being of a herd of more than 200 head of beef cattle and providing 24-hour security. In the aftermath of the October 2006 earthquake, Yamasaki immediately began addressing research station needs at Mealani, Lālāmiko, Hāmākua, Kona and Kainaliu. He has been instrumental in the market expansion of Hawaiʻi grass-raised beef and is one of the founders of A Taste of the Hawaiian Range Food Festival, an annual food festival and premier agriculture-tourism event on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.
Representing the University for the Manager of the Year award is Gene Awakuni, Chancellor of the University of Hawaiʻi- West Oahu (UHWO). He was selected for his work in facilitating the transition of UHWO toward its new campus and a full, four-year curriculum. Chancellor Awakuni has moved the development of the new campus further in the past two years, than it has been moved in the previous three decades. Awakuni works at all levels of both physical and academic planning for the new UHWO campus at Kapolei and has been instrumental in the addition of the Career Development and Job Placement Center, an expanded Writing Center, and a Director of Assessment, among many other new functions and positions.
This year's TEAM award nominees are Roxanne Bega, Oahu; Theresa Fernandez, Maui; Alicia "Kehau" Keller, Oahu; Jodi Leslie, Kona, Hawaiʻi; Linda Martinez, Hilo, Hawaiʻi. All are program assistants in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). They are nominated in recognition of the team's collaborative efforts, outstanding work and significant contributions in providing basic nutrition, food safety, and family resource management. The program services limited-resource families with school-aged children within the communities where they reside. The USDA-funded EFNEP is housed in CTAHR's Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences at UH Mānoa.
The 2006-07 year was particularly noteworthy for the EFNEP team as, of over 400 families served, more than 80 percent showed improvement in more than one nutrition practice, including preparing food without salt, reading nutrition labels and/or ensuring their children received a healthy breakfast.
University nominees receive a $300 cash award and personal recognition by the Board of Regents. They will be also honored at an October 19th award ceremony and reception where Governor Linda Lingle will announce the state-wide winners chosen by representatives from the Department of Human Resources Development and the Governor's Office.
In the past two years, UH employees were honored as State Employee of the Year: John Awakuni, Fiscal Officer of Library Sciences in 2005 and Charles Nelson, CTAHR Agricultural Equipment Development Working Supervisor in 2006.