text:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is announcing steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum to address what he says is an "assault on our country."
Trump says a 25 percent tax will apply to steel imports, and 10 percent will be added to aluminum brought into the U.S.
Trump says the excess of imported steel and aluminum is a "travesty" and hurts American workers and industry.
In making the long-awaited announcement Thursday, Trump says the U.S. industry has been "ravaged by aggressive foreign trade practices."
Says Trump, "It's really an assault on our country."


text:
Hey what happened to the Aussie thread, it was up to about 1200 posts but i can't find it.
Hey what happened to the Aussie thread, it was up to about 1200 posts but i can't find it.
The forum was purged by JVS3. Here's the link. The old Aussie thread went with it.
Looks like this could be the new Aussie thread.
Any of you guys getting a 2004 She-ra?
Apart from the recent toys r us findings, has anyone got any news regarding new figures? A few days ago on the front page someone reported that Australia was in line to get new figures in September, did anyone else read that?
Regards Jake
Hello Everyone,
I phoned Mattel, earlier this week. As far as those reps, working the phones
know, September is still when we recieve new items. I hope that helps.
Take it easy,
If those figures on the front page ever get made, we might even get them by 2010.
Regards Jake
Got Sam battlecat and Raptor at TRU today. All I need now are the SAM he-man and Skelly figures.
I also brough a killer croc which I found there, since I heard he was somewhat rare. Debating whether to open it or not (im an open collector). If I do that means I will start collecting batman, which is something I have tried to avoid (the only lines I collect are MOTU and Takara transformer reissues). If I do deside to collect batman it will only be the original characters, got no room for those vaients and vehicles! I suppose I would only have to really get zipline batman, joker and Mr Freeze (who are impossible to find) - was there a 4 hoursman robin as well? Hmmm, decisions decisions...
I picked up my second slime pit last weekend (pretty much for the mutant). I am considerign getting a few more. $20 is pretty cheap, considering I have spent up to $40 for regular figures!
I am not sure if everyone is aware of this, but the stuff available in ToysRUs at the moment is imported directly form overseas (the states I believe). They didn't get it from mattel. This is pretty good news in that at least one person in TRU sees the potential in MoTU.
There is still heaps of stock available, so if anyone is still deciding on getting something (or maybe another slime pit, LOL) - I say GO FOR IT, because it may mean that we get even more stuff in.
AWWW we have to start again ..... that sucks,
Anyway anyone been able to find out what exactly mattel are releasing in september??? I phoned and they didn't know. Will we see wave 2 or are they skipping straight to the snakemen stuff, when are we going to see the classic DVDs hitting our shores, or even the 1987 movie. Why are so behind??
I believe Australia has the potential to make this line work for kids and collectors, just like the uk and germany, MOTU was huge here in the 80's, People know about this line. Hell wave 1 did well in Sydney, except for all those MAA,
We should start an online petition to tell mattel..YES there are MOTU fans in Australia, and we would love them to really give this line a push in Australia, * Fix Uneven case ratios (learn from the USA's mistakes)
* Advertise, on kids TV, What about a McDonalds Happy Meal Promo
* Get the classic DVD's out here and turn some old fans into collectors.
* Get the MV Creations/Image comic into Australian comic stores, currently comic stores have to go around imbargoes, buying it from the USA to fill collector demand, they only get it in short supply if at all. Hell us collectors are the ones with the money to afford to buy 2 of each figure one MIB and one for display (we all do it its ok)
* And lastly strike while the iron is HOT the Cartoon has been airing for a few months now, and Saturday morning on channel 10 is quite good, look what transformers armada did with that time slot
anyway If your a Motu Fan and if your an Aussie, use this thread to tell mattel how you fell, I will even post a few copies off to various stores and different departments of mattel in a few weeks so it might reach the right people. GET BEHIND THIS voice your opinion
Hey Hulkvan,
Well done, for attempting to create a "MotU" movement in Australia. Certainly, count me in. If there is anything, I can do to help, please let me know.
I do agree if "MotU", is marketed correctly it could have some success.
Any fast food promotions, would be welcomed. Also, advertising is important.
However, it is also important for Mattel to communicate with "MotU" fans.
Just beacuse, things have not gone over as hoped, in the U.S., does nothing to show me, that the concept is wrong.
Mattel, just needs to treat the property with respect. Mattel in Germany,
seem to have done that, with their awesome website.
Take it easy,
I just bin down to toy's R us a.c.t and found deluxe battle armor he-man and skeletor plus battle cat and raptor also slime pit several [email protected] all around 9.97 and slime pit 19.97
peace out
Australian Fans, I have news!
You can decide whether it is good or not...
First News;
I called Mattel and spoke to Greg (or Gary??, I can't remember). He confirmed that we are getting figs in Sepetmber. This is what he told me was listed;
Heroic Warriors
Ice Armor He-Man
Buzz Off
Stealth He-Man
Evil Enemies
Evil Lyn !!!
Snake Crush Skeletor
Trap Jaw
Skeletor (no other name given, I assume it is Ice Armor)
So it looks like we are getting the repaint cases (that AFX have). I called again to confirm and they said they the evil enimies case is definitely 7 figures??!! So Evil Lyn may well be included??
He also said we were getting Mecha Bite Battle Cat and Panthor and the slime pit??!! It will be interesting to see how much these go for - especially since ToysRus have the Slime Pit for $19.95!!!.
One last thing he said was listed was "Animal Figures". he had no other details of this. Perhaps it is Orginal Battle Cat and Panthor???
I am glad we are getting something, but it looks like Mattel Australia unfortunately won't give the line much of an "Aussie" focus. If we do infact get evil Lyn, that would be way cool. We need to make sure they don't just follow the other (existing markets) and release whatever is released there. Otherwise we will never see Teela, Original Panthor, etc...
Other news; (sort of)
Was that on Friday I was watching Cartoon Network in the evening and on one of their adverts, I saw a (very quick) image of Webstor!!! I have called Foxtel and are awaiting a reponse as to what is happening with the cartoon.
Last edited by He-Boy; August 3, 2004 at 02:54am.
wow that figure assortment sounds great, hopefully it stays that, way.
Yeah i have a She-ra and Hordak bust on the way, should arrive this week sometime looking forward to them.
That sounds like poop. I want original paint jobs, not the repaints!
Any news is good news : ) HE-BOY did mattel confirm that these are the repaints, it could just be our wave two, the USA wave two looked similar to this (minus the snake crush Skeletor) the inclusion of evil lynn is just making me think??? Or is there an Australian evil lynn repaint exclusive on the cards
that would be SO sweet!!!
Hmmm good and bad.
I'd be all over Buzz-Off, Man-E-Faces and Whiplash, BUT only if they were the original paints, not some weird re-paint.
Does anyone have pics of the re-paint Buzz-Off and Whiplash? I've seen pics of the Man-E and he looks terrible, though out of desperation I may pick him up.
If Evil-Lynn is a re-paint on the other hand, then I will get her no matter what, cause you knows its Evil-Lynn!
Now if we can only get Too-Badd, the Snake enemies, Zodak, Roboto, Snake-Armour He-Man, She-Ra, Keldor, etc, etc AND Castle Grayskull I would really be happy.
I finally heard from foxtel about the cartoon (They would possibly have the WORST customer service - EVER). Good news though; Series 1 starts on september 5 and it looks like series 2 is playing directly after series 1. The unprofessional hack mumbled whatever he was reading to himself (which he assumed was all I need to comprehend what he was on about), so it was difficult to get any further info out of him.
Regarding the figures, the reps at Mattel were reading from a info sheet, and they said that was all they had, so I doubt customer service have been provided any more info. I asked when in september we could expect figs and they suggested it could be any time (depending on when the stores receive it and put it on shelf)
Whos going to put motu out or have they on dvd? (dont have a all reg's dvd so no u.s ones) has any one put a list of what has bin released in oz toy wise cause i think i miss'd same stuff plus i got a few ring-ins from o.s.
Was the TRU's raptor, raptor or dragon walker?? i looked, and in one eye out the other
p.s, And thank god nothing was happening when the old tread was flushed
Hi guys , I have season 1 and 2 on VCD (ebay).
After looking on Hordak.de in their cartoons section, they show a pic of hopefully season 3 (the horde etc), I dont know if this will ever be made or not.
I hope this helps (new member), Canberra He-Fan.
Hordak appears in 2 episodes of season 2.Originally Posted by Oz cap He-Fan
I have seasons 1 and 2 on VCD, should have just asked on here
Will know better next time.
yes I saw Hordak the latest series, sorry I ment the horde, and I think Hordak will be facing He-Man etc. You guys probably already know all this! Sorry will shutup now...
Hi Oz cap He-Fan!!
Welcome to the boards! It's always cool to see more Aussies joining in!
One additional thing. When I asked the customer service rep at mattel about the airing of the cartoon, he suggested that they have nothing to do with the cartoon (which I thought was strange).
Does anyone know if it is being played on free-to-air channels? Is it still on cheeze tv on saturday mornings?
Yep. 7am. Last Saturdays ep was # 16. "The Monster Within".Originally Posted by He-Boy
new figs...schweet....

subset: commoncrawl


text:
about the projectpeopleLeah Shadle
back to list
Submitted by sj on Fri, 2011-06-17 17:17
Leah Shadle
Legal and Administrative Associate
Leah currently serves as the Legal and Administrative Associate at One Laptop per Child Association, Inc. At OLPC, Leah is responsible for the coordination of all legal matters, including commercial contract negotiation and intellectual property matters. She is also responsible for the OLPC Academy program, which connects university students around the world with various OLPC laptop programs. Leah received her JD cum laude from Creighton University School of Law in 2007. Leah is licensed to practice law in Florida, Maryland and the District of Columbia.


text:
The Filibuster
Dear RSBS Linguistics Dept.,
How the hell do you pronounce Mike Stanton's new name? Is it "Gee-an-carlo" or "Jon-carlo"? I'm going to keep pronouncing it "Mike".
(pronounced "Joan-steen")
Fort Worth, TX
Being a nation of immigrants means that US phone books are full of many sometimes unusual names. Some of my favorites include Christian Okoye, the KC Chiefs' Nigerian Nightmare; Juan Pierre, who can't seem to decide if he's French or Spanish; and, of course, Barack Obama. Unless you're a modern-day Nativist, like the un-ironically Catholic Newt Gingrich, you realize that this inflow of names, traditions and cultures makes our country a more interesting place.
That makes me wonder how a guy like Stanton got tagged with the name "Mike" in the first place. He was drafted by the Marlins, a team based in south Florida where there is no shortage of hispanic first or last names, out of southern California where the same holds true. So how, in either of those environments, does a guy like Stanton get forced into assuming a name he has never used?
I find it even more interesting that I'm answering this question the day after St. Patrick's Day as the Irish were undoubtedly one of the primary targets of mid-19th Century Nativism in the US. Part of it was poverty, part of it was religion. But all of it was xenophobic. 150 years later, not only are people with Irish last names found everywhere in the United States, we also dedicate a day to them each year on March 17th.
True, sometimes this influx of last names from all corners of the earth leads to problems. For instance, I'm not really sure how Keith Jackson would handle a name like Ndamukong Suh. But athletes, just like any other American, have the right to use and be called by their real name. Sure, it might get mispronounced from time to time but I think that if the tables were turned and it was any Tom, Dick or Harry arriving in another country, they'd still rather be called by their own name. Hell, sometimes it even works out in your favor. My last name often gets mispronounced as "Cruise," which leads to getting asked if I'm related to Tom. I just smile, give a non-committal answer and let them keep pronouncing it however they want.
P.S. I'm pretty sure he'll respond to either pronunciation. I'd just avoid using Mike.
_ _ _


text:
Export 129 results:Author Title Type [ Year]
Filters: Author is Chris Marnay [Clear All Filters]
Assessment of Distributed Generation Potential in Japanse Buildings. Berkeley: LBNL, 2005. LBNL-57978..
"Effects of a CarbonTax on Microgrid Combined Heat and Power Adoption." Journal of Energy EngineeringAmerican Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 131 (2005) 2-25..
A Locational Analysis of Generation Benefits on Long Island, New York. Berkeley: LBNL, 2005. LBNL-57506..
Microturbine Economic Competitiveness: A Study of Two Potential Adopters. Berkeley: LBNL, 2005. LBNL-57985..
"Optimal selection of on-site power generation with combined heat and power applications." International Journal of Distributed Energy Resources 1.1 (2005) 33-62..
"An Optimization and Assessment on DG Adoption in Japanese Prototype Buildings." International Symposium on Sustainable Development of the Asian City Environment (SDACE) 2005. Xi'an, China: LBNL, 2005. LBNL-61116..
"An Analysis of the DER Adoption Climate in Japan Using Optimization Results for Prototype Buildings with U.S. Comparisons." Energy and Buildings Journal Vol. 38.Issue 12 (2006) 10. LBNL-60594..
"Integrated Energy System Dispatch Optimization." 4th International IEEE Conference on Industrial Informatics, Singapore, August 16-18, 2006. Singapore: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-60591..
Localized Aggregation of Diverse Energy Sources for Rural Electrification using Microgrids. Berkeley: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-60399..
Microgrids in the Evolving Electricity Generation and Delivery Infrastructure. Berkeley: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-59544..
On-Site Generation Simulation with EnergyPlus for Commercial Buildings. Berkeley: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-60204..
Operation of Distributed Generation Under Stochastic Prices. Berkeley: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-59446..
"Optimal Combination of Distributed Energy System in an Eco-Campus of Japan." Second International Green Energy Conference, Ontario, Canada, June 25-29, 2006. Ontario, Canada : LBNL, 2006. LBNL-60516..
Pacific Region CHP Application Center for California, Nevada, and Hawaii - Task 1.3 Case Studies. 2006..
"The Value of Distributed Generation under Different Tariff Structures." 2006 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings. Pacific Grove, CA: LBNL, 2006. LBNL-60589..
"Aktuelle Trends in der dezentralen KWK Technologie Integration – Das kalifornische Fördermodell und dessen Implikation für die Endenergieeffizienzrichtlinie." Internationale Energiewirtschaftstagung an der TU Wien, February 14-16, 2007. Vienna, 2007. LBNL-62314..
"Microgrids: An emerging paradigm for meeting building electricity and heat requirements efficiently and with appropriate energy quality." European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy 2007 Summer Study, 4-9 June 2007. La Colle sur Loup, France,: LBNL, 2007. LBNL-62572..
"Microgrids: An Overview of Ongoing Research, Development, and Demonstration Projects." IEEE Power & Energy Magazine July/August (2007) 19. LBNL-62937..
"Microgrids and Heterogeneous Security, Quality, Reliability, and Availability." 2007 Power Conversion Conference, April 4, 2007. Nagoya, Japan : LBNL, 2007. LBNL-62460..
"Microgrids for Commercial Building Combined Heat and Power and Power and Heterogeneous Power Quality and Reliability." IEEC 2007 Conference on Active Networks and Sustainable Energy Consumption, Nov. 14-15, 2007. Bilbao, Spain : LBNL, 2007. LBNL-63520..
"Optimal Technology Selection and Operation of Microgrids in Commerical Buildings." IEEE 2007 Power Engineering Society General Meeting, June 24-28, 2007. Tampa, Florida, 2007..
"A Buildings Module for the Stochastic Energy Deployment System." ACEEE 2008 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 2008. LBNL-291E..


text:
Introducing Convertible: Ultimate Unit Converter for iOS, a unit converter that prides itself in its simple yet powerful interface. With sixteen conversion types to choose from and hundreds of standard and non-standard units across many categories, there's always a correct unit for every conversion.
Convertible helps to visualise your conversions by offering many real-world units of measure from micro to macro. Everything from the mass of an atom to the size of the universe, the energy of the sun to the area of a Tennis Court – using these everyday units helps to give a greater sense of perspective and meaning to your conversions. Adding non-standard units can add an entertainment value to the act of converting units, while also becoming a valuable resource for researchers and anyone who has to describe or present obscure measurements to a lay audience.


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Now I was not aware that "Papyrus" was the worst font ever, just as I was not aware that it was the font used for Randall's favorite movie, Serenity. I learn so much from xkcd. So I asked one of my thousdands of good friends about it. For purposes of this conversation, my friend's name is Jimmy O'Helvetica:
Jimmy: I mean, again -- he's just pandering to the typophiles out there
Jimmy: or rather -- making mortal enemies
Me: is papyrus that bad?
Jimmy: It's not as bad as his handwriting
Me: zing
Me: that quote goes on the blog
But tired old pandering about fonts is not what pisses me off most about this comic, because I do not care about fonts. I care about comics being fucking original.
SO take a look at this chainsawsuit from the day before this xkcd came out.
Now I'm sure this is all just a crazy huge coincidence, and that's why it's an even crazier coincidence that just three weeks ago, PvP also made a "typography geek" comic, though they used the totally different phrase, "font snob." Let's take a look - tell me if you notice anything interesting.
If you answered, "why, Randall made fun of the very same font this guy did!" then woo hoo for you! If you said "oh big deal, papyrus is a lousy font, everyone makes fun of it" than woo hoo! you have helped show that Randall is a tired old hack whose jokes are old and stale and boring! YOU WIN ALSO.
I know, I know, I should give him points for not just making fun of Comic Sans, but really, why? If Papyrus is just as bad, and just as many people make jokes about it, what's the point? Can't you replace the word "Papyrus" with the words "Comic Sans" and get the exact same thing?
Lastly, the comic seemed a lot like 280 to me.
OH ALSO remember: the best font out there, regardless of what Jimmy O'Helvetica says, is still Humor Sans.


text:
As Election Day looms, Proposal 2 and Proposal 4 are without any serious support from the state's news outlets.
No daily newspaper in the state has endorsed Proposal 2, which would allow union contracts to overrule laws made by the legislature, and only two weekly newspapers have endorsed it.
Proposal 4, which would lock the forced unionization of home-based caregivers in the state constitution and allow the Service Employees International Union to continue to take at least $6 million a year from the elderly and disabled, has not received endorsements from any newspaper in Michigan.
Nick De Leeuw, spokesman for Citizens Protecting Michigan's Constitution, a group opposed to proposals that would amend the state constitution, said he's been tracking newspaper endorsements through Nov. 2 and confirms the lack of support.
The Traverse City Record-Eagle, the Herald-Palladium, The Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette, Flint Journal, Bay City Times, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Detroit Free Press, Adrian Daily Telegram, Huron Daily Tribune, Petoskey News, Midland Daily News, Holland Sentinel, Detroit News, Sturgis Journal, Livingston Daily County Press & Argus, Lansing State Journal, Soo Evening News, Battle Creek Enquirer, Greenville Daily News, Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun, Southgate News Herald, Southgate Press and Guide, The Ile Camera, The Guardian, Ann Arbor Journal, Milan News-Leader and Saline Reporter, Chelsea Standard and Dexter Leader, Manchester Enterprise, Ypsilanti Courier, Saline View, Ionia Sentinel-Standard and Crain's Detroit Business have all come out against Proposal 2.
De Leeuw said the Lansing City Pulse and the Michigan Chronicle were the only weeklies to support Prop 2.
Dan Lijana, spokesman for "Protect Working Families" campaign, which previously was "Protect Our Jobs," didn't respond to a request for comment about endorsements.
Media outlets across the state have universally urged readers to vote "no" on Proposal 4. The SEIU has taken more than $32 million from the Medicaid checks of the elderly and disabled in Michigan since 2005 when it orchestrated the unionization scheme when Jennifer Granholm was governor. The SEIU needs the amendment to pass to continue the scheme, which will otherwise end when the current contract ends in February 2013.
MLive Media Group, the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News were all especially critical of Proposal 4. MLive called it "a crass grab for union membership" and the Freep said it was "easy to dismiss." The Detroit News said it was a "self-serving measure that enriches only the SEIU."
Even some disability advocates are against the proposal.
Jan Lampman, executive director of The Arc of Midland, wrote a letter-to-the-editor on Nov. 4 in the Midland Daily News saying that her local affiliate does not support Prop 4.
David Thompson, who serves on the board of directors of the Arc Michigan, wrote a letter Nov. 3 in the Midland Daily News saying, "I see not benefit for the patient and only additional burden placed upon the taxpayer. … Again taxpayers will (be) the losers on this proposal."
The Arc Michigan's executive director, Dohn Hoyle, has aggressively lobbied for Proposal 4's passage. Hoyle also has been critical of people who are against the ballot measure, calling one local caregiver "an idiot" because he is against the forced unionization and against Proposal 4.
Hoyle, who also is spokesman for the Proposal 4 campaign, has not responded to requests for comment.
See also:
Proposal 4: The Unionization of Home-Based Caregivers
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. Through our research and education programs, we challenge government overreach and advocate for free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams.
Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state.


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Bristol Palin is back on Dancing With the Stars--and the suspicious mail is back, too.
Two years after the FBI opened an investigation into who mailed an envelope containing an ultimately harmless white powder to CBS Studios with the intent of spooking Palin, another powder-speckled package found its way to the lot yesterday, an FBI source tells the Hollywood Reporter.
ABC had no comment, while BBC Worldwide Productions said that they take the health and safety of all their competitors and employees very seriously. A rep for Palin also told E! News that they were abiding by the show's policy not to comment on security issues.
U.S. & World
Check out what Bristol said about Julianne Moore's portrayal of her mom in Game Change
Authorities haven't released any official details yet; but, once again, the package was reportedly intended as a threat against Palin's further participation on the show and the only substance found in it was deemed harmless.
Meanwhile, the Life's a Tripp star's detractors may just end up spending another TV season grumbling under their breaths. Despite quickstepping her way to to last place Monday night, Bristol snagged enough votes to keep her safe for another week.
And, though hers wasn't the sprightliest step, she made the semifinals back in season 11.
--Reporting by Katie Rhames


text:
Breath of Spring
Sunday, April 29
per guest
Learn more
Class Details
Breath of Spring is a simple and elegant painting that features a variety of beginner techniques. This misty spring morning's colors can be easily changed to match your personal style or décor.
Enjoy an afternoon of painting and 2 for 1 mimosas!
Pinot's Palette is a pioneer of the paint and sip experience – a revolutionary way to enjoy art, while enjoying a beer, wine or spirits, meeting new people and bonding with friends.
Guests enjoy a no-experience-required art class – all supplies included – directed by trained, local artists, who guide guests step-by-step through a featured painting.
The more the merrier, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!
Please read the following IMPORTANT info:
We ask that you arrive 30 minutes prior to the start time of this class, so that we can start and end on time. Anyone arriving any later than 15 minutes after the start time may not be able to join the class and their reservation fee will not be refunded. Thank you for your understanding!
The Perfect Night Out
Enjoy drinks, upbeat music and hanging out with your favorite people while you paint! It's as fun for first-time painters as it is for experienced artists.
Fun Atmosphere
From the moment you walk in, the mood is light, the music is fun and the conversation comes easy!
Easy to Do
You don't need to be a seasoned painter — we make it easy for everyone to find their inner artist!
Sit Together
You'll get seats with all your friends, even if you book separately. Just tell us your friends' names when you register.
Paint Your Way
There's no rule that says you have to follow the artist's steps. It's your art, so paint it however you like!
Frequently Asked Questions
Check out our FAQs to learn more about what to expect from your Pinot's Palette experience or feel free to call the studio to speak to a member of our staff.
What is your weather cancellation policy?
If inclement weather causes us to cancel class, you will receive a credit in the amount that you paid for your class seat that can be applied towards a seat in a future public class of your choice. You also may request a refund via email up to 24 hours past the start time of the canceled class. No refunds will occur if your request is not received via email within 24 hours after the scheduled class. If our studio is open and you choose to not come to class due to inclement weather in your area, we will issue you a complimentary credit valid for 30 days from the original class date in the amount you paid for your seats to use toward the purchase of seats at another public class. You must request the complimentary credit via email at least 3 hours prior to the start of the original class.
What should I wear to the class?
No dress code here…dress casual or dress up. We will provide you with an apron, but a word of caution - unless a splatter is caught quickly, acrylic paint typically does not wash out of clothing.
What happens if I have to cancel my seat for a public class?
A reservation for one or more seats may be canceled and refunded in full if notice is received by our studio at least 48 hours before your scheduled class time. A reservation may be transferred to another public class, or placed on hold for future use, if notice is received by our studio at least 24 hours before your scheduled class time. We do not offer refunds or reschedules for no-show reservations or with same-day or post-class notice about not making it to a class (including, but not limited to, for illness or weather).
What do I need to bring to the class?
All you need to bring is a smile. We provide the canvas, easel, brushes, paints and apron for the class. We also provide a fun menu of wines, beer, soft drinks and, on occassion, specialty cocktails for purchase. (Note we are not BYOB.) Feel free to bring your own snacks.
When do I need to arrive for class?
We recommend you arrive 15 to 30 minutes before class starts to allow time for you to get settled in, enjoy a drink and mingle with friends before the painting starts. Painting begins promptly at the designated time. If you are late, we will do our best to catch you up. Guests who arrive more than 15 minutes late may not be permitted to join a class in progress. IF YOU ARE ATTENDING AN OPEN STUDIO, you can arrive after the session's start time (usually noon) and not later than 90 minutes before the end of the session (3:30 pm for a session ending at 5 pm). Arrivals within the 90-minute period before the end of the session may not be permitted to participate in that session.


text:
|Fans, Mets greats say goodbye to Shea with stirring ceremony
After the last out in Shea Stadium history was recorded at 5:05 p.m. ET, the Mets brought out many of the players who have donned the orange and blue in the last 45 years to give the old ballpark a final farewell. Full story >
Shea La Vie
MLB.com's Ed Randall reports from Queens, wrapping up the closing ceremonies at Shea Stadium. Watch >
The Franchise & Capt. Keith
Just as Hall of Famer Tom Seaver made the Mets World Series champions in 1969, Keith Hernandez returned the team to prominence in the 1980s.
Mays' presence at closing inspires awe
Shea's farewell comes too soon
Amazin' greats take last look around ballpark
Shea Stadium's list of lasts
Fans remember the magic in Flushing
Piazza's post-9/11 homer sent powerful message
Beat reporter Noble remembers Shea
Buckner's error voted Shea's top moment
Great moments: 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2
Shea Stadium archives and news
Great moments at Shea Stadium
Bauman: Saying goodbye to Shea
The Class of '86
All-Amazin' Team
Mets' Top 10 Greatest Moments
Citi Field overview
Citi Field-Shea Stadium comparison
Through the years:
Shea Stadium in pictures
Great Mets moments
Mets moments
1964-80 | 1986-2000 | '00-07
Shea's closing ceremony
360° Panoramic Views of Shea NEW!
Shea Goodbye: Legends reflect on finale Watch
Legendary Mets gather at Shea Watch
Piazza's Shea memories Watch
Keith Hernandez and Shea Watch
Tom's terrific memories Watch
Legacy of Doc and Straw Watch


text:
Lawmakers want child death records sealed
Blaming overzealous members of the media as well as those seeking to disprove that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School occurred, three state lawmakers representing Newtown testified in Hartford on Wednesday in support of a bill that would seal the death certificates of children.
Reps. DebraLee Hovey, R-Monroe; Dan Carter, R-Bethel; and Mitch Bolinsky, R-Newtown; and Newtown Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia told the Legislature's Public Health Committee that the proposed law is intended to protect the privacy of the Sandy Hook families and others when release of the information is likely to cause "undue hardship" to families.
"Isn't it enough to know that 20 children and six adults died?" said Hovey. "During tragic circumstances, it is imperative we have laws that show empathy for those affected while at the same time preventing unscrupulous individuals from exploiting or profiting from their grief. It's the right thing to do."
The bill was prompted by Aurelia, who told the committee that in the wake of the Dec. 14 shootings, her office has been inundated with media requests for the documents, which she said jeopardizes the families' privacy and capitalizes on their grief.
Current law allows any adult to purchase a copy of the death certificate of any resident from their local town clerk.
"It's not just the media," Hovey said. "There are voyeurs who really are interested in other people's pain, and the more gruesome, the happier they are."
Both Carter and Bolinsky said limiting access to the "long form" death certificates for those who died under the age of 18 would not only prevent journalists from abusing the information they contain, but also reduce the threat of identity theft.
"An investigative journalist looking into a suspicious death would still be able to get the basic information," Carter said. "What would be excluded would be things like the mother's maiden name and the location of the grave, the things that people have no reason to know."
Bolinsky said the bill would "help shield families and victims from exploitation in cases such as the Sandy Hook massacre where children died under uniquely tragic circumstances."
Carter said the town clerk had not provided any numbers about how many requests for the Sandy Hook death certificates there had been, or a breakdown of how many had come from reporters compared to those from what he called "non-believers" in the Newtown tragedy.
"I'm sure there were some of them," Carter said.
Carter said that if the bill is approved by the committee, and later by the full Legislature, it would take effect upon passage.


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PORTSMOUTH — The pressure is officially gone.
That was evident by the game of two-hand touch football that Portsmouth High School linemen were playing following practice for today's Turkey Bowl against Dover at Tom Daubney Field.
"It's a little more relaxed," Portsmouth senior lineman Rick Holt said. "We're going to try to have a fun day and it's good to play on Thanksgiving. I know I'll be watching football after. It's a whole day of football and it's a pretty good way to cap off the year."
The Clippers (9-2, 8-2 Division III) can rest easy just five days after beating Goffstown, 54-27, for their second straight state championship. Today's game gives the players, especially the seniors, one more chance to wear the maroon and gold.
"It still feels good to come back to practice knowing that we won the championship and we still have one more game," senior lineman Kurtis Leonard said.
Senior wide receiver Colin MacDonald, who caught two touchdown passes in Saturday's win, won't play in today's game due to a shoulder injury. He'll be joined on the sidelines by leading rusher Dillon Crosby (724 yards) and Jake Becker, among others. Portsmouth coach Bill Murphy said he expects junior quarterback Donovan Phanor to play. Phanor missed the final two games of the regular season with a knee injury before returning for the playoffs.
This is the seventh and likely final installment of the Thanksgiving Day game between the Seacoast rivals. Portsmouth athletic director Rus Wilson said the decision has been made to end the series due, in part, to the Clippers' short break between football and basketball seasons in recent years.
"We have been fortunate to play in the Division III championship game six out of the past seven years, so the game often falls five days after the championship game," Wilson said. "A half to two-thirds of our basketball team also plays football, and we have lost several players over the past few years to injuries in the Thanksgiving game.
"We already have 3-4 basketball players out with football injuries," he added. "So after talking with numerous players and all the football coaches over the past couple of years we thought it was in the best interest of the student-athletes to give them the holiday week back to rest, recover and spend the holiday with their families."
Dover leads the series, 4-2, after last year's 41-21 victory over Portsmouth. Longtime Green Wave coach Ken Osbon doesn't want to see the series end. He said it would be sad to see the rivalry disappear after 94 games. The teams played every year during the regular season until the Clippers moved down to Division III in 2006.
"I think this is a tradition that should continue; I think it's nice to have a game at the end of the year where it isn't life or death," Osbon said. "The problem would be solved if we were in the same division, but we're not, and Thanksgiving is the best for it.
"I don't think there are too many high school teams across the country who have played almost 100 times," Osbon added. "It's great for the communities. I don't know exactly what their reasoning is, but I think it's something that should continue."
Portsmouth wanted to withdraw from the series after last year, but Dover had trouble finding another opponent for the game.
"It's always good to have a chance to play another game," Murphy said. "It's just that when you don't have the players to play the game, it makes it difficult."
It was a hard-luck season for Dover, which lost to the four Division II playoff teams — Winnacunnet, Bedford, Keene and Bishop Guertin — by a combined 14 points. Dover (3-7, 3-5 Division II) is led by junior quarterback Derek Stegman and running backs Kyle Seawards and Colin Shaughnessy. Lineman Matt Dow and linebackers Eric Nelson, Noah Boucher and Eric Waddingham also anchor the Green Wave.
"Low numbers have been our biggest problem and we're going to have to rebuild the next couple of years," Osbon said. "We didn't have a great record, but we've been competitive for what we have."
Osbon is fully aware of Portsmouth's numerous standouts on both sides of the ball.
"We've done pretty good against teams that have one guy to focus on," Osbon said. "Portsmouth presents a tremendous challenge. They're the two-time champions and have so many weapons that they use."
Murphy expects the Green Wave to be on top of their game after an extra couple weeks of preparation. The teams also know each other well from 7-on-7 drills during the summer.
"Dover has an excellent coaching staff, and while we were preparing for the playoffs, they were focusing on us," Murphy said. "They're going to be very well prepared and we'll have a challenge."
Holt said even though the game doesn't count in the standings, he and his teammates want to leave this season with the best possible effort.
"Last year we kind of gave up; we were up by two scores and lost," Holt said. "We want to at least make it competitive this year."
Nothing that happens today will take away Portsmouth's championship, but Murphy wants to end the season on a good note.
"We were in the same situation last year, but any time you play a game, you want to win," Murphy said. "It'll be fun. We'll hopefully put on a show for the crowd."
No playoff pressure, just football
PORTSMOUTH — The pressure is officially gone.


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Pretty sure it's more than that. 12 feet? I could be wrong though.
EDIT...I guess he answered and beat me to the bell by about a second.
I love Outdoor Christmas Lights!!
Taken at 1 am
I love it...and your dog is gorgeous!
So, So Beautiful.
I say it every year - but as one of the largest and most popular trees - I like to think of this tree as ATC's official Tree.
(Although there are so many - I might be biased because I've seen it IN PERSON )
"Christmas: it's not the giving, it's not the getting, it's the loving." - Garfield
I'm Admin of AllThingsChristmas Forum - Click Here to Message Me with questions or if you need help!
It's huge!!!
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas
I spent all day on the tree and I shoud be done by tomorow. My dad is coming for a visit in the next few days. He has never seen the tree or the house because he has being taking care of my mother for the last 13 years.
I was actually about to type 'a good 12 feet', but decided that surely it wouldn't be that big, so reduced it to 10. Looks like my first estimate was right! That's a huge Christmas tree! :O
Merry Christmas
It's looking great Mike as always a top notch job.
'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!' (Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol)
These are all so beautiful. I love the purple one just cause I'm that kinda gal.


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Palladium doesn't attract the speculative attention that other metals receive but it may be time to consider it for your clients' portfolios thanks to industrial demand.
Will Rhind, managing director of U.S. operations with ETF Securities,says that the automotive industry accounts for about 60% of worldwide demand for the metal. Other major buyers include the electronics industry (17%), jewelry (10%), dental (7%) and chemical industry at about 4%. Investment demand in the palladium market is roughly 5% of the metal's trade, he estimates. On the supply side, Russia provides about 50% of annual palladium production followed by South Africa at 35%.
"Palladium is a primary ingredient in a lot of the industrial processes that we know and are familiar with–what you might call the old economy, such as autos," said Rhind. "However, I think going forward, the exciting thing about a metal like palladium is that it's right at the forefront of future technologies, and I think will very much be used as a metal of the future."
The applications of the metal in developing technologies, he notes, includes its use in hydrogen fuel cells. Palladium and platinum are ingredients within hydrogen fuel cells and, also, in hydrogen storage and hydrogen production and purification facilities. "You also have new electronic materials, process catalysts and off-road (vehicle) catalysts," Rhind explained.
A global economic recovery would bode well for palladium-demand. "Palladium's price is much more driven by fundamental factors, unlike gold, which is largely a sort of a fear asset or a safe haven if you will," said Stoyan Bojinov, an analyst with ETF Database in Chicago. "It's found in consumer items, it's used in capacitors, mobile phones, LCD TVs — you name it. "
A little more than half the global supply of palladium goes into the manufacturing of catalytic converters, according to Bojinov. "In layman's terms, it's sort of the device that converts the toxic chemicals from the internal combustion engine into sort of non-toxic fumes. And, we've seen, obviously, a huge push across the auto industry for more efficient, more environmentally friendly cars," he shared.
Thus, palladium is getting bolstered from the rebound in the auto industry very nicely. And; as the industry as a whole is moving in a more environmentally friendly direction, he says, palladium stands to benefit from that movement.
Palladium Plays
Clients who wish to invest in palladium can buy the metal but that involves storage. An easier-to-manage option is to buy a fund that invests in palladium miners, futures contracts or the physical asset. Each approach has pros and cons.
Tom Lydon, president of Global Trends Investments and editor of ETF Trends notes that mining stocks' performance can differ significantly from the underlying metals' performance.
Futures-based funds face multiple challenges, according to Bojinov. "They're susceptible to the spot price of the metal itself," he said. "They're also influenced by the roll yield related to the slope of the futures curve and that sort of gets into the nitty gritty of futures-based products alone. And, lastly, they're also affected by any interest earned on non-invested cash that the ETN has sitting on the side."
Lydon points to several funds that hold physical palladium. ETF Securities' Physical Precious Metals Basket Shares (GLTR) holds a basket of precious metals. One share of GLTR represents 0.006 ounces of palladium.
ETF Securities' Physical White Metals Basket Shares (WITE) holds a basket of white metals, including silver, platinum and palladium. One share of WITE represents 0.008 ounces of palladium.
In the past 12 months, GLTR has risen roughly 22%, while the SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) is up about 28% and WITE has improved close to 10%.
For a pure play on physical palladium, ETF Securities' Physical Palladium Shares (PALL) is the only U.S.-listed palladium ETF that provides 100% exposure to palladium. The funds' holdings are stored in vaults in London and Zurich. PALL was launched on the NYSE in January 2010, says Rhind, and now holds about $700 million in assets.
PALL's performance has been volatile, reflecting both the global macroeconomic outlook and factors unique to its investment market. Lydon says that since its inception, PALL has gained 46%, although it's down almost 20% year-to-date. Despite the volatility, Bojinov believes investors should view palladium as a possible emerging markets play that would benefit from growth and increased auto and electronics demand from South America and Asia.
If your clients decide to buy PALL, Lydon suggests trading it against the 50-day or 200-day moving averages. Because you can't group palladium with all the other metals, he says, investors may find that PALL trades differently from those assets. "From that standpoint, I would make sure to keep an eye on the specific trend of palladium as opposed to just buying it in the basket," he advised.


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Sean M. Carroll does not mince words. On October 17 he also did not cube them, dice them or thinly slice them, even when he was seriously discussing the theory that the moon is made of green cheese. Just to be clear, the discussion was serious, not the theory, when Carroll spoke at the ScienceWriters2011 conference in Flagstaff, Ariz.
A noted theoretical physicist, Carroll is not to be confused with noted evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll. The Sean Carroll duality may be one reason that the physicist version often muses about the multiverse.
"How do you know the moon is not made of green cheese?" asked Carroll, a senior research associate at the California Institute of Technology, author of the entropy examination From Eternity to Here and blogger for another publication you can sometimes Discover at magazine stands. "People will say, 'Well, we've landed on the moon, we've picked it up, we've brought pieces of it back.'" Such people might think that as late as 1969 there was still widespread uncertainty about the moon's curd content.
"But that's just the surface," Carroll Havartily argued. "Of course, there's a layer of moon dust a few meters thick that sits on top of the green cheese. How do you know that most of the moon, 99 percent, is not really green cheese? And they will say, 'Well, we know the mass of the moon, the density, and so forth.' But don't think that you fully understand the properties of lunar green cheese. This is very dense cheese."
The physicist yet again posed his provolone problem: "How do you know it's not made of green cheese?" He then cut the Goudaian knot. "The answer is that it's absurd to think the moon is made of green cheese." (If you were hoping for an explanatory equation, mull over the fact that a cylinder of mozzarella of radius z and height a has a volume equal to pi z z a.)
Carroll allowed his reasoning to ripen. "The formalization of that absurdity," he said, "is that we are allowed to use other things we know about the universe when judging the plausibility of a hypothesis. The real reason the moon isn't made of green cheese is not because we've gone there and brought pieces of it back. It's because cheese comes out of cows, ultimately, or sheep or goats."
Ah, but what about any influence from the cow that jumped over the moon? Frankly, I find the story of a cow that reaches escape velocity without the aid of a powerful multistage rocket far-fetched. And I think the absurdity argument can be applied here as well.
"Cheese," Carroll continued, "was not part of the primordial solar system. We have a theoretical understanding of how the solar system works and how planets are formed that precludes the possibility that the moon is made of green cheese. Just like the reason why we know you can't bend spoons with your mind is not because we've caught people on The Tonight Show faking it. It's because it would violate the laws of physics. The moon being made of green cheese would violate how the solar system works." I'll go further than Carroll. I contend that the moon being made of cheese of any color is impermissible.
"That the moon is not made of green cheese," Carroll said of his Gorgonzolic gripe, "is not a proof, the way you can prove a statement in logic or math. But science nevertheless passes judgments on claims based on how well they fit in with the rest of our theoretical understanding."
Despite the existence of well-established and powerful theoretical frameworks, some individuals may still hold an Edelpilz epistemological notion that only the samples brought back by astronauts were truly decisive. Or even that a deep moon core sample is still necessary to settle the lunar Limburger. But such people have truly lost their whey.


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Liberty News
Duggar family of reality TV fame visits campus
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar — along with 12 of their 19 children, one grandchild, and their daughter-in-law, with whom they star on TLC's hit reality television show "19 Kids and Counting" — visited Liberty University on Monday as part of a statewide three-day tour. The family is expressing support for Virginia governor candidate Ken Cuccinelli and lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson.
Josh Duggar, the oldest of the children, is the executive director of FRC Action, the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council that sponsored the tour. The bus was parked at the Liberty University Barnes & Noble Bookstore for about two hours. The family greeted a large crowd of students and fans from the community. The crowd received a special treat as the Duggar children lined up and performed special music with string instruments.
This is the third time Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have visited campus. They spoke during Liberty University Convocation on Oct. 5, 2011.
|The Duggar children perform for the crowd.
They said they enjoy the Lynchburg, Va., area, especially its people, the Christian atmosphere, and Liberty.
Jim Bob Duggar said many prominent universities have fallen away from their Christian roots.
"We appreciate Liberty and what it stands for and (how it is) sending world leaders right from this campus," he said.
The Duggar parents endorsed the candidates and talked about issues such as health care, abortion, and the economy. They told those gathered they could each have a hand in turning the election — both with their votes and support.
"We just believe in these men," Jim Bob Duggar said. "They both are people that stand for truth, that are not ashamed of their Christian values, and are people that we know will go in there and fight for what is right."
The celebrity parents also shared how they emphasize their values in their own home.
"Our desire is to teach our kids No. 1 to love the Lord and No. 2 to love others," Michelle Duggar said. "As we instill that in them … we say it is a privilege to live in the United States of America. We tell our children, when you are old enough to vote, it is your duty to get out there and to know the candidates to know what they stand for. We say 'duty is ours, results are up to God.'"


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Haven't found anything yet?
Paper wallpaper collection "Wish" by P+S International
WISH If flippancy is what you wish to express, "WISH" from P+S is definitely the collection of choice for you. Trendy accents composed of vivacious neon colours in combination with playfully arranged geometric flower or check designs blend into a harmonious combination of richly varied colours and inspiring shapes for a very special atmosphere that leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. Material: Paper
(references: P+S International)


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Meet the career con man who made a fortune selling illegal pharmaceuticals online—and pulled off a federal sting that forced Google to pay $500 million.
On February 25, 2009, a then 34-year-old career con man named David Anthony Whitaker left the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and slid into the backseat of an unmarked government car. He was dressed in traditional prison garb—khaki pants, brown shirt, handcuffs, leg irons. A federal agent sat beside him. A second car followed to make sure nobody trailed them or attempted an ambush. Not that anyone expected trouble. This was merely standard procedure when transporting a government cooperator.
That's what Whitaker was now: a cooperator. It felt surreal. One year ago he was in Mexico, living the most fulfilling life he'd ever known in his chaotic, troubled years on the planet. He had been bringing in obscene amounts of money by selling black-market steroids and human growth hormone online. He had a multimillion-dollar apartment in a country club in Guadalajara. He had a cabin in the mountain town of Mazamitla. He had lots of cars—an orange 4Runner, a BMW, a Jeep. He'd even funded the construction of a local hospital. Sure, he had to live under an alias and was on the run from US Secret Service agents who were trying to nail him for a long-standing multicount fraud complaint. But he had a lawyer on retainer, and at least the local cops were easy to pay off.
That life ended on March 19, 2008, when a Mexican immigration agent nabbed Whitaker and brought him back to LAX, where the Secret Service promptly arrested him. He was facing a potential sentence of 65 years in prison. Sixty-five years. That meant spending the rest of his life behind bars. The thought was unbearable.
Whitaker filled vials with water and sold them as steroids for $1,000 a pop.
Whitaker began thinking of ways to knock years off his sentence. He considered providing the names of the drug users, pushers, and doctors who had patronized his online steroid business. They were mostly easy marks, and Whitaker was quick to take advantage of them. For a while he bottled sterile water in 1-milliliter vials, marketed it as a steroid called Dutchminnie, and sold it for $1,000 a pop. Not only did clients fall for the scam, they sent back photos showing how they'd bulked up after using the "drug."
But he quickly realized that he could offer the government much more than the names of a few juicers. At one point during a meeting with Whitaker and his lawyer, the Feds asked him how he had grown his online enterprise. Whitaker's answer was immediate: He had used Google AdWords. In fact, he claimed, Google employees had actively helped him advertise his business, even though he had made no attempt to hide its illegal nature. It was reasonable to assume, Whitaker said, that Google was helping other rogue Internet pharmacies too.
If true, this would be a bombshell. This was Google, after all. Since its founding, the search giant had prided itself on being a different kind of corporation, the "don't be evil" company. And for almost as long, its open-to-all-comers ad policy had come under scrutiny. Online pharmacies were a particular sticking point; in 2003, three separate congressional committees initiated inquiries into the matter. On July 22, 2004, a month before Google went public, Sheryl Sandberg—at the time Google vice president of global online sales and operations—testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Legislators had proposed two bills that would regulate online pharmaceutical sales, but Sandberg argued that the measures would be unduly burdensome. She said that Google employed a third-party verification service to vet online pharmacies. She also described Google's own automated monitoring system and the creation of a team of Google employees dedicated to enforcing all of the company's pharmaceutical ad policies. "Google has taken strong voluntarily [sic] measures—going beyond existing legal requirements—to ensure that our advertising services protect our users by providing access to safe and reliable information," she testified. Neither bill made it out of committee. (Sandberg, now Facebook's chief operating officer, declined to comment or be interviewed for this story.)
The agents seemed skeptical of Whitaker's claims and spent the next 10 months following up on them. But they apparently found the story plausible, because now Whitaker was being driven to a Providence, Rhode Island, postal inspector's office to launch the US government's undercover investigation into one of the world's most admired, profitable, and powerful companies.
As soon as they entered the postal inspector's office, the Feds explained the ground rules. Whitaker had to be completely honest with them; one lie and any possible deal was off. From now on, he would be known as Jason Corriente, the fictional CEO of a fake Rhode Island–based marketing firm called Maxwell and Associates. The FDA had already secured an 800 number, a bank account, and an answering service. His job: to buy advertising for SportsDrugs.net, a website that sold HGH and steroids from Mexico, no doctor's prescription required.
With his talent for prevarication, Whitaker was well suited to the task. Throughout his checkered past, he had assumed false identities, sold nonexistent products, and written bad checks. But he'd never faced such high stakes. If he couldn't somehow lead Google into breaking the law again, he'd probably die in prison.
An agent handed Whitaker a list of phone numbers of Google employees and a phone hooked up to a recorder, then told him to dial.
David Anthony Whitaker grew up in Norton, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the heart of Appalachia. He suffered from ADHD and had learning disabilities that made traditional schooling hard. But when he was in his early teens, his mother bought him an old TRS-80 Tandy computer from RadioShack. Whitaker spent hours writing pages of code, making a smiley face pop up on the screen and blink. In a sleepy town without much to do, coding was an outlet, an activity that worked as fast as his brain.
His other love was money. He started his first business, an aquatics program called Swim Alive, while still in high school. It took off, the money was good, and Whitaker burned through the cash as fast as it came in. He drove his girlfriend to Eddie Bauer and told her to buy whatever she wanted. He took the entire Swim Alive staff to Shoney's and let them order anything on the menu—and then he left the waitress a ridiculously large tip. Whitaker's splurges ended up costing Swim Alive its bookkeeper, who eventually quit in frustration.
Whitaker's recklessness had a flip side. As young as 16, he experienced fits of debilitating depression. He would sometimes be so overcome that he'd descend into the basement to sleep for days on end. He wouldn't come upstairs or interact with anybody. One bout lasted four months.
Psychiatrists weren't much help. When Whitaker was a teenager, his mother tried to check him into a clinic at St. Albans Hospital in Christiansburg, Virginia, but her insurance wouldn't pay for it. He got outpatient treatment instead—but quit after just a few sessions. As a young man, he never stayed with a therapist long enough to settle on an effective medication regimen. Years later, a clinical social worker would determine that Whitaker had suffered from misdiagnosed or improperly treated bipolar disorder.
After a short stop in community college, Whitaker dropped out and moved to New Orleans. He started a pool-cleaning business and used the profits to build another company, which sold pool-servicing chemicals. Soon his manic habits returned—and pushed him into ever dicier behavior. He opened a maid service. He bought clothes he never wore. He took trips to Mexico. He signed up for credit card after credit card, wrote bad checks, and depleted the credit lines of his businesses, friends, and acquaintances. For five months he lived off stolen credit as "David Young."
Whitaker was first arrested in 1997, when he was 22 years old, after the FBI busted him for bank fraud and e-racketeering. He spent a year in a halfway house awaiting trial, only to have the judge sentence him to another year there. After completing his time, he violated his supervised release twice and was charged with writing bad checks, eventually serving 10 months in federal custody near Beckley, West Virginia. He was arrested for writing bad checks again in August 2001 and served another 24 months. In 2004 he was nailed by the state of Massachusetts for improper use of a credit card and sentenced to yet another year in jail.
Every time he left prison, Whitaker would go right back to his usual patterns, which were only enabled by the chaotic spread of ecommerce. He could create a company almost as quickly as he could think of it, and he never had to meet customers face-to-face. He started printing businesses, telecommunications companies, auto resellers. From time to time, he would seek help for his psychiatric problems, but the efforts would never stick. One day in 2005, on a whim, Whitaker drove from Washington, DC, to Massachusetts with the intention of checking into a hospital there. But he never made it, stopping along the way to rent a $6,000-a-month apartment in downtown Boston that he couldn't afford.
By the early summer of 2005, Whitaker had landed in Providence, where he launched a new website, MixItForMe.com, which sold preloaded iPods and similar devices to wholesalers and small businesses. For a while he ran it legitimately, negotiating with Best Buy managers to purchase electronics in bulk, filling his initial orders, and stocking warehouses with gear. It was massively successful; Whitaker routinely shipped thousands of gadgets and pulled in as much as a quarter-million dollars in a single day. But as usual, he wasn't satisfied running a thriving legitimate business. Soon his spending outpaced his supply, and he stopped delivering the products, inventing excuses to placate upset customers—while continuing to take their money.
If Whitaker couldn't lead Google into breaking the law again, he'd probably die in prison.
And spending it. On New Year's Eve 2005, he threw a massive $500,000 party in Jamestown, Rhode Island, with drag queens, a laser show over the water, and a performance by Sister Sledge. Sometime in early 2006, he rented a $200,000-per-month mansion in Miami, complete with a private chef. He bought cars for his friends and even acquaintances.
But like every other scam he had engineered, MixItForMe was unsustainable. Customers started demanding their merchandise or their money back. Whitaker tried to fend them off—flying in his private jet to conduct meetings with dissatisfied clients on the tarmac or in the presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton. But his fast-talking salesmanship couldn't save him. Credit card processors refused to put payments through. Banks froze funds.
Whitaker was in Miami when he learned that federal agents were after him again. And this time the consequences promised to be severe. Nearly 10 years of bilking people and evading law enforcement had caught up with him; Whitaker knew that he was facing a multidecade sentence. He decided to run, driving to New Mexico and finally, in mid-2006, decamping for Mexico. Most of the time he spent in Guadalajara, where he built up his online steroid business. But his past kept closing in. A former lover, whose name and identity he had co-opted during the MixItForMe scam, was working with the Feds to track down Whitaker and began peppering him with calls and emails. Whitaker kept moving, ending up in a penthouse apartment in Acapulco. That's where, on March 19, 2008, a Mexican immigration agent posing as a delivery person arrested him on four federal counts: wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and commercial bribery. Whitaker's manic 11-year criminal odyssey was over.
The case against MixItForMe looked pretty simple and straightforward, and that was just fine by assistant US attorney Andrew Reich. By the time it landed on his desk, in December 2007, Reich was creeping up to 35 years on the job. He had begun thinking about retiring from public service—in addition to spending time with his young kids, he wanted to focus more energy on his gardening. He also played electric violin and wanted to get serious about performing. So the plan was to try MixItForMe and then make his exit from government.
That plan hit a snag when Whitaker started claiming that Google had helped him create and grow his illegal steroid site. Initially Reich was skeptical. Whitaker was a con man and a convicted felon. He was a terrible witness, without any corroboration. Still, it couldn't hurt to hear him out. On April 29, 2008, Reich, along with an FDA agent named Jason Simonian and a few others, met with Whitaker and his court-appointed attorney in an 8- by 10-foot cinder-block cell in a Providence courthouse to hear Whitaker's story.
Whitaker began by explaining his business—how he started out selling HGH and steroids but eventually sent customers vegetable oil and protein powder instead. He also said that the Google employees he worked with knew that he was in Mexico, selling mainly to Americans in the US—and that they knew his business was illegal. Further, he stated, they helped him tailor his advertising to increase the number of clicks it received.
Reich couldn't deny a growing sense of curiosity. Like many prosecutors, he had a crusading impulse, and the chance to go after the almighty Google was too juicy to dismiss. But even if Whitaker were telling the truth—a big if—how could he prove that this was official Google policy rather than the actions of a few amoral individuals? He asked Whitaker to write a detailed account of his interactions with Google and to provide a complete dossier of all his activities. Whitaker was happy to oblige.
In follow-up memos and additional interviews, Whitaker delved into further detail. Because he had been spending around $20,000 a month on Google ads, he qualified for a dedicated representative, a kind of one-on-one concierge service that helped him run analytics, pick keyword search terms, geo-target, and monitor myriad other factors. Whitaker said that his rep helped him bid on keywords like "steroids," "HGH" and "testosterone."
Whitaker also claimed that the rep had helped him reposition his ads after Google's automated screening policy initially rejected them. Instead of blatantly selling illegal drugs, the rep advised, Whitaker could skirt Google's safeguards by making his site appear to be educational in nature. He needed to remove the drug photos from the homepage and get rid of the Buy Now buttons. Whitaker followed his rep's advice and resubmitted a much tamer, more benign website.
As promised, his site passed the internal Google review policy. Moreover, Whitaker said, his rep then helped him walk back some of these changes, eventually reincorporating the photos of drugs and some of the obvious sales language.
Meanwhile, Reich and Simonian were conducting their own parallel inquiry, vetting Whitaker's intel, hitting up sources, and reviewing all the documentation they could get their hands on from anyone having anything to do with Internet pharmacy sales. His story was checking out. It was time to take the investigation to the next level—to have Whitaker re-create his experience under the watchful eye of the FDA. Reich and Simonian told him if he performed well and his information checked out, they'd consider recommending that the judge reduce his sentence. Whitaker had pleaded guilty—he had little choice but to accept. Case 2008-BOM-715-0542 was in full swing. Reich's retirement would just have to wait.
Whitaker was set up in the dank basement of an old school administration building in North Providence. He was given two monitors, a laptop, a landline phone, and a cell phone. A federal agent sat behind him and watched everything he typed, listened to everything he said, examined every website he visited. Every phone call was recorded. Off to the side, a kitchen was stocked with snack food that had been purchased in bulk—Atomic Fireballs, beef jerky, chips, crackers, peanuts. It wasn't as splashy as the luxury suites to which Whitaker had become accustomed. But here he wasn't Whitaker anymore; he was Jason Corriente.
Whitaker's first goal was to hook one of Google's dedicated account representatives. But because Jason Corriente and his company, Maxwell and Associates, had no sales history and no contacts within Google, Whitaker's first days were spent literally cold-calling the Google AdWords 800 number. He sent emails to various company employees, including a top public relations manager and the head of Google Mexico.
Finally, after three days, Whitaker got a call back. A young California-based sales representative had received his inquiry and was ready to help. Immediately Whitaker sprang into his familiar pitchman role, talking to the rep about Maxwell. Whitaker had made up a list of fake clients, and he boasted about the popular Mexican hotel chain and acclaimed plastic surgeon who used his services. After a few phone calls and emails, he finally got around to business, showing the rep the site he hoped to advertise: SportsDrugs.net.
I want to be the largest steroids dealer in the US,
The site was blatantly illegal. Indeed, an IRS agent had designed it to look as sketchy as possible. It included lists and pictures of various drugs. A giant Mexican flag unfurled across the background. There was a disclaimer promising to replace any packages that were stopped by US Customs. Nevertheless, not one week after Whitaker made his first phone call, his sales rep passed the site along for policy review.
This was the same process that had initially rejected Whitaker's Mexican online steroids store, and SportsDrugs.net soon suffered the same fate: Google rejected the site and wouldn't allow him to advertise it. This result was exactly what the Feds were hoping for. They wanted to see if Google's reps would help sell a site that their company's own algorithms had deemed suspect. So the agents instructed Whitaker to ask his Google rep a single question over and over again: How can I make this site acceptable to Google?
The rep agreed to help. One of the reasons SportsDrugs.net had been rejected, the rep explained, was that it was too explicit. So Whitaker renamed the site NotGrowingOldEasy.com. Just as he'd done on his own in Mexico, he removed the pictures of the meds, added general medical information about the drugs, and included a requirement that to buy products, customers had to speak with a service agent rather than just click on a link.
The rep again submitted the site for policy review, and it was again rejected. But after being stripped of even more drug imagery so it had a "softer" feel, NotGrowingOldEasy.com finally passed Google's review on the third try.
The site may have dropped the brazen drug-lord vibe of SportsDrugs.net, but its business model was the same; as far as Google knew, Whitaker still intended to sell the same drugs. And when a new Google rep was assigned to help, the Feds instructed Whitaker to be as specific as possible about his continued intent to market the drugs. "I want to be the largest steroids dealer in the US," Whitaker told the rep. Before long, with the rep's help, Whitaker had added back most of SportsDrugs.net's most explicit features. The drug photos popped back up. Links from search ads went straight to the check-out page rather than the more innocuous homepage.
The SportsDrugs.net sting may have been successful, but it wasn't enough. To launch a convincing case against Google, the Feds had to prove that this was widespread behavior, not just the work of a couple of bad-apple sales reps. And that meant they'd have to keep replicating the experiment—upping the ante each time.
For their next ruse, the Feds asked Whitaker to advertise an even dicier site—one selling RU-486, better known as the abortion pill, which is normally taken under close supervision of a doctor. Like the earlier site, NextDayProgram.org was designed to be as explicit as possible. "We understand accidents happen," the front page copy read. "When they do we don't ask why, we're only here to help." In another section, the site promised to fill prescriptions over the phone, "without the embarrassment of going to a pharmacy."
To prove that Google's behavior was widespread, Whitaker went through a different rep—one that the country manager of Google Mexico helped connect him with and who showed no more resistance to Whitaker's schemes. Despite the site's open promise to sell RU-486, it passed Google's policy review on its first try, without any objections. Working with his rep, Whitaker spent $25,000 on ads against a series of explicit search terms: "abortion," "abortion services," "medical abortion," and "RU-486." None of the ad buys triggered any red flags from Google.
Whitaker kept designing new sites, working with different Google account reps to advertise ever sketchier online businesses. TaoTeWellness.com sold psychotropic drugs. "TaoTeWellness is a provider of the medications listed on this site," the homepage read, above photos of Valium and Xanax. "There are no embarrassing doctor's visits involved." It was hard to be more up front than that, but Google's reps in China didn't just approve the site. They also added more than 100 drug names as search keywords, without even asking Whitaker.
We started to joke that we could tell the AdWords people, 'We want to kill baby seals,' and they'd tell us how to do it.
For three months, the operation plodded along. Whitaker and the agents worked 10-hour days and blew through their budgets. Reich wasn't satisfied. There are, and have long been, strong First Amendment protections for Internet service providers, users, and third-party publishers—and Reich was concerned that Google could claim a free speech defense. Nobody had ever launched an investigation like this before; he and the Feds had to exhaust every possible option, fend off any likely objection. That's why the phone conversations had to be as explicit as possible. There could be no doubt.
By early May 2009, investigators believed they needed just one more scam to fully prove their case. At that time, Google was using a third-party verification service to approve pharmacies that wanted to advertise. The service, called PharmacyChecker, would certify that a potential advertiser was appropriately licensed and required legitimate prescriptions.
So Whitaker designed a site he called PharmacyValueDirect.com, a seemingly legitimate store that could operate as a Trojan horse for illegal drug peddlers. The investigators obtained a license from the Rhode Island Board of Pharmacy, sent their application to PharmacyChecker, and quickly received its seal of approval. The agents wanted to use PVD, as they called it, as a conduit for other blatantly shady drugstore sites and see if Google would rescind its approval once it was obvious that PVD was a front.
PVD was an extensive, seemingly aboveboard site filled with drug information. But it also linked to three clearly disreputable online pharmacies. One, Overnightdrugs .com, was a simple one-page site that offered free shipping from Mexico to the US. In big bold letters it promised "no prescription," and it made purchasing as easy as clicking a giant Buy Now button. Another, EasyDirectDrugs.com, sold only two medications—Vicodin and oxycodone—and was designed with pictures of them and a Buy button. To be absolutely unambiguous, any time customers typed a drug name into PVD's search bar, they were given a link to one of the Mexican-run drug websites—making the PharmacyChecker approval of PVD totally irrelevant.
Whitaker recorded a phone conversation with his California Google rep, walking them through the website in real time while explaining how the scam worked. He deliberately showed how PVD was a conduit for the rogue online pharmacies, confirming that his rep was following him every step of the way. At one point, the rep asked if the rogue sites had been approved by PharmacyChecker. Of course Whitaker admitted that they hadn't been, but it didn't matter; PVD never lost its approval, and the illegal sites were allowed to continue to operate.
The investigation, the agents decided, was now complete. And so, one morning in mid 2009, all the Google ad reps who had ever dealt with Jason Corriente received an email with sad news from someone purporting to be his brother: Jason was dead. He had met his unfortunate demise in a tragic car crash. Some of the Google reps, including the two in California, wanted to send flowers. Others, like the ad reps in China, boldly asked for another deposit in his AdWords account.
Anatomy of a Sting
Here's the plan that federal agents used to pull off a three-month investigation of Google AdWords. —J.P.
1. Establish a fake identity.
To win the attention of Google's ad reps, Whitaker pretended to be the CEO of a bogus marketing firm called Maxwell and Associates, complete with a bank account and client list. It took about a week of cold-calling, but eventually Google set up Maxwell and Associates with a sales rep.
2. Submit the site.
The investigators wanted to see if Google would facilitate advertising for an obviously illegal site, so they created SportsDrugs.net, which offered black-market steroids and HGH. So there could be no mistaking their intentions, they designed the site with photos of drugs and Buy Now buttons. Despite the fact that the site was illegal, the sales rep passed it along for policy review, an automated process that Google uses to vet all advertisers.
3. Scrub the site.
The automated policy review initially rejected SportsDrugs.net, but the ad rep agreed to help tweak it to get it through. The rep advised Whitaker to rename the site and remove the Buy Now buttons and pill photos. A couple of rounds later it was approved.
4. Rework the site.
After the site passed, Whitaker worked with Google reps to add back many of the features he had previously removed to get approved. The photos came back, as did explicit links that allowed customers to purchase the drugs online.
5. Raise the stakes.
Whitaker repeated the process several times, continuously upping the ante. One site sold the so-called abortion pill. Another sold psychotropic drugs. A third was a Trojan horse for several other illegal pharmaceutical sites. None was ever blocked by Google's own policy review.
In April, Whitaker completed his sentence. Instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, he ultimately served just five years. Reich ended up lobbying for him to receive the shortened prison term, describing Whitaker's cooperation as "rather extraordinary."
Whitaker is seeing a therapist, and he believes he can keep his bipolar disorder under control—and thus keep himself out of trouble. Working with his current lawyer, he's using his entrepreneurial acumen and technical skills to set up a web-design shop. He claims that business is booming, which is good since he owes more than $10 million in restitution to his MixItForMe victims.
"I'm working on a lady's website now, and I think about how happy she is," he says. "And then I think about the things we did in the MixItForMe days and what a struggle it was. We did bad things. And in retrospect, it's so easy to see that."
He talks about his victims by name, wondering aloud what became of them.
"Anybody who knows me says I'm not a bad guy," he says. "I'm sure my victims wouldn't say that. But people who know me would tell you just the opposite."
But some of the people who know him aren't swayed by his redemption story—and they worry that any newfound media attention might rekindle the same urge that led him to overspend so spectacularly. "I used to believe that getting his name and story out there would go a long way in helping him repay the money he owes," one former business associate says. "But now I think the mere scent of publicity only reignites his thirst for the spotlight, and I think that's a dangerous place to venture."
Reich, for his part, doubts that Whitaker's misdeeds can be explained away by his mental illness. "There are plenty of people who are bipolar who don't engage in criminal behavior," he says. Now retired, he's proud to have worked the case and remains awed by what his investigation revealed about the power of Google—how many people searched the site for drugs and how lucrative the illegal online pharmacy business was for AdWords. The undercover team alone spent close to $200,000 on advertisements over three months.
"We started to joke that we could tell the AdWords people, 'We want to kill baby seals,' and they'd tell us how to do it," says a postal inspector who helped work the case. "We wanted them to stop us, to tell us no. We'd tell them we were using reinvested drug money. We'd tell them we were having problems with customs seizures."
Google settled with the government in August 2011, agreeing to pay a $500 million corporate forfeiture that was one of the biggest in US history at the time. As part of the agreement, the company acknowledged that it had helped presumably Canadian online pharmacies use AdWords as early as 2003, that it knew US customers were buying drugs through these ads, that advertisers were selling drugs without requiring prescriptions, and that Google employees actively helped advertisers circumvent their own pharmaceutical policies and third-party verification services.
When the company learned of the investigation in 2009, it stopped the ads—and has even sued some advertisers that violate their terms of use. It has since hired a new third-party screening service and now requires pharmacies to be certified by a rigorous National Association of Boards of Pharmacy program that conducts site visits and doesn't allow online consultations.
Other than that, very little of Google's past behavior has been made public. The company submitted about 5 million documents to the government. Grand jury subpoenas were issued, and witnesses were interviewed. But grand juries are secret, and anyone with knowledge of their goings-on is prohibited from speaking about the information uncovered there.
After announcing Google's $500 million forfeiture, the US attorney for Rhode Island, Peter Neronha, told The Wall Street Journal that the culpability went far higher than the sales reps Whitaker had worked with. Indeed, he said, some of the company's most powerful executives were aware that illegal pharmacies were advertising on its site. "We simply know from the documents we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going on," Neronha said. (Google has denied this, according to press accounts, and Neronha declined to be interviewed for this story.)
For its part, Google has kept its comments on this case limited, issuing a terse statement after the settlement was signed: "We take responsibility for our actions. With hindsight, we shouldn't have allowed these ads on Google in the first place." A Google publicist also pointed Wired to an official blog post, which details how the company disabled more than 130 million fraudulent ads in 2011. Meanwhile, a number of shareholders have filed suit against Google and some executives. According to court documents, settlement negotiations are ongoing.
Jake Pearson (email@example.com) is a writer living in New York. This is his first piece for Wired.


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PT. Menara Alfasemesta ( MAS ) is a multi-national fast growing company based in Indonesia with expertise in technical engineering equipment supply for oil and gas, hydrocarbon processing, chemical, power, water resources, mining, pulp and paper, primary metal and general industry.
MAS is fully staffed with skilled and professional experts who were always ready to provide design engineering, product application supply, installation and after sales service for a wide range of equipments and system in order to meet customer's requirements.
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