text:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.'s (AMD) Fusion processors may be stealing the spotlight, but AMD is determined to show gamers that it still wants to give them a whole lot of love. With Radeon 6990 being arguably the king of single-card desktop graphics performance today, AMD has unleashed a powerful mobile GPU that it claims is "the world's fastest notebook GPU."
The chip is named the Radeon HD 6990M and it packs 1120 stream processing units (SPUs) — up 16.7 percent from the 960 found in AMD's previous top end offering, the Radeon 6970M. Texture units (56) and the core clock (715 MHz) have also been bumped. ROPs and memory clock remain the same. However, in the memory department, the Radeon 6990M packs 2 GB of GDDR5.
The GPU may confuse some in that it's a single-chip (Barts) design, unlike the dual-chip (Cayman Islands) design found in the desktop Radeon 6990. The chip also contains a mixture of features from the Evergreen and Northern Islands families, meaning that it's not exactly like its desktop 6000 series brethren.
Slides from AMD show the chip outperforming both its own Radeon 6970M and NVIDIA Corp.'s (NVDA) GeForce GTX 580M in games like Batman Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age 2, Shogun 2, BattleForge, Left 4 Dead, Metro2033, Wolfenstein MP, The Chronicles of Riddick, and ET: Quake Wars. No independent benchmarks have been released yet, so the validity of these claims depends on how much you're willing to trust AMD.
The chip will land as an option for Dell Inc.'s (DELL) Alienware M18x and Clevo's P170HM and P150HM notebooks, both of which also offer the GTX 580M.
These notebooks may support Crossfire configurations of more than one 6990M. One 6990M is pretty far from its desktop namesake, but two could offer somewhat closer performance. A Radeon 6990 has 3072 SPUs, while a pair of 6990Ms would have 2240 SPUs. Unless you're mining bitcoins or counting framerates, the performance of a pair of 6990Ms and a Radeon 6990 should be virtually identical in current generation PC titles.
AMD has said that the new chip will support Eyefinity, HD3D, and all its other latest and greatest technology. According to AnandTech, though, the chip will not support switchable graphics (à la NVIDIA's Optimus). That, says AMD, is currently reserved for lower end CPUs.
The chip is available immediately, and AVADirect is already making the GPU available in its gaming notebooks. Expect more manufacturers to jump on the AMD bandwagon in the near future.
Improving dual-core compatibility for gaming
The piracy police made one 9-year-old a very unhappy camper
ZMAX will come with a Snapdragon 400 processor and 720p display
UC Davis dares to go where Toyota won't with the Prius
An Apple spokesperson fires back over Microsoft's latest commercials
Engadget gets the scoop on Dell's latest "ultra-portable" notebook


text:
Many of you may recall my offering several genealogy webinars this past spring and summer. I am currently in the planning stages of a new round of webinar offerings sometime this winter or next spring.
I would like to enlist your help during the planning stages, so that I can best serve your educational needs.
Please take 2 minutes to answer the following anonymous survey. The survey contains only 6 short multiple-choice questions.
To take the survey, go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TPKQP5W
Thanks so much for your input!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Missouri bill redefines science, gives equal time to intelligent design
Each year, state legislatures play host to a variety of bills that would interfere with science education. Most of these are variations on a boilerplate intended to get supplementary materials into classrooms criticizing evolution and climate change (or to protect teachers who do). They generally don't mention creationism, but the clear intent is to sneak religious content into the science classrooms, as evidenced by previous bills introduced by the same lawmakers. Most of them die in the legislature (although the opponents of evolution have seen two successes).
The efforts are common enough that we don't generally report on them. But every now and then a bill comes along that veers off this script. Late last month, the Missouri House started considering one that deviates in staggering ways. Instead of being quiet about its intent, it redefines science, provides a clearer definition of intelligent design than any of the idea's advocates ever have, and it mandates equal treatment of the two. In the process, it mangles things so badly that teachers would be prohibited from discussing Mendel's Laws.
Although even the Wikipedia entry for scientific theory includes definitions provided by the world's most prestigious organizations of scientists, the bill's sponsor Rick Brattin has seen fit to invent his own definition. And it's a head-scratcher: "'Scientific theory,' an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy." The faith or philosophy involved remain unspecified.
Brattin also mentions philosophy when he redefines "hypothesis" as "a scientific theory reflecting a minority of scientific opinion which may lack acceptance because it is a new idea, contains faulty logic, lacks supporting data, has significant amounts of conflicting data, or is philosophically unpopular." The reason for that becomes obvious when he turns to intelligent design, which he defines as a hypothesis. Presumably, he thinks it's only a hypothesis because it's philosophically unpopular, since his bill would ensure it ends up in the classrooms.
Intelligent design (ID) is roughly the concept that life is so complex that it requires a designer, but even its most prominent advocates have often been a bit wary about defining its arguments all that precisely. Not so with Brattin—he lists 11 concepts that are part of ID. Some of these are old-fashioned creationist claims, like the suggestion that mutations lead to "species degradation" and a lack of transitional fossils. But it also has some distinctive twists, like the claim that common features, usually used to infer evolutionary relatedness, are actually a sign of parts re-use by a designer.
The bill eventually defines "standard science" as "knowledge disclosed in a truthful and objective manner and the physical universe without any preconceived philosophical demands concerning origin or destiny." It then demands that all science taught in Missouri classrooms be standard science. But there are some problems with this that become apparent immediately. The bill demands anything taught as scientific law to have "no known exceptions." That would rule out teaching Mendel's law, which has a huge variety of exceptions, such as when two genes are linked together on the same chromosome.
But the intent of the bill becomes crystal clear a bit later when it turns to evolution:
If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught. Other scientific theory or theories of origin may be taught. If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth's biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation and teachers shall not question, survey, or otherwise influence student belief in a nonverifiable identity within a science course.
In other words, equal time for the leading scientific idea and intelligent design, but never mention who the designer might be. And not just equal time, but equal pages; the bill literally mandates that "course textbooks contain approximately an equal number of pages of relevant material teaching each viewpoint." Brattin is at least aware no textbooks actually have anything on "biological intelligent design," so he wants the state to identify "nine individuals who are knowledgeable of science and intelligent design" to create supplementary materials for use until the textbook publishers get in line.
Given this confused mess, the bill probably has very little chance of passing. Still, prior to the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act, it seemed unlikely any of these bills would become law.


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DV 2014 Program: Online registration for the DV-2014 Program will begin on Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and conclude on Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4). Instructions for the DV 2014 Program are not yet available, so please check back later.
U.S. Immigration Attorney Steven A. Culbreath, Esq.
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Peter I."Frustrated by multiple and complex USCIS requirements for my EU spouse during relocation to the US, Attorney Culbreath immediately understood our situation and advised on what to do. His advice and direction was exactly the correct way to proceed. He was timely, efficient and communicative during t
Hubert F."Steven Culbreath handled my naturalization. It was a very swift & smooth process. No 'if's' and 'but's'. Steven explained the process to me, he send me a package with forms to fill out and off it went - less than 5 month. Always responsive when a question arose, which rarely happened anyways. I
Sheila G."Steven's resourcefulness and diligence really helps him to stand out from other attorneys. He has a commitment and passion for his work, which has been evident during our business relationship. He accomplished in a few short months what I had been trying to achieve with no less than 3 different att
Todd C."Steven was fantastic! We hired him for our US Immigration via marriage. Canada -> USA. Personable, informed, relaxed, and answered all our questions and concerns to a T. Smooth sailing. I'd recommend him 100%! Thank you!!"
Ina F."We hired Steve because we needed some assistance with my greencard application. Our situation was a little uncommon as we met in central america and have been living there for the past few years. He helped us straighten everything out and since last month i got my card :) It was also nice to discu
Anonymous"If you are reading these reviews, you are probably looking for a good lawyer. You can stop now :) He is your guy, just contact him. He was confident and truly knowledgeable about the whole process we needed to follow. The result, we are extremely happy. I thought this day would never come until I t
Darrin G."I hired Steven to obtain an E2 visa and he delivered exactly what he promised at a reasonable price. His work was totally professional and the process was seem less. As a lawyer myself I know when I am being professionally represented and clearly that was my experience with Steven. 5 out of 5 stars
Joerg L."Mr. Culbreath is the best. My family and I met Mr. Culbreath when we were in a very desperate situation. With his knowledge and competence he was able to help us. He is not just competent he is also reliable, quick and very smart. It is always a pleasure to work with him."
Joan S."Attorney Culbreath assisted my husband and I through my husband's immigration. His fees were the best around. We completed the rough draft of the paper work and he did the formal completion and let us know what documents were expected. He submitted eveything quickly and kept us informed of the stat
Laura T."My husband and I hired Steven to take on our case to get my husbands green card/marriage visa for the US. From the moment I met Steven I knew I made the right choice. Not only is he very knowledgable but also professional and kept us at ease throughout our entire process. He made the process smooth
Beverly L."I am so happy I was recommended to Steven to help me with my Green Card. He is very Professional, friendly and caring to deal with. Everything for me worked out great thanks to Steven. I highly recommend him to anyone. I rate him 5 stars!"
Chris C."After listening to many peoples stories and complaints about their lawyers we finally heard great things about a lawyer called Steven Culbreath. We hired Steven and it was a great decision. He is very knowledgeable and experienced and with his patience and hard work we were succcessful in receiving
Max K."Numerous disappointing attempts with immigration lawyers preceded my contact with Steven Culbreath. With the other attorneys we always had the feeling that making money was of more importance than dealing with our issues. After we had almost given up hope, we tried once again and made contact with
Greg M."Steve did an an excellent job helping me with my E2 visa application approval. He is a very professional, competent, knowledgeable, and approachable lawyer. I would refer him to anyone I know. Thank you Steve!!"
Danielle L."After talking to no less than 6 immigration lawyers we finally found Steven. None of the other lawyers could answer any of our specific questions regarding various visa options like Steven could. It was such a breath if fresh air and such a relief to finally get answers to our questions. Steven re
Anonymous"Steve made a great job! He filled all the forms that I needed for my Green card. He also kept me informed what is going on with my status. After everything was done and the actual Green card already should be mailed to me, the card status appeared to be delivered on my status but it never was! So I
Sylvia B."Steven has helped me file for dual citizenship. He is very knowledgeable and it helped that he speaks English & German fluently. He gave great advise and worded things right so that my Beibehaltungsantrag was approved. I already recommended him to friends and will keep on doing so."
Pedro J."From the first time I communicated with Steve Culbreath, before I had made the decision to hire him as my lawyer, he stood out amongst the multitude of lawyers I had made contact with about my case. He not only responded within 24 hours and treated me with professional courtesy, but he had reviewed
Anonymous"Steven was a pleasure to deal with throughout my whole green card application process. He was easy to contact and always answered any questions I had in a timely manner. We had a meeting before my interview and I felt very prepared and much less worried. I've already recommended him to a friend of
Robert B."My wife and I met with Steve in October 2012. We were married in December 2012, and began our application process shortly afterwards. Steve gave us a flat price up front and never asked for additional funds. Our original attempt to have the marriage certified and for my wife to obtain legal residen
Sarah T."My husband was immigrating from England and we were looking for an attorney to help with the paperwork. We met with several attorneys and decided to sign Mr. Culbreath. He kept us informed, in a timely manner, every step of the way. After gathering all needed information, he filed the paperwork wit
Phil P."He worked very hard to make my dream come true. Great guy, great service. Very knowledgeable. If you want to have your case dealt with in the best possible way, hire Steven. Highly recommended. Thanks so much Steve."
Marc F."Steve is in my eyes a well experienced attorney who helped me and my kids throughout all steps of becoming our US citizenships. All paperwork, appointments, extra needed contacts which were necessary was perfectly prepared. Most important was that he was there when I needed him. He responded just
Robert H."On receiving documents in German, requiring for me a translation and documents requiring notarization by a Rechtsanwalt, I learned about Atty Culbreath and made an appointment. Mr Culbreath provided an English translation, notarized the German document documents and did it at a most reasonable fee.
Birgit W."I felt very comfortable working together with Steve Culbreath. Thanks to his help the whole process went faster and easier than I expected. I will always recommend Steve as a positive, professional and helpful lawyer."
Marieta V."When my Green Card process started, I hired Steve first because he is a German speaking Attorney (due to the fact that I immigrated from Germany), but already after the first meeting we had great chemistry. I felt absolutely comfortable to be consulted by such knowledgeable, fair and to-the-point
Shawna G."Steve is an excellent attorney! Very helpful and knowledgeable with every aspect of your situation. He responds quickly and helps you through each part of the process. Down to earth, NICE person. It is sometimes tough to figure out all of the paperwork and what is needed for immigration cases. Stev
Vadim Y."I'm very glad that I came across such knowledgeable lawyer such as Steven, when I was hunting for Immigration Attorney on the Internet. Steven promptly replied to my request and provided detailed overview of my case including possible outcomes without any exaggeration and embellishment. My case w
Sheila G."It is with Great Pleasure and enthusiasm that I am writing to endorse Steve Culbreath as a Professional Attorney. I hope my perspective will be helpful to you as you evaluate this exceptional Attorney. He has gone above and beyond my expectations and achieved Results which were out of my reach.He
Andrew P."We hired Steve based on these reviews and I could not be any happier with my choice and the result. From the very first meeting to the last Steve was amazing he answered every question we had and put my mind to rest on so many issues. I have been on visa's for many years and it was always hard work
Mark E."Following my marriage to a St Pete lady and the sale of my London UK apartment, I needed to secure USCIS approval for permanent residency. I knew that the services of a lawyer was essential in the very daunting approval process. A Google search showed that Steve was an immigration expert with a ver
Christopher H."We have now known Steve for more than a year - my wife (a US citizen) and myself (a British citizen) first met him in June/July 2013 when we were searching for a trustworthy and reputable immigration attorney, whilst taking a sabbatical in Florida. Our first meeting with Steve over coffee in St Pet
Valentina B."My husband and I got married in Italy, my country of origin. Steven helped us get through the arduous status-adjustment process, making our life much easier. He handled all the paperwork for us and dealt with whatever hiccup we encountered, resending documents when USCIS requested them and giving u
Anonymous"Mr. Culbreath was an exceptional lawyer from the start. He was professional and friendly. He was very responsive and never hesitated to answer any of our questions. We are very glad that we chose him as our immigration lawyer!"
Lynne M."Steve handled my marriage-based petition for myself and my husband. He previously reviewed my case and gave me advice for a very small consultation fee, and then once we got married took us through the process for that. I just received my green card and so have completed the process. Along the way,
Jamie P."Steven has made the process of applying for a US green card painless. He met with us and clearly stated the process & timeline we would expect so we wouldn't have any concerns. Any paperwork that was required was clearly documented so the process of filling out went very smoothly. All in all
Lauro S."Mr. Culbreath did an excellent job in representing my case to USCIS. Very professional, knowledgeable, competent, always made sure all paperwork was completed thoroughly along with any needed supporting documents. He promptly addressed any question or issues we may have had and provided me with e
Peter G."Great communication, it is a professional pleasure to work with him. We know him for 10 years, helping us to get initial and renewal E2 Visa(s) for both investors and a essentail worker."
Benjamin W."Steven was a pleasure to work with. I first contacted him unsure if I was going to hire a lawyer for my case, until my first consultation with Steven. It became apparent that I needed his expertise. I'm happy to say that throughout the process Steve was clear and knowledge about our case and how he
Vaughan T."I have known Steven for a few years now and got to the point where my green card needed reviewing. He did a fantastic job,helping me through the process. I had a worry this wasn't going through as more & more information was required and due to my situation it was very difficult to provide. S
Audra E."After dealing with 2 other immigration attorney's, we were referred by a friend, to Steven Culbreath. What a pleasure to deal with Steven! He is very knowledgeable, at all times professional and yet made us feel at so at ease. This was the most stress-free application that we have submitted. I can
Joy P."Steve is a highly knowledgeable and competent attorney. My case was very complicated and emotionally draining and I felt very well understood. Everything went exactly as predicted by Steve. He is fast, precise and from a human standpoint has a lot of empathy. I hired him again!"
Sabrina R."If you want the best you need Steven, he is knowledgeable, honest, detailed oriented, he really know what he is doing and he is an incredible human being. there is no difficult case for him and I will always be thankful for choosing him as a lawyer."
Max K."Perfect handling of every situation.(we had a few !!) Always a good answer even in the years in between the visa applications."
John D."Steven Culbreath handled our application for US residence in a highly professional and efficient manner. We met on more than one occasion to discuss and deal with the formalities then were kept regularly informed of progress until the application was approved and the process completed. We found Ste
David G."Steven made the way to my green card seem effortless. He kept me always very well informed and guided me through the entire procedure in a very professional and efficient way. I'm very grateful for his hard work.Steven made the way to my green card seem effortless. He kept me always very well infor
Jessica W."Mr. Culbreath did a great job helping me get all my documents and application ready for USCIS. If it wasn't for his help and expertise, things wouldn't have gone nearly as smoothly as they did!"
Mickael B."Dedicated and trustworthy are the first words I think of when describing Steve. He was recommended by a friend to help me with my citizenship process and I was not disappointed. He personally handled my case, was very knowledgeable of the intricacies, and provided support promptly every step of the
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Welcome to The Shore, probably the most unique private beachfront villa property in Bali. The property is located in a colourful village less than 25 km from the International Airport of Bali and 12 km from the nightlife of Seminyak. Our five-suite luxury villa offers full services and facilities and unobstructed 180-degree beachfront view of the surfs of the Indian Ocean.
Click here to get a quote today!


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No humidity? Is this really DC in August? It appears that the weather gods will be shining on Teddy Roosevelt for tonight's big "Run Teddy Run!" T-Shirt Tuesday at Nationals Park.
With the Washington Nationals coming off a disastrous weekend series at Miller Park in Milwaukee, what our team needs is a little home cooking, and what could be better than a crowd full of crazy Teddy fans rooting against Johan Santana and the New York Mets?
For those who haven't been paying attention, tonight is Teddy Roosevelt T-Shirt Tuesday, and the first 10,000 fans in attendance will receive a free "Run Teddy Run" t-shirt courtesy of Tickets.com. George, Tom, and Abe have all had their T-Shirt Tuesdays, and all have won the race on their big nights. Tonight, it's Teddy's turn. Even Mets fans are taking up Teddy's cause.
Regular readers of the Let Teddy Win blog will be there in our Teddy Roosevelt fan gear for a pre-game rally behind Section 102, and some will also gather close to finish line for the 4th-inning presidents race.
See you there! Run Teddy Run!!!


text:
Justin Bieber -- Drugs Seized From Tour Bus Connected with Singer
Justin Bieber Drugs Seized from Tour Bus Connected with Singer
A bus associated with Justin Bieber's tour was stopped last night at the border between Michigan and Canada ... and authorities seized both marijuana and drug paraphernalia, law enforcement tells TMZ.
Chief Customs and Border Protection Officer Ken Hammond tells us, the bus was stopped at the Ambassador Bridge -- which separates Windsor, Canada and Detroit -- after a drug-sniffing dog detected the presence of weed on board.
Hammond says a subsequent search of the bus revealed marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Justin was NOT on the bus in question.
We're told the drugs and paraphernalia were seized and the driver was issued a citation. The driver and passengers were subsequently released without further incident.
The Ambassador Bridge checkpoint is beginning to develop a reputation for itself -- Rihanna's tour bus was pulled over for the same reason back in March.


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Bruins lose in overtime 6-5
BOSTON — Brent Seabrook's goal 9:51 into overtime lifted the Chicago Blackhawks to a wild 6-5 victory over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night and tied the Stanley Cup finals through four games.
Seabrook fired a 45-foot shot past Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask to end Game 4 and send the series back to Chicago tied 2-2.
Seabrook also scored the overtime goal in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals to eliminate the Detroit Red Wings.
Only 12 total goals were scored in the first three games before the teams combined for 11 on Wednesday night.
Game 5 of the best-of-seven series is Saturday night.
It was the third overtime game of the series. The Blackhawks won the opener 4-3 in three overtimes, and the Bruins won 2-1 in the first overtime period in Game 2.
Boston grabbed the series lead Monday night 2-0 behind Rask's third shutout of the postseason.
Seabrook's shot from the right went to the far side of Rask, who appeared to be screened.
Trailing 4-3 after the second period, the Bruins tied it on Patrice Bergeron's second goal of the game at 2:05 of the third period.
Patrick Sharp gave Chicago a 5-4 lead at 11:19 of the third period with the Blackhawks' first power-play goal in 30 chances, but Boston came right back to tie it 55 seconds later on Johnny Boychuk's hard 40-foot shot.
All five Bruins goals were to the glove side of goalie Corey Crawford.
Jonathan Toews broke his scoring slump in Chicago's three-goal onslaught in the second period against Rask.
In an unusually wide-open game, the teams combined for five goals in the second period after the first ended in a 1-1 tie on goals by Chicago's Michal Handzus and Boston's Rich Peverley.
Patrick Kane and Marcus Kruger also scored for Chicago in the second. Milan Lucic and Bergeron countered for Boston.
Rask posted his third shutout of the postseason in Game 3 and began Game 4 with a shutout streak of 122 minutes, 26 seconds.
That ended at 129:14 when Handzus scored a short-handed goal at 6:48 of the first period. Then Peverley, who had been struggling offensively, scored his second playoff goal during a rare power-play shift for him at 14:43.
Toews and Kane led the Blackhawks with 23 goals each this season, and neither had scored a goal in the Cup finals. Toews had gone 10 straight games without one, but now has two goals in 21 playoff games.
His fortunes changed when he gave Chicago a 2-1 lead at 6:33 of the second. Michal Rozsival fired a low rising shot from the right point that Toews tipped in near the right post.
Just over two minutes later, Kane made it 3-1. Bryan Bickell shot the puck from low in the left circle. Rask deflected it to the other side and then scrambled to get back in position, but Kane converted the rebound at 8:41.
The Bruins stayed aggressive, and it paid off when Lucic got his sixth goal of the postseason at 14:43. Zdeno Chara passed the puck from the left boards to Lucic in the slot for a backhand from 10 feet past Crawford.
Then it was the Blackhawks' turn to come back, and it took less than a minute.
Kruger put his own rebound past Rask for his third postseason goal this year at 15:32. But that 4-2 lead didn't hold up long in the back-and-forth game.
At 17:22, Bergeron scored his eighth goal of the playoffs off an odd bounce during a power play. Chara's shot hit the glass behind Crawford and bounced back off the top of the net. It ended up in the slot, and Bergeron put it in to cut the deficit to 4-3.
Handzus had scored the first goal after Brandon Saad stole the puck from Tyler Seguin in the Boston zone and raced up the right side. He crossed the blue line and then passed across the slot to Handzus, who beat Rask from about 5 feet.
Then Peverley tied it. Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference kept the puck in the zone when he went to his knees at the left point. He passed it toward Peverley near the right circle. Peverley controlled the puck and took a shot from the inside edge of the circle, beating Crawford to the near side.
The Blackhawks dominated the early part of the first period. But the Bruins, the 2011 champions, came on strong in the last 10 minutes and ended the period being outshot by 10-9.
The Blackhawks won the opener 4-3 on Andrew Shaw's goal at 12:08 of the third overtime and lost 2-1 in Game 2 on Daniel Paille's goal at 13:48 of the first overtime.
Marian Hossa returned to the Blackhawks after being a scratch in Game 3.
Stanley Cup Final, Game 5, in Chicago, Saturday, 8 p.m., NBC. Best-of-seven series tied, 2-2.


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Tax filing season starts Jan. 30 for most filers
Associated Press
The Petoskey News-Review
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service says late changes to federal tax laws should mean only a short delay for most taxpayers to file their 2012 returns.
The agency said Tuesday that more than 120 million taxpayers — about 80 percent of all filers — should be able to start filing their federal returns on Jan. 30. Others will have to wait until late February or March to file because the agency needs time to update and test its systems.
Those who will have to wait include people claiming residential energy credits, depreciation of property or general business credits. The filing season had been slated to start Jan. 22 but was delayed because of the big tax package passed by Congress Jan. 1.


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What could possibly be more festive this holiday season...than a strip club? North Pole meets stripper pole on the RidicuList.
Post by: Anderson Cooper
Filed under: The RidicuList
Always good to see someone trying to help the kids and spread some Christmas cheer.
I just had to leave a remark as a female about all these ta-ta this and ta-ta that events. I don't think a event called save the testies or blue balls for tots would be ethical??? Flattering that a woman's body occupies some people minds all year round. Definitely more appealing than a bunch of "nuts" roasting on an open fire......just saying
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
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Porto – Full Version – Demo
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A relaxing Portuguese fado style guitar tune
Composer – Eric Harper
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In the 1930s, British sports-car maker MG made exactly 33 of the K3 open-top race car. If you want to buy one now, there are more than 100 to choose from.
No, the defunct carmaker didn't restart production. The tripling of the K3 fleet is part of the booming trade in fake antique autos as soaring prices for classic cars spur sophisticated counterfeits, according to Bernhard Kaluza, vice president of international antique auto club FIVA.
"In the 1990s, I would find one faked car every five years," said Norbert Schroeder, who verifies classic cars at TÜV Rheinland, a Cologne, Germany-based technical testing company. "Now I find up to five fakes a year."
Vintage cars have gained in appeal, especially since the financial crunch. Auction values have risen more than sevenfold over the past decade, according to data from market tracker Historica Selecta. British auction house Bonhams, which says global sales total more than $1 billion a year, sold a 1954 Mercedes-Benz F1 car for 19.6 million pounds ($32.1 million) in July, setting a world record at auction.
The lure of antique autos is evident in the case of a 1955 Aston Martin DB2/4. Bonhams sold the exact same car in unchanged condition for 230,000 pounds in 2011, more than four times the price paid in 2003, said James Knight, the head of auction house's motoring department.
Porsche 904
Demand remains high. At a Dec. 1 auction, Bonhams, which performs numerous checks before accepting a vehicle for auction, sold dozens of vintage autos, including a 1964 Porsche 904 GTS racing coupe for 1.15 million pounds.
"People with a lot of money prefer to have a classic car in the garage than money in the bank," said Adolfo Orsi, president of Historica Selecta, a consulting company that specializes in classic cars. "When there is a lot of money, there are fakes. In today's world, it is possible to replicate everything."
Sophisticated forgers have been known to buy up old screws and washers, leave reproduced frames in fields to weather and even have parts copied to make fakes harder to detect. FIVA's Kaluza says counterfeiters even bought an old movie theater in France to get the worn antique leather from the seats.
Organized Crime
"The people faking cars are not a few lone wolves," said TÜV's Schroeder, who has traveled as far as California to authenticate cars, including evaluating welding joints and chemically testing the metal to determine its age. "It's organized crime because it's expensive to build such cars and you need a good infrastructure to do it."
Christian Jenny has confronted the risks. The former chief information officer of Zurich Insurance Group AG spent five years proving his rare 1952 Jaguar C-Type convertible was authentic, after another model showed up on the market claiming to have the same identification number.
The owner of 13 vintage Jaguars consulted numerous experts, including Norman Dewis, chief test engineer for the British luxury brand for more than 30 years. With the car valued at about $2.5 million, there was a lot at stake.
"It might be a problem if you tried to sell the car years later," said Jenny, who is now retired and lives in Thalwil, Switzerland. Verifying the car was "a precautionary measure."
Authenticating cars isn't easy. Simon Kidston, a classic- car consultant in Geneva, was offered an Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ racer from the 1960s from a seller who claimed to have discovered the car in a scrapyard in northern Italy.
Fiery Crash
After consulting numerous sources, Kidston eventually discovered a photo of a car with the same identification number that was involved in a fiery crash at the Sebring race in 1964. The driver only barely escaped.
"It was clear there could be nothing left of the original car," said Kidston, who rejected the offer.
Other frauds are more subtle, like taking an authentic vintage Porsche 911 and turning it into a high-performance 911 RS version, which would effectively quadruple the car's value. Others take authentic parts and build a vehicle around them, making the line between refurbished and forged models murky.
"There are plenty of adapted cars," said Bonhams' Knight. "Fake has another meaning: it's trying to deceive."
There are also legitimate copies of classic cars, which don't try to fool buyers.
Not Evil
"The replica game isn't evil," said Martin Emmison, a lawyer at Goodman Derrick LLP in London, who advised Jenny and drives a Jaguar C-Type look-a-like. "It gives people like me who can't afford a real C-Type a chance to drive the machine almost exactly how they were."
The extent of classic-car fraud is difficult to track since few victims come forward, and it's still considered relatively rare. Still, to prevent the threat of counterfeits from discrediting the whole market, FIVA has created a passport for antique cars to improve transparency.
"The whole problem of faked classic cars is being treated warily," because people in the market "don't want to ruin the good mood," said TÜV's Schroeder. "I want to speak out on this before the whole thing blows up."
–Editors: Chris Reiter, Chad Thomas


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CNN's Randi Kaye reports on Jodi Arias' last day on the stand. The prosecutor tried to prove that the timing of her story doesn't add up. He used the time stamps on two photographs to support his theory.
For more on the case, watch Toobin: Arias' memory loss is convenient
Post by: Randi Kaye
Filed under: Crime & Punishment • Jodi Arias
I find her terrifying! I never thought of it until it was mentioned here, but I think it may be entirely possible that she DID have the gun pointed at him while she took that last picture of him in the shower... he looks sad, terrified, and desperate. It haunts me now just thinking about it. She looks like a woman that was going to make him pay, that if she couldn't have him no one else would either! I truly believe that she's psychotic... you can see it in her eyes that she'll smile to your face, recite bible verses all while picking up the knife to stab you in the back! I hope she gets the death penalty because she's dangerous!
I can not believe the prosecution has not come up with the theory of her holding the gun on him while making him pose for the camera. I have seen someones face when they have a gun pointed at them, and that picture with him in the shower is that face. I think before she killed him, she had a lot to say, a lot to get off her chest.
I find it interesting that CNN covers the Arias Trial but not a peep about the Philadelphia Abortion M.D. who is charged with 1st degree murder of 7 late term children born alive. Obviously this is proof that CNN is NOT balanced and has decided to avoid politically explosive issues. Shame on You!!!
I also agree with Paula's statement. I believe, regardless of this whole factor here, she commited and admitted to the crime. Even though it appears to be likely that she does have Amnesia, she has still confessed to the murder of that man. Sure there could be evidence that it may have been self defense, but what appears to be more likely here? In my personal opinion, she needs to serve what she deserves (according to the book)
I couldn't agree more, but unfortunately in this case, "more likely" isn't good enough. The way the US justice system works is that the jury cannot give a guilty verdict unless they are absolutely positive that they committed the crime. Any reasonable doubt and she has to be not guilty.
Miss Arias is clearly behaving like a person who disassociates, like a multiple personality disorder. Why neither side defense or prosecution has noticed is unbelievable. This is consistent with people who were severely abused in their life, and her mother looked guilty when Miss Arias testified about her beating her with a wooden spoon. Where are the psychiatric professionals in the Arizona Justice System? In my opinion they misunderstand who they are dealing with.
She has certainly had time to work this act out. She is nothing butI hope she does not get off like Casey Anthony does. They both killed people and they deserve to pay.
Sorry, I was interrupted and did not finish. My opinion is that she is a conniving, lying person that can't keep her lies straight. I know everyone has different opinions, but it is really difficult to overlook all the lies and cover ups that she did.
Lol! No one beaten with a wooden spoon goes and kills.
She was jealous of the other girl that he was taking on the trip she planned this all .That one photo in the shower the look on his face says it all ,it is a look of terror.She is smart like a fox.He was done with her and she could not stand it
It's a waste of time to go on and on about this case. The woman admitted the crime, obviously a crime of passion, and she deserves life in prison. When did we become a nation of ghouls?
I agree with you Paula. He had as much to do with it as she did! Not making a judgement here for we are suppose to leave that to God. As a whole we are suppose to forgive not place blame! Who ever causes her dead would be doing what they say she did!
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NFL: Kaepernick picked pro football over pitching
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Chicago Cubs scout Sam Hughes watches Colin Kaepernick nowadays and still wonders what the strong-armed NFL quarterback might look like on a pitching mound, as a power arm in the pros. It's hard not to, seeing the zip and accuracy on each throw, the competitive fire and fierce focus.
The Cubs never even watched Kaepernick throw a baseball before drafting him in the 43rd round almost four years ago. They did watch him throw a football for Nevada, and decided that college game told them more than enough.
Ultimately, the Cubs just couldn't lure Kaepernick away from his first love: football. Now, he's headed to the Super Bowl to lead the San Francisco 49ers against Baltimore on Feb. 3.
Hughes, the longtime national cross-checker in the Cubs' scouting department, and several others, including then-general manager Jim Hendry, figured they should give it a shot and hope Kaepernick might reconsider.
"Yeah, that wasn't happening," Kaepernick said with a smile Wednesday, shaking his head.
Hughes tried for two weeks to convince Kaepernick, who had made it all but clear he wouldn't sign. He was surprised anybody drafted him at all given he had been so upfront about sticking with football.
But Chicago's NFL sources – Hughes said three different teams – figured Kaepernick would be a late-round pick or even someone who might have to go the route of the Canadian Football League.
That seems so laughable now. The Niners picked Kaepernick in the second round of the 2011 draft, made him the starter midseason this year and now will ask him to carry them all the way to the franchise's sixth championship in what will be just his 10th career NFL start.
"I was looking at this tall, kind of gangly at the time quarterback that was super athletic and had this really long throwing motion," Hughes said. "I was talking to some of my buddies at Reno and said, 'Boy, I wonder if this kid's ever played baseball, he's got an arm stroke like a pitcher.'"
That sent Hughes on a fun little research project. Kaepernick regularly threw 90 mph in high school, but was now some 40 pounds heavier as a college football player.
He certainly would throw harder.
"So, I was definitely intrigued, bigger, stronger, more athletic," Hughes said. "Colin had no idea we were even considering drafting him. I kind of caught him off guard when I called him after we drafted him. He kind of got a kick out of it and said his phone was ringing off the hook that he'd been drafted by the Cubs. He had no idea."
Then-Nevada coach Chris Ault had the challenge of developing Kaepernick's football motion – and that wasn't an easy task with the QB having been a pitcher.
"His first two years he was a thrower from his pitching days. It was all sidearm," Ault said. "That was a habit we had to break. You could see his throwing motion, timing and touch was there. His senior year I saw the whole package. He was a guy ready for the NFL who could do all things they'd like him to do plus run. Now I look at him with the Niners and Jim and those guys are doing a super job. He has all the throws. What I really enjoy watching is he really learned to put the touch on the ball when he has to."
49ers coach Jim Harbaugh can appreciate the Cubs' attempt to recruit Kaepernick to baseball. He would have tried, too, had he been in their position.
"He's a man for all seasons," Harbaugh said. "Tremendous football player, basketball player, baseball player, a tremendous athlete with a lot of gifts of God. And a tremendous competitive fire, readiness and willingness to compete, to be able to make cool-headed decisions under fire. Who wouldn't want a player like that in baseball or football?"
Or basketball, for that matter.
Kaepernick was a three-sport star at John H. Pitman High in Turlock, a couple of hours east in California's Central Valley.
At 6-foot-4 and about 180 pounds as a high school senior, he went 11-2 with a 1.27 ERA with two no-hitters and 10 complete games – now-retired Pitman coach Mick Tate couldn't remember Wednesday if there was a second, but the quarterback sure knew.
"There were two," Kaepernick said.
Kaepernick batted .313 with 17 RBIs and a .407 on-base percentage. In basketball, he averaged 15.4 points.
"The thing we're most proud of, those who coached him in high school, is we want to make them better people," Tate said. "We didn't have to work very hard to make him a better person."
And those close to Kaepernick had a pretty good idea which way he was headed.
"He was a phenomenal basketball player here," said Philip Sanchez, Kaepernick's high school guidance counselor who remains a close family friend. "Don't forget that. People think of it as just baseball-football, no. He went from football, the very next day he was leading his team in basketball. Then the very next day when basketball ended, now it was time to start pitching. That's rare that you get kids who play three sports these days."
The Cubs figured they had reason to be somewhat optimistic of swaying Kaepernick. They have had success drafting football players, such as pitcher Jeff Samardzija and outfielder Matt Szczur – a pair of former star college wide receivers who picked baseball.
And Kaepernick had tremendous "upside," a common phrase the scouts use to describe potential.
The 49ers saw the same upside. Harbaugh made a midseason switch to him as starter over Alex Smith, the 2005 No. 1 overall draft pick.
"We're not really surprised at his success, because he's always had success," Sanchez said. "I'm just happy that the world has seen the person that we know."
At Pitman, they sure appreciate Kaepernick to this day.
So do the folks in Reno.
During the San Diego State-Nevada basketball game Wednesday night, the plan was for everybody to pose Kaepernick style, flexing the right biceps muscle and kissing it – a new sensation known as "Kaepernicking."
Even the Cubs folks are cheering for him.
"I've followed him since the first time I saw him. He's a very entertaining, fun guy to watch, great athlete, great competitor, very good arm strength, good touch, good feel," Hughes said. "After I drafted him, I talked to him and his father, Rick, four or five times each throughout a two-week period trying to convince him to give baseball a shot. I got to know him through several conversations and since then I've shot him a few text messages – in college after they beat Boise State, which was huge, and after he got drafted by the Niners. A credit to him, I talked to him over a two-week stretch and he didn't know me from Adam and he has returned each one of my text messages. That says a lot about the young man."
AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this story.


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Throwback Thursday: Code Red Day At Teahupo'o
After taking a look at the Teahupo'o cam this morning I noticed that there were a couple good sized waves coming through…which got me to thinking about the "Code Red" day back in August 2011 when we saw the biggest Chopes ever. I say that with ultimate conviction—those were the biggest waves anyone has ever seen at the fabled "End Of The Road." Our Tahitian hosts who have lived there for 44 years confirmed it. There were times while I was sitting in the channel that I though the reef was going to get split in half by some of the waves and/or somebody was going to die. So in the spirit of "Throwback Thursday" have a look back at that groundbreaking day…and don't shit yourself at work.
Above: The Code Red day through the lens of a Red Cam by Chris Bryan.
For more Teahupo'o photos, videos, and articles, go to the Teahupo'o tag page
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Farm Bill: Bipartisan triumph or big mistake?
Last week President Barack Obama signed a bipartisan multiyear Farm Bill, which ensures the continuation of government-subsidized and directed agriculture for the benefit of giant agribusiness corporations.
Republicans and Democrats have praised the bill, which passed the Senate 68-32 and the House 251-166, saying it was a much-needed reform that ends $5 billion in direct payments to farmers. Among them are 1,500 cliff dwellers in New York City, "374 on the Upper East Side (of Manhattan) alone," the New York Post reported in 2013.
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-East Moline, a member of the Agriculture Committee, supported the bill, saying it "keeps a stable and strong crop insurance program in place so farmers who are at the mercy of Mother Nature can continue to feed our nation and the world, while conserving and protecting critical habitats and fragile soils." Bustos said that despite some cuts in food aid to the poor, people in Illinois should not be hurt.
The bill will cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years, much of it going to the food stamp or SNAP program.
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, also backed the bill: "This long overdue legislation will allow growers and producers to plan ahead and make smarter decisions about future harvests, giving them more control over their businesses. It strengthens our farm safety net, helping farmers protect against natural disasters, and represents a big step forward for getting things done in Washington."
Is this bill a good deal for all Americans? Not everyone thinks so, including conservative U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and the liberal Washington Post editorial board.
"We're going to spend almost a trillion dollars on what should be called a food security bill. And the language we hear from colleagues is totally parochial or product-based," Coburn charged in a 21-minute speech on the Senate floor. Critics like Coburn say the bill creates warped incentives based on the overwhelming clout of giant agribusiness companies in Congress.
"We create wealth (in the U.S.) by making sure the risks of capital investment are responsive to market forces. This bill is anything but that. ... There's no place else in this country where you can go into a business enterprise and be guaranteed that your revenue is going to be secure," Coburn said. "We've even added a new supplemental, low-cost crop insurance program that all of us who aren't farmers are going to pay the deductible on. Plus, we're going to subsidize 62 to 63 percent of all crop insurance in the country. ... Therefore, markets aren't going to work.
"You're guaranteed 86 percent of your revenue and taxpayers are paying most of the cost of the insurance for that."
Coburn, a physician from Muskogee, worked with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., "to put some limits on the wealthiest (people) when it comes to crop insurance." Those limits passed the Senate and the House, but were taken out in a joint conference committee.
The Washington Post echoed Coburn. "For every step the bill takes toward better federal agriculture policy, it takes two or three steps in the other direction. Worst of all, it creates two new programs - Agriculture Risk Coverage and a Supplemental Coverage Option - which, taken together, all but guarantee beneficiaries' revenues never fall below 86 percent of their earnings during years of high crop prices. Contrary to what its apologists claim, the 2014 farm bill is not a hard-won triumph for bipartisanship. Instead ... This is a bill of, by and for the agriculture lobby, which, through sheer power and self-interested persistence, ground down reform advocates over three years.
"The premise of the legislation - that this country would be at risk of shortages and soaring food prices without multiple layers of central planning in agriculture - is simply not true," The Post said.
I don't know about you, but I agree with the editorial, and with Tom Coburn. It's too bad he's retiring.
Chuck Sweeny: 815-987-1366; firstname.lastname@example.com


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Libra Tarot Card Tattoo
If you are a beginner to tarot reading, you may want to start with the Rider-Waite deck. However, it isn't the only option. There are also a variety of other decks to choose from, including the Wild Unknown and Morgan Greer decks. They are more visually appealing, but they are less intuitive for beginners. The Morgan Greer deck is basically the Rider-Waite on steroids. This deck is a great choice for anyone looking for big faces, bright colors, and Game of Thrones-themed imagery. But whatever tarot deck you choose, the most important thing is finding one that you like and is intuitive enough to interpret.
It is believed that tarot card originated as a bridge-like card game. They first appeared in Europe during the 15th century, and were most popular among the rich families in Italy. According to the World of Playing Cards, the original deck was brought to these regions by Islamic soldiers. The deck was probably carried by soldiers while on duty. The culture eventually spread to the indigenous populations. This is not the only theory. The TreeHouse Society believes that the game was invented in the 17th century by a German monk, but tarot cards have been around for centuries.
While Tarot is a popular form of fortune telling, it can also be intimidating and scary. While it isn't possible to tell the future with Tarot cards, a good tarot reading can help you increase awareness of your innermost truths. The history of the Tarot is interesting. Originally, the cards were used for a game called Tarocchi. During the 18th century, it began to be used for spiritual divination.
Tarot decks contain 78 cards. There are two types of cards: the Major Arcana or Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana contains 22 trump cards and the numbered Fool. The Major Arcana represents the major influences in your life. The Minor Arcana consists of 56 cards. The Minor Arcana includes 10 numbered cards. Tarot cards can also be used to predict the future and read people's lives.


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Available Font Licenses For This Family
Desktop font license
A typical desktop font EULA will allow you to install the font on your computer for use with authoring tools including word processors, design tools and other applications that permit font selection. Fonts can also be used for creation of print documents, static images (JPEG, TIFF, PNG) and logos. The cost of a desktop font license is determined by the number of workstations on which the font is to be used. View the desktop EULA for this family


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Rick Holmes: GOP still in the wilderness
Four years ago, Republicans went into the wilderness. Having lost the White House and both houses of Congress, it was time for the Grand Old Party to think again about what it was and where it was going.
Fairly quickly, they found the Tea Party movement, a new home for their anger and energy. But the Tea Party road turned out to be a dead end. It looked new at first, but was really the shrinking Republican Party – aging, white, religious conservatives – with a new set of slogans.
Soon the Tea Party was hijacked by PACs and hacks like Tom Delay and Sarah Palin. Then Tea Party energy hijacked the presidential nomination process and things went downhill from there. The primaries were clown shows, producing a winner who couldn't Etch-A-Sketch away the pandering he'd had to do to get the nomination.
But as Republicans get past the stages of denial and anger, they are coming to see their problems as much deeper. Forget Mitt Romney, Hurricane Sandy and Chris Christie. Republicans lost Senate seats in North Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Indiana. This wasn't a presidential candidate's loss alone; it was a rejection of the Republican brand.
The GOPs demographic problems are obvious in the exit polls. They lost by wide margins among Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, single women, gays and young people.
Already, the GOP establishment is starting to embrace comprehensive immigration reform. That's the easy part.
But something else happened Tuesday to a pillar of the conservative movement far older than the Tea Party: The religious right lost, big time. They lost not just the White House and not just the Congressional races. They lost on gay marriage in three states. They lost the public debate over personhood, abortion and access to contraception. And they know it.
"Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the New York Times. "It's not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn't get out. It did get out.
"It's that the entire moral landscape has changed," he said. "An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them."
It's another part of the Republicans' demographic nightmare. For the first time, more than 20 percent of Americans have no religious affiliation, a percentage that is much higher among younger voters. Those people have lost patience with politicians and preachers nosing around in their bedrooms.
For 30 years, the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Mike Huckabee have been have been blurring the distinction between religion and politics. The Saturday before the election, Pat Boone robo-called me on behalf of Scott Brown, attaching a religious tone to secular Brown campaign talking points. He lost, too.
In defeat, the contradictions in the Republican Party between libertarians and social conservatives are hard to ignore. The youth and the energy are now in the libertarian wing, in the supporters of Rep. Ron Paul and, soon, Rep. Rand Paul. They stand ready to dump the nativists and the religious right in favor of a more pure message of small government and individual freedom.
The libertarian road may also prove to be a dead end, or at least a long trek. The Libertarian Party's candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, pulled about a million votes this time, just 1 percent.
It took a long time for Republicans to wander into this wilderness, and it may take quite some time for them to find their way out.
Rick Holmes, opinion editor for the Daily News (Mass.), blogs at Holmes & Co.
(http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/holmesandco). He can be reached at email@example.com.


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TNB: Mystery Solved!
Dr. Tom Willis had been up all night at the Northern Navajo Medical Center, even participating in emergency surgery, but after returning 50 miles home to Cortez he drove over to Road M. At 8:20 a.m. on Saturday, he knocked on a door. A guy in shorts, a cup of coffee in hand, answered.
Dr. Tom Willis had been up all night at the Northern Navajo Medical Center, even participating in emergency surgery, but after returning 50 miles home to Cortez he drove over to Road M. At 8:20 a.m. on Saturday, he knocked on a door. A guy in shorts, a cup of coffee in hand, answered.
"My name is Tom Willis," Tom began. "I don't know if you remember me …"
"Sure, I know you," the mustached resident said pleasantly. "From a long time ago!"
Tom asked swiftly, "Did you ever climb Moses?"
"Yes, I climbed Moses."
"Did you leave a pack on top?"
Jamey Meier looked at him in wonderment, and said, "Yes!"
Last week's TNB described an old climbing pack that three friends
and I found 25 years ago on top of Moses Tower, in the Utah desert. Among the contents, aside from a full rack, was a camera. A few weeks ago, Tim
Mutrie, a former Aspen Times reporter here in Western Colorado, had the film developed.
Last week's article asked if any readers recognized the face, wearing a muted smile, in one of the faded old photos. Various suggestions came in. A few people thought the climber looked like Mike O'Donnell, a Ouray guide. Since some carabiners in the pack contained the initials "J.M.," one lead suggested a John Meier, whose name I found in a Los Alamos climbing club. Yet I reached one of Meier's friends, Jan Studebaker, only to learn that it was not he.
On Thursday, Tom Willis, an anesthesiologist, went online to pass some time between two surgeries. By "sheer coincidence," he says, he saw two links to articles on rockandice.com, and clicked on the one about Moses. Tom thought he recognized the man shown in the faded photo, though he later would begin to wonder if it was someone else, a different friend. At the time, though, he phoned our office and told me it looked like the "spitting image" of a "Jamie" Meier, an excellent climber with whom Tom had climbed Shiprock in the mid-1980s. Jamie could have climbed Moses, Tom thought.
He knew that James Meier once lived in Cortez, Colorado. Googling around, I found a physical address from some old housing records. The location was about five miles from Tom's home, and he drove by there that evening, but was one road off target, and found nothing. Two days later Tom came back, and located the correct street, then the house, and then his old friend.
Jamey, as he spells it, invited Tom into his home and showed him a framed 5-by-7 photo of Al Lowrie, his partner on Moses, jumaring with the Karrimor pack visible above him. The photo in our e-blast was also of Al. Both men had mustaches, and look a little alike. In both images, Al wears a blue bandanna.
Back in the early 1980s, Tom and Jamey and Al, both EMTs, all met at Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, and climbed together. Jamey eventually moved to Florida, but he returned and now works at Community Connections, a center for the developmentally disabled.
"I was just amazed," Jamey said of his recent meeting with Tom. "I am still walking around saying wow. It's just crazy. It brought all kinds of things
to mind. It's fantastic." Of Tom, he said, obviously deeply touched, "He went so far out of his way."
Jamey and I also spoke that morning, and he said he had returned to Moses (three and a half hours away) two weeks after leaving the pack behind, hoping to retrieve his gear, but was weathered off. He came back a year later, but the pack was gone.
His consolation, he said, was to tell himself, "'Well, at least another climber got my gear, so that's OK.'"
The next question, of course, was how the pack came to be left behind.
Jamey answered quietly.
"I lost a partner, Gary Black," he told me. "We were at a local cliff, Battle Rock," a sandstone dome in McElmo Canyon southwest of Cortez.
"I led a pitch," Jamey recounted. As Gary followed, Jamie continued, "He fell and the rope dislodged a rock. It hit him on the head and he died."
That had happened a year before Jamey and Al climbed Pale Fire on Moses, in 1988. On the same day two German climbers climbed Primrose Dihedrals on the other side, and they are visible in one of the recovered photos.
Al rappelled first, and ended up stalled. Through several pendulums, he barely reached a set of anchors. Jamey pulled up the rope, repositioned it, and threw it down.
"It knocked off a rock that hit Al on the head," Jamey recalled. Al yelled, and fell silent. "I was looking down, and hollering," Jamey said, "and he wasn't
In a rush, and the gathering darkness, Jamey rappelled to his friend.
"That's how I left the pack," he said. "I just freaked out and spaced it. I was about 15 feet down, and thought, 'Oh shit, the pack.'" Bent on checking
on his friend, though, he continued without it.
The next day Jamey followed our conversation up with an e-mail, recalling of the first incident: "Gary Black was a local friend of a friend that would get out also. We crag climbed at Ophir a few times, and when I needed a partner at Battle Rock, I called and we went." The two climbed a new route, on which the rock was worse than it looked. "I got up the first pitch and belayed Gary up. About halfway, he fell, and I felt the rope twang. Heard the rock hit him. He never woke up."
Months later Jamey returned to that cliff, climbed the route, and left a plaque for his friend. His recent e-mail continued: "Gary was just starting to lead and was an inexperienced climber. I've always felt I was stretching limits and we shouldn't have gone up that route. I don't really know how to express how it is to lose a partner who placed his life in your hands."
Jamey told me on the phone Saturday, "This is bringing a lot of memories back. It's pretty awesome. The pack's not worth much, but it's got a lot of memories. It's been to Alaska, to the top of the Grand, on Moses."
His further thoughts emerged in the e-mail. "When [on Moses] I tossed the rope, heard a yell, then nothing, I was on rap and coming down so quick I didn't think. I just had that same feeling I had on Battle Rock."
He called this past weekend's finale "surreal."
"It's not so much getting the stuff back as things coming full circle. Thank you to all who helped."


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Jeremy Bold is currently a full-time graduate student pursuing degrees in European Studies at New York University and Library and Information Science at Long Island University and residing in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating in May, he expects to be at least a part time-employed librarian and a full time-obsessed writer living somewhere in the United States. He is an avid (albeit unpaid) reader, writer, photographer and, if it really means anything, philosopher as well. You can find him writing at The Socratic Librarian (an experiment in applying philosophical examination to the life of librarians, librarianship and a bit of the information professions more generally) and The Blank Rectangle (A blog about the most forgotten/ignored state in the US — North Dakota — where Jeremy is originally from).
Each time we have a meeting for my Emerging Web Technologies class, some kind of argument breaks out. And this fact is awesome. Oh sure, the arguments generally revolve around pretty nerdy subjects. Is the book really dead? What amazing/terrible thing has Google today? Should integrated library systems be open-source? What the hell are we talking about with Library 2.0? All this discussion makes for a vibrant class environment, using anxiety-inducing moments of technological development to provoke thought about not just what library's are doing now, but the things they should be doing to prepare for the future. It makes me glad to be in library school.
But I'm about to graduate – so why is this the first class where I've felt excited to go to each class? Why is the only course where I've felt the whole community of students to be really engaged in the discussion and challenged to understand and argue over the class topics? Most of the librarians I talk with have expressed a lot of satisfaction with their work, but in almost all cases they expressed a common discontent – one might even call it, hate – of library school. There is the sense that cataloguing class can only prepare you for the basic idea of classification, but using the most general of standards – something that you essentially have to relearn when you get your first job. Library school has mostly felt like some kind of pre-professional school – a long drawn-out training program and mostly just a hurdle to real work in my first job.
So what the hell is library school supposed to be for? In my mind, if we're going to define this as a school for library and information science, then we're going to need to start engaging the critical impulse – to not only host real disputes in the classroom, but encourage them. I believe this is crucial in general and I have started my own blog – The Socratic Librarian – to begin developing that philosophical and critical thought approach to librarianship for my own professional life. Already, there exists a rich history of libraries and librarianship in which to apply this perspective; yet I also feel that there is something crucial about the current moment which demands that library science programs also begin to inculcate this approach in all future librarians.
Libraries are facing real existential threats from outside and in as they struggle to orient themselves in a rapidly changing environment. To return to the issue of Emerging Web Technologies, the speed with which the media and modes of communication of information are changing has only increased in recent years. Our relation to information in the digital world has manifested demands of wider access to a complex information environment and simplified interfaces to help us receive and process all of that information. Furthermore, public and academic libraries (at least) are facing impending budgetary crises, in which Phillip Pullman's "greedy ghost" of market fundamentalism threatens to undermine our understanding of the value of libraries.
But even in the midst of a recession, when people are turning to libraries for "free access to books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, " we can't appeal to a consumerist ethic to shore up confidence in libraries. Nor can we expect to rely on a statement like "the Decay of libraries is like Alzheimer's in the nation's brain…….." (Ted Hughes) which is laden too heavy with sentiment to really provide guidance. So how are we actually going to cope with these changes, some of which may be broadly and fundamentally shifting the ways in which we think about information and knowledge, and, in turn, the values and conceptions people have of libraries?
Now I'm not blaming anyone in particular here. All I'm trying to do is point to the fact that we can no longer accept libraries as given institutions and therefore we need to encourage the examination of the nature of the library as an institution, the activities it has historically undertaken and the most effective and important ways for it to stay relevant in the future. We won't be able to do that by preparing students with classes that spend most of their time focusing on technical training. We need to encourage discussion and debate over the values of this institution in a way that both librarians and users can understand.
And I'm not arguing that we should retool library science as a theoretical discipline – the librarian is a practical breed of scholar, one that is interested in not just reading research but in applying it in a form of knowledge by praxis. (And trust me, I recognize the need to possess industry-relevant skills before you face to the job market only too well at the moment.) But library school should not just be about teaching future librarians how to patch holes in the catalog or catch up with the present state information technology, but encouraging them to become librarians who live "the examined life," who will be prepared to define and debate our projections of the future of librarianship as a profession.
Categories: Big Picture


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Many people were suprised when Laura Amy Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices From a Medieval Village won the most recent John Newbery Medal, an award that usually goes to a novel, for a collection of monologues and dialogues. Did the book deserve the honor? Meghan Cox Gurdon, the children's book critic for the Wall Street Journal, called the collection "remarkable and poignant" and added:
"As with any prestigious award, the Newbery also brings new readers to the author's other works, which in this case is a particularly welcome effect. Ms. Schlitz has a rich and humane style of writing, with stories that manage to be both sparkling and substantial. Better still, her storytelling is a return to the moral traditions of the greatest and most enduring tales, yet with not the slightest taste of cod liver oil nor any of the tiresome left-leaning didacticism that has characterized so much writing for children since the late 1960s."
Meghan Cox Gurdon in "A Late-Blooming Talent in Full Flower" in the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 19-20, 2008.
(c) 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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Roseville, MN based Fantasy Flight Publishing was founded in 1995 by its CEO, Christian T. Petersen. Since the release of its first game product (Twilight Imperium) in 1997, the company has been doing business as Fantasy Flight Games ("FFG"). Since that time, FFG has grown to become one of the biggest names in the hobby games industry, being a marketplace leader in board games and maintaining strong businesses in the card game, roleplaying game, and miniature game categories.
FFG is known for its quality of game components (often enhanced with highly detailed plastic miniatures and beautiful artwork), innovative gameplay, professional dedication to customer service, and a cutting-edge online presence providing information and support for its many products.
FFG's best-known titles include games based on licenses such as Star Wars, A Game of Thrones, and The Lord of the Rings, proprietary titles such as Arkham Horror and Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, as well as re-releases of classic titles such as Cosmic Encounter, Fortress America, and Dungeonquest.
FFG's business is a global one, with the majority of its revenues generated from international sales.


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Lookedon is a place to browse pictures posted on Twitter. You can use it as your own photo album that automatically collects all pictures you post on Twitter from different sources. Or you can use it to see what your friends and favorite celebrities are up to.Close
Rahko raises £1.3M seed from Balderton for quantum machine learning tech https://t.co/vxBX0pHKHY by @mikebutcher https://t.co/0RnguJ1zzM


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Eagle, Globe & Anchor Ventures, LLC d/b/a 2A Firearms. We carry a wide variety of Glock pistols for sale, along with Sig Sauer, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Taurus, Springfield and many other brands. Firearms in stock and ready for pick up at our Highland Village, TX location or we're happy to ship to your local FFL. Having a hard time finding the gun that you want? Let us know and we're happy to go find it for your. Home defense shotguns, concealed carry pistols, hunting rifles, ammunition and shooting-related accessories. We can help with all of these and want to be your go-to local gun shop.
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10 Discussion Questions for Book Clubs and Others
The Diary of a Country Priest
By Georges Bernanos
Source: One-Minute Book Reviews
This guide for reading groups and others was not authorized or approved by the author, publisher or agent for the book. It is copyrighted by Janice Harayda and is only for your personal use. Its sale or reproduction is illegal except by public libraries, which may make copies for use in their in-house reading programs. Other reading groups that want to use the guide should link to it or check the "Contact" page on One-Minute Book Reviews to learn how to request permission to reproduce it.
A young French priest bears the cruelty of his parishioners with sublime patience in The Diary of a Country Priest, a modern classic that works as both a realistic novel and an allegory for the Passion of Christ. Its guileless narrator doesn't know he's dying of cancer when he becomes pastor of a church in rural Pas-de-Calais in the years between the world wars, and as his health fails, he makes few concessions to his frailty. Through the prism of the fragile priest's efforts to serve God and his parish, the novel shows the inseparability of suffering and grace.
Discussion Questions
1 Every novelist who writes about faith needs, above all, to tell a story and not turn his or her book into a homily or tract. Did Georges Bernanos succeed? Why or why not?
2 The residents of Ambricourt see little to admire in their new priest. Do you see anything to admire in him? What?
3 Why did the priest's parishioners dislike him so much? Did their disdain have more to do with them or with him?
4 Even some of the children of Ambricourt seem cruel. What accounts for their hostility?
5 Why does the priest have no name? How might the novel have been different if Bernanos had given him one of the saint's names that monks tend to assume?
6 Why does the priest tear out diary pages about the death of Dr. Delbende? [Page 107] How do you see the death and its effect on the priest?
7 The priest gets little support from other clergy. His superior, the Dean of Blangermont, lectures him on not getting into debt, and an old friend from seminary turns out to be living with a woman. How does their behavior affect the young priest? Why do you think Bernanos included such unflattering portrayals of the clergy in the novel?
8 French parishes are "being eaten up by boredom," the narrator says, and the clergy can't stop it: "Someday perhaps we shall catch it ourselves – become aware of the cancerous growth within us." [Page 1] Later the priest learns that he has stomach cancer. [Page 273] What do you think Bernanos is doing here? Why does he connect a metaphorical and real form of cancer?
9 The Diary of a Country Priest is a realistic novel that has elements of an allegory for the Passion of Christ or the Stations of the Cross. For example, in the Stations of the Cross, Jesus is condemned to death, takes up his cross, and falls. All of these incidents have parallels in the novel. Did you see any other allegorical elements in the book? What were they?
10 "I believe, in fact I am certain, that many men never give out the whole of themselves, their deepest truth," the priest says. [Page 108] Does the priest give out the whole of himself, or his "deepest truth"?
1 The narrator often speaks in pithy phrases or epigrams such as: "Faith is not a thing which one 'loses,' we merely cease to shape our lives by it." [Page 122] And: "There is not only a communion of saints; there is also a communion of sinners." [Pages 138–139] Did any phrases in The Diary of a Country Priest seem especially memorable?
2 Some critics see The Diary of a Country Priest as a novel about the effects of grace. Some of those effects appear when the embittered countess, after speaking with the young priest, feels "miraculously, ineffably, the peace you've given me." [Page 175] Where else does the novel deal with grace?
3 A challenge of novels about grace is that fictional consequences generally must be "earned" – they can't result from coincidences or similar devices — while divine grace is by definition unearned. So a novelist must make credible both ordinary actions and occasions of grace. Did Bernanos do this?
4 Flannery O'Connor admired Bernanos and also wrote about the effect of grace on character. If you have read her work, how would you compare it with that of The Diary of a Country Priest?
The page numbers above come from the 1983 Carroll & Graf edition of The Diary of a Country Priest.
Vital statistics
The Diary of a Country Priest. By Georges Bernanos. Translated by Pamela Morris. Introduduction by Rémy Rougeau. Da Capo, 302 pp., $15.95, paperback. Published: 1937 (first English-language edition), 2002 (DaCapo paperback).
The Diary of a Country Priest won two important French literary prizes: the Prix Femina and Grand Prix du Roman, given by the Académie Française. A One-Minute Book Reviews review appeared in the post that followed this guide. The book inspired an acclaimed 1951 film version by Robert Bresson.
Janice Harayda is a novelist and award-winning critic who has been the book columnist for Glamour, book editor of the Plain Dealer and a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle. You can follow Jan (@janiceharayda) on Twitter at www.twitter.com/janiceharayda by clicking on the "Follow" button in the right sidebar.
Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guides are a free alternative to publishers' guides, which are not unbiased analyses but marketing tools designed to sell books. One-Minute Book Reviews does not accept free books from editors, publishers or authors, and all reviews and guides offer an independent evaluation of books. Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guides appear frequently but not on a regular schedule. To avoid missing them, please bookmark this site or subscribe to the blog.
© 2011 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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Anna Karenina is probably the most popular 19th-century Russian novel in the U.S. today and certainly the only one tapped for both Oprah's book club and a forthcoming steampunk-influenced mashup. But there is no obvious reason why it should have more appeal than others by Leo Tolstoy and his compatriots. Anna Karenina lacks the scale of War and Peace. It tells a tragic story when many readers crave happy endings, and it reminds us that love doesn't conquer all, a theme that clashes with a cultural fantasy.
Why is Anna Karenina nonetheless so alluring? Elif Batuman suggests an answer in her quirky and amusing essay collection, The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 286 pp., $15, paperback). Batuman writes of finding a 1970s edition of the novel during a summer visit to her grandmother's apartment in Turkey:
"Nobody in Anna Karenina was oppressed, as I was, by the tyranny of leisure. The leisure activities in Tolstoy's novel – ice skating, balls, horse races – were beautiful, dignified, and meaningful in terms of plot …
"Anna Karenina was a perfect book, with an otherwordly perfection: unthinkable, monolithic, occupying a super-charged gray zone between nature and culture. How had any human being ever managed to write something simultaneously so big and so small – so serious and so light – so strange and so natural? The heroine didn't turn up until chapter 18, and the book went on for 19 more chapters after her death, and Anna's lover and her husband had the same name (Alexei). Anna's maid and daughter were both called Anna, and Anna's son and Levin's half brother were both called Sergei. The repetition of names struck me as remarkable, surprising, and true to life."


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TargetProcess REST API - Source Code
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Inventor has a crusade against fractions
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS - Having written books, invented gadgets, designed educational toys, started companies, built a collection of pocket sundials and spearheaded community projects, Ed Evenson leads a quest to rid the world of fractions.
"It's become a thing with me," the 85-year-old retired engineer says of his yearlong crusade. Instead of teaching children how to multiply by 5/16ths, we should just let them multiply by 0.3125.
Evenson, a history buff, uses centuries of logic to craft the arguments in his booklet "The Drive for the Decimal Inch: Persuading the Educators." Surveyors and industry, with its milling machines, micrometers and LED calipers, use decimals. Even TV meteorologists shun fractions to report 6.5 inches of snow.
A widower (his wife, Barbara, died of breast cancer a dozen years ago), Evenson lives in the first Rolling Meadows house built with a basement, which he bought in 1954. In addition to his workshop, the home boasts a massive library. Leafing to the Decimal Arithmetick chapter in his copy of William Leybourn's "Cursus Mathematicus," published more than 300 years ago, Evenson points to the conclusion: "Decimal operations do afford so great help, that many Ages before have not produced a more useful Invention."
That's not even the oldest book on Evenson's shelves. He owns a 1529 copy of Apianus' "Cosmographicus Liber." It's in Latin, "the only one I can't read," Evenson says.
Born in Montana, Evenson spent his childhood in Washington when his father, Arthur, became one of the new Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s original employees. After the death of his father, Evenson finished high school in Racine, Wis., where his mother, Ruby, moved to be closer to relatives and become a teacher.
Evenson still cherishes the Christmas present he got as a 5-year-old from his parents: a complete set of the 1933 Compton Encyclopedia. He noted on an inside cover that it was a present from "Ruby and Daddy."
"I didn't know how to spell mother, but I knew how to spell Ruby. I was a horrible speller. Math was my good subject. English was my bad subject. And history was between the two."
Needing his mother's signature to enlist in the Army when he was 17, Evenson was part of the force sent to occupy Japan after World War II. But he developed rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart, and was sent home on a hospital ship. Public Law 16, the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1943, paid for his industrial engineering education at the University of Wisconsin after he tested into the program.
He married in 1951 and worked for an electrical company before launching his own business making testing equipment for automobile shops. In 1972, Evenson wrote his first book, "Automotive Test Equipment You Can Build." He signed a copy for his teacher mother with the misspelling, "Your son, the writter."
"I thought she'd be tickled. It didn't tickle her at all."
He's written books on auto repair, a children's book about the history of the calendar and "The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876," in which he makes the case that Elisha Gray should get much of the credit that generally goes to Alexander Graham Bell.
A father of three boys, Evenson made a metal armillary sphere that was marketed and sold as an education "Starfinder" for kids in the late 1960s. His other educational toys included weather forecasting kits and the "RIC 920," a rock identification computer that used basic tests and mechanical punch cards to identify minerals.
"What I do now is write for the grandkids - things I think they should know about, but don't," the grandfather of nine says. "This campaign I'm on now is because of my engineering background. As far as I'm concerned, fractions are a waste of time."
Convincing educators of that might not be successful. He never could get companies to buy his simple attachment that turned ordinary staplers into bookbinder tools, and even though he helped bring a drive-through mailbox to his local post office, the post office later closed.
Evenson learned fractions as a kid.
"I just accepted it. I didn't have any opinions in those days," he says, adding that today's students should be given rulers with markings for each 10th of an inch. The only fractions he doesn't want eliminated are the "conversational fractions," he says, explaining how people still should know concepts such as half-baked, three-quarters of an hour or how to divide a pizza into thirds.
"That's all you need to know about fractions," Evenson proclaims. "Multiplying 7-and-5/8ths by 13-and-7/64s is ridiculous."