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Applicants present revised plan for Litchfield's proposed supermarket expansion to residents
LITCHFIELD >> Over 50 residents attended a public hearing of the Inland Wetlands Commission for the Stop & Shop application on Wednesday night. The applicants gave their presentation followed by the consultants retained by the town and the interveners against the application. The public hearing was continued until their next meeting on February 13 at 7 p.m. at Litchfield Firehouse.
"This is a very sensitive area, it's such a sensitive area why was a building permitted on this in the first place. Because its such a sensitive area we see a tremendous amount of maintenance and services that's needed to protect the environment," said Litchfield resident Sean Mathis, an intervener against the application.
Mathis asked residents to ask themselves if they can depend on Stop & Shop.
"We have a beautiful town here, we have a wonderful environment, please hold this project to the letter of the regulations and the law," said Mathis.
The new Stop & Shop, which has generated opposition from a group called PLAN Litchfield, would be built at the rear of the nearby Village Green Plaza, owned by real estate developer and former 5th District GOP candidate Mark Greenberg.
"This project cannot go forward, in our view this is the wrong project in the wrong place and the wrong time," said Michele Crow, a member of PLAN Litchfield another intervener on the project.
PLAN Litchfield had engineer Steven Trinkaus of the Southbury-based Trinkaus Engineering LLC give a presentation during the meeting.
The new supermarket is proposed to replace an existing 24,000-square-foot Stop & Shop on West Street (Route 202) that is located in leased space in a building that includes a Rite Aid and checks in at 34,000 square feet in all.
In the meeting Tuesday with Register Citizen staff, the representatives speaking on behalf of Stop & Shop, explained the plans will have no adverse impact on wetlands, and that the proposal -- initially submitted last year and withdrawn after compliance issues were identified -- has been revised to address all of the issues that were raised.
The overall result is a project that represents the redevelopment of a village like plaza -- whose buildings extend deep into the property from Route 202 -- where many tenants have struggled, at least in part because of a lack of visibility.
The new Stop & Shop would be built at the rear of the plaza, and two existing buildings located within the overall site would be razed as part of the project. To create space for some existing tenants that would be displaced, an addition of 2,500 square feet would be added to the building at the front of the plaza that houses the Litchfield Hills Wine Market.
The supermarket's parking area would take over the space one building now occupies, and, in addition to that, what observers would see from the main road is a supermarket facade that is roughly the same width of the front of the existing Stop & Shop.
After completion of the redevelopment project, the two existing buildings that would remain and the new grocery store would have a building footprint of about 55,000 square feet altogether and a total gross floor area of about 61,000 square feet.
In addition, the traffic flow in and out of the plaza would be significantly improved, according to site plans -- even though the front part of the shopping center closer to Route 202 would not be changed or modified as part of the project.
A total of 369 parking spaces would be located in the entire shopping center after project completion.
According to a fact sheet provided by Stop & Shop, less than 50 percent of the expansion is devoted to new or improved departments. This is in response to customer demand and their desire to improve the shopping experience.
When the plans were first presented by Greenberg, and then withdrawn for tweaking, PLAN Litchfield proposed a zoning that would have significantly limited the size of new retail/commercial buildings. When the group declined to pay fees for consultants requested by the land-use panel, consideration of the amendment did not go forward.
Stop & Shop is currently in the process of seeking a drainage easement from White Memorial Conservation Center for property behind the proposed new Stop & Shop, and project representatives have also met with Litchfield Land Trust, which, according to John Hession, Vice President of engineering services for Massachusetts-based EBI Consulting, was opposed to the previous application.

subset: commoncrawl


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IOC Reinstates Wrestling To Summer Olympics
Oh, the sport of wrestling was given a reprieve by an International Olympic Committee. The question here is which sports will be part of the 2020 and 2024 Summer Games, and we're delighted to tell you that wrestling beat out squash as well as a combined bid by baseball and softball for inclusion. It's a happy outcome for wrestling, but there are questions about whether the selection process served the goal of breathing new life into the games. NPR's Mike Pesca is in Buenos Aires where IOC members are meeting. He has this report.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Give them this, the International Olympic Committee knows how to stage a moment of triumph. IOC president Jacques Rogge and his staff know any award plays better when you can see the faces of the winners.
JACQUES ROGGE: Before announcing the result, may I ask our staff to bring the federation back in the room?
PESCA: So there linking arms were members of three sports federations. Squash had brought the world number one player to Buenos Aires to say I would trade all my titles for an Olympic gold. Wrestling featured a Baldwin brother, Billy, to add some Hollywood glitz. Baseball had brought Antonio Castro, son of Fidel, to impart their bid with a certain flavor. When told of Castro's presence, Billy Baldwin quipped...
BILLY BALDWIN: The Baldwins are known for being slightly left, but not that far left.
PESCA: And so all the sports waited, pumping out a different kind of sweat than the variety normally secreted. Finally, President Rogge proclaimed...
ROGGE: With 49 votes wrestling has been elected for...
PESCA: In dank suburban gyms, from Ames to Ashgabat, they cheered. The sport of Hercules, Gabrielle and Dan Gable would continue on. But wait. How did it get to this point? IOC member Dick Pound says one Olympic body nullifying the actions of a different Olympic body does not a triumph make.
DICK POUND: I don't think the process worked at all. I mean, the proof of that pudding is here we are now having gone through all of these hoops back to where we were. With no new sport.
PESCA: To backtrack: last February, the Olympic executive board excluded wrestling. Now, half a year later, the broader International Olympic Committee included that sport in the games. Yet this was being hailed as the system working - sending a message to the sport of wrestling to reform, modernize, engage.
Olympic medal winning wrestler and former CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee Jim Scherr says the Games are better off with wrestling , though the entire ordeal was less than gold plated.
JIM SCHERR: Maybe not a good result for a messy process with the IOC, but I think it's a good result for the Olympic Games and a good result for wrestling.
PESCA: Scherr is now a member of wrestling's board, a board that's been overhauled and that has opened the sport to reform. That alone is why Alex Gilady, IOC member from Israel, says...
ALEX GILADY: The process is perfect. Every sport federation should know that their participation in Olympics is not a god-given right.
PESCA: So through cauliflower ears, wrestling got the message. But the IOC delivered it bluntly, and effectively forestalled inclusion of a new sport like squash, or a revamped effort, like the softball/baseball bid. Anita DeFrantz, an IOC member from the U.S.A., concedes that against an established sport, newcomers have long odds.
ANITA DEFRANTZ: I feel very badly, for softball in particular, and softball-baseball. We have seven billion people in the world and only 10,500 athletes seems to be very modest.
PESCA: For some of the hundred or so members of the IOC, the outcome of the wrestling vote doesn't obscure underlying questions of fairness; doing right not just by members of the Olympic family, but by those hoping to be invited in. Tomorrow, the IOC will hold another election. Several current members say that the issues raised by wrestling's travails will be at the heart of their vote for the new Olympic president. Mike Pesca, NPR News, Buenos Aires.
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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A MAN'S WORLD: The men's wear market is gathering steam, according to the British Fashion Council, which released a host of statistics on Monday to launch the second edition of London Collections: Men.
Citing Mintel, the BFC said the British men's wear market is anticipated to grow 16 percent between 2011 and 2016. In 2011, it is estimated to have grown 3.2 percent to 9.9 billion pounds, or $15.94 billion, with growth fueled by a rise in the average selling prices of men's wear. Separately, according to the BFC and Bain & Company, men's items now represent 50 percent of the global luxury apparel market, boosted partly by male consumers in emerging markets, especially Asia. China is a major source of growth, the BFC noted.


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text: Simon Vouet's Allegory of Prudence is one of the Musée Fabre's most significant paintings. It is remarkable as much for its formal bravado – its contorted arabesque lines, its statuesque forms, its dramatic lighting effects – as for its historical importance. Allegory of Prudence was painted for the recently widowed Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, as part of a large commission to decorate the Palais Royal, Paris (1643–1647). The ambitious Regent – at the time the subject of a series of scandals, including a rumour that she had secretly married the powerful, scrupulous Cardinal Jules Mazarin – is depicted as the figure of Prudence, one of the four Cardinal Virtues from classical and religious texts. The beautiful, virtuous Regent is seen untroubled by the effects of the material world, whether the passage of time personified by the old man at her feet or politics and skulduggery, which she is literally above.


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Sold-out crowds. Screaming fans. A sport with lots of speed and contact. Think it's Husker football? Think again. It's hockey.
In the last five years, Nebraska gained three hockey teams - the University of Nebraska at Omaha Mavericks, Lincoln Stars and Tri-City Storm in Kearney. Omaha's team – the Lancers – has been around since the 1980s. All four regularly play to packed houses.
Many hockey fans say they like the sport because it's so physical, one of the same reasons they like Husker football. Hockey isn't new to Nebraska – the Omaha Knights were popular in the 1960s.


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The Bachelor staff took home 18 individual awards Saturday at the Indiana Collegiate Press Association's annual convention at Ball State University. The staff's 18 awards led to an overall second place award for Division III newspaper of the year.
The 18 individual awards for submissions from the last calendar year were spread among 13 staffers—two of whom graduated last year.
Joel Bustamante '11 and Michael Carper took first place honors for feature page design. Bustamante's cartoon also received a first. Alex Moseman '11, Ian Baumgardner, and Kelly Sullivan helped propel the publication to its second place overall ranking with first place awards for their work in photography. Kyle Bender and Brandan Alford received multiple second and third place awards for sports writing. Reed Hepburn's opinion column and Alex Totten's entertainment column earned them second place awards in those respective categories. Gabe Watson, John Dykstra, and Riley Floyd received seconds for news/feature stories and in-depth reporting, respectively.
"I am extremely proud of the Bachelor guys' effort," Adviser Howard Hewitt said. "We have to remind ourselves that all of our competitors in the ICPA have established journalism academic programs. For us to win two best newspaper awards in the past four years and to finish second this year is really a remarkable achievement by these Wabash men."
1st Place Feature Page Design: Joel Bustamante and Michael Carper, "Looking sharp, and Playing the Part"
1st Place Photo Essay: Ian Baumgardner, "National Act"
1st Place News Photo: Kelly Sullivan, "Fingerprint Scanner"
1st Place Sports Photo: Alex Moseman '11 "Down the Homestretch"
1st Place Feature Photo: Alex Moseman '11 "Ushering in a New Era"
1st Place Editorial Cartoon: Joel Bustamante, "Your Last-Second Valentine"
2nd Place Sports Photo: Kelly Sullivan, "Swimming Season"
2nd Place In-Depth Story: Riley Floyd, "Living Out the American Creed"
2nd Place Opinion Column: Reed Hepburn, "Why Wabash Needs a Gender
Studies Program"
2nd Place Sports-News Story: Kyle Bender, "Cross Country Wins NCAC"
2nd Place News or Feature Series: John Dykstra, Joel Bustamante, Gabe Watson, "In '11"
2nd Place Sports Feature: Brandan Alford, "Burke Steps Up"
2nd Place Entertainment Column: Alex Totten, "Beirut's The Rip Tide Supports Old Sound"
3rd Place Feature Story: Kyle Bender, "MVP: Made by Victor Powell"
3rd Place Stand-Alone/Pull Out Section: Staff, "Football Preview"
3rd Place Sports Column: Brandan Alford, "Answer to Colts' Problems: Polian Must Go"
3rd Place Overall Design: Staff
3rd Place Special Section or Front-Cover Design: "The Bastard" April 1, 2011
2nd Place Div III Newspaper of the Year


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(Pocket-lint) - The Nikon 1 J2 refreshes the original J1 - a compact system camera that had a tepid reception from photo enthusiasts, but succeeded among more casual snappers on the back of a strong advertising campaign - with an updated mode dial, new creative modes and a higher resolution LCD screen. Add a new textured front, some extra colours and cut back the original's price and that's the sum of the differences. Is the Nikon 1 J2 a worthy successor?
The basics
There's little more to add to the above paragraph about what's new in the J2, but for those new to compact system cameras as a whole, including Nikon's 1-series range, take a read of our which mirrorless system camera is right for me article for a better understanding of every manufacturers' range.
The core of the J2's design is focused on ease of use, or, more appropriately, ease of use for novices.
The mode dial on the back of the camera spans motion snapshot, smart photo selector, auto, movie and a new creative option. There aren't the more standard manual options - also known as Programme Auto (P), Shutter Priority (S), Aperture Priority (A), and Manual (M) - as might be found on a DSLR camera; instead you'll need to dig deeper into the menus for those controls.
Nikon has added a "P, S, A, M" option within the F menu but, for starters, many entry-level users won't know what such letters mean, let alone what the "F" stands for (and, no, it has nothing to do with aperture). Secondly the camera defaults to Programme Auto - you'll still need to dig into the full menu to change that to a different mode, which is just as cumbersome as the original J1's controls were for more demanding users. It would have made far more sense to include all four manual modes individually within the F menu if they're not going to appear on the main mode dial.
Furthermore, and despite a rear rotational d-pad, controlling the aperture and shutter is handled using a rear toggle-like control that's slow to jump between settings. As the ISO sensitivity is also in the menus it's difficult to take command of the base manual controls efficiently.
Ignore those outlined blips and it's clear that the Nikon 1 J2 isn't out to mimic those other interchangeable lens cameras also on the market. It tries to do things differently, and this is why the predominant focus is on some of its less-traditional shooting modes.
For example, smart photo selector will shoot a batch of images at up to 60 frames per second (so you'll barely notice it's taken more than one) and auto-selects the best of the bunch. It puts a bit of added ease, or at least some backup, into the hands of the novice snapper.
Creative modes such as soft focus, miniature and new additions including panorama also offer a bunch of ways to enhance images - but this is nothing new considering what other manufacturers have had on offer for some time now. We're glad it's here and has been updated though, as it's a key area for the market this camera is aimed at.
So the basics are that, well, the J2 is rather basic on the face of it. There's a lot of tech nestled into this camera body though, but it's hidden under the guise of a more compact-camera-esque feel. That'll work for some, but more serious shooters aren't going to find this an easy to navigate camera.
Image Quality
The J2's "CX" 1-inch size sensor - which is smaller than those found in Micro Four Thirds and APS-C competitor cameras - is loaded with 10.1-megapixels of resolution. That's the very same sensor as found in the camera's predecessor, so there's no change to components, processing and, therefore, image quality is the same.
The size of the sensor is crucial to this camera. It's the reason the 1-series has smaller lenses than all other serious compact system cameras, which makes for a more compact - yet not too small - overall system.
But the fact the sensor is fairly small has some impact on overall image quality. The difference between the J2 and a Micro Four Thirds camera such as the Panasonic G3 may not be as significant as you might think, but the Nikon does come out a whisker behind its larger-sensor competitors.
As it is the J2's images are decent at the lower ISO settings, with enough detail from ISO 100-400, though this can be scene-dependent. For example, a deep green shade in the background of an ISO 400 shot shows a level of luminance noise that the camera has partially processed out - it doesn't look bad by any means, but it's certainly there. As many compact system cameras' prime purpose is to be the best of the best when it comes to image quality the J2 is a little on the back foot in this regard.
The J2 has an ISO sensitivity that ranges from ISO 100 through to ISO 3200, thus avoiding the super-high sensitivities of some cameras out there (the likes of ISO 25,600 tend to be best avoided whatever camera you're using though). Again, on account of the sensor size, this is probably best as image noise, processing and colour drop-off become noticeable at ISO 1600-3200. That's not to say that these shots aren't useable however, as even ISO 3200 will have its uses, particularly for in-camera black and white shots.
The J2's metering is accurate for the most part and, should it not be, then exposure compensation can be accessed through the d-pad on the rear. That's one of the few options that's quickly available for adjustment.
White balance, however, seemed a little off to our eyes in certain shots. Some morning light turned green bushes more turquoise, while the fruits on a market stall shifted to a paler, greener tone than they appeared to the eyes.
Performance & Handling
Despite a more entry-level target user, the J2 doesn't hold back on including some advanced technology that sees it perform very well for the most part.
It was the first compact system camera series to introduce a hybrid autofocus sensor that combined both contrast-detection and phase-detection autofocus systems. The focus method isn't controlled by the user, instead the J2 will automatically combine its focus types depending on shooting conditions. It's fast whether shooting in daylight, following moving subjects or snapping in dim conditions.
Whether relying on the camera's multi-area autofocus, using the single-point option or focus tracking, the J2 won't let you down. The single-point selection is particularly good because it allows for full edge-to-edge selection that's an unusual find in most cameras.
It's the J2's performance that helps the camera to keep its head above water. Although the shutter is electronic only - there's no mechanical shutter in this model, though this has little to no impact in combination with a CMOS type sensor - the ability to shoot full resolution at 60 frames per second (60fps) is untouched by the nearest competition. In our tests it was possible to capture 11 JPEG Fine frames in the blink of an eye before the camera cuts out to buffer all the data to the SD card.
But despite decent performance the J2 sticks to its entry-level guns when it comes to accessories. There's no hotshoe or accessory port, so there's no way to add an electronic viewfinder or an extra flash. Arguably the target audience of this camera wouldn't want that kind of stuff - but if Nikon's releasing a £750 waterproof housing for the J1 and J2 then, well, that adds to the confusion, non?
The Nikon 1 J2 is a subtle reworking of the original J1. A year has gone by since the original's launch, but this latest model isn't a big enough leap forward to warrant a brand new release.
The J2 still has its good points though: there's the hybrid autofocus system and fast burst mode; but the lack of an intuitive menu system for more demanding users and still no accessory port or hotshoe for flash or a viewfinder will limit the appeal for more demanding users.
Image quality is good enough, but it's still a whisker behind the competition in this regard too. The small sensor and low resolution are now matched (arguably out-performed) by the likes of Sony's RX100 fixed-lens compact camera, so that adds an extra dimension of competition for Nikon's 1-series.
The J2 isn't a bad camera, but against other interchangeable lens models it's just not the best of them. If it was put up against many of the high-end compacts out there then it'd likely be the better choice, and perhaps some users will want to think about it that way.
There's definitely a market for the J2, and we get what it's trying to do. But overall there's just not enough new on offer and it's not ticked all our techy boxes either.


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Find out more about the Cystic Fibrosis Trust's Research Team and the important work they do.
"I am the Head of Research at the Trust. I oversee the management of the Trust's research portfolio. Our team works to implement the Trust's five-year research strategy by administering the grants awarded to scientists and clinicians working on projects in the area of cystic fibrosis. We work with the Strategy Implementation Board, consisting of a panel of experts in various scientific fields, to ensure that the Trust is investing in cutting-edge research that will be of real benefit to the CF community."
"In my role I work closely with our Research and Grants Officer and Accounts Team, as well as with external funding partners and institutions to ensure that all grants funded by the Trust are administered in a timely and efficient manner. I also collaborate with our Communications and Fundraising Teams to help make the findings from projects the Trust funds easy to understand so that members of the wider CF community, potential funding partners and the media are able to find out more and see how our research strategy is working towards the goal of a life unlimited by cystic fibrosis."
"My role is to explain the research that the Trust is funding and to assess its impact. I work with colleagues to clearly explain our research grants, bring to life progress made and put CF research news in context. I collect, analyse and interpret information on the impact of Trust-funded research. This helps us to share with the CF community what has been achieved through our research-funding schemes, evaluate the outcomes of our funding and generate income to continue to fund CF research into the future. "If you have news to share about your research or questions about Researchfish please get in touch."
Find out about our research priorities and how and when we are allocating funding to meet these requirements and have the greatest impact on cystic fibrosis research.
The Trust is committed to funding and supporting cutting-edge research to find new and better treatments for cystic fibrosis.
Researchers are investigating a range of issues related to cystic fibrosis, from transplants to bacterial infections and gene therapy.


text: These guys get it On The Editor's Desk By Martha Entwistle Updated Fri November 30, 2007 Integrators who've bought into the get-RMR-now mantra need to check out the brand-new Integrator Support, a company basically created by PSA Security, though it's an independent business. They make selling "interactive video monitoring" or "virtual guarding" (feel free to suggest other terminology) very easy for the central station-less integrator. Plus, they can get you into renting and leasing equipment to your customers, which also equals RMR, which equals a more steady balance sheet and a higher valuation for your company. IS is headed by Jim Taylor, former owner of integration firm White & Associates (sorry, that link is under construction, but you'll get the idea), so he gets what integrators need: back office and sales support and automation. He walked me through the web site functionality and it's pretty dang intuitive. No surprise he's a Mac guy.


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(Pocket-lint) - With Flip now out of business, Kodak has found itself in a rather rare situation as far as the company in the current age goes. For pocket camcorders, it's going to be market leader. So, is becoming top dog by default enough reason to start buying these Kodak products? We've been spending some time with the Kodak Playfull to find out.
The Playfull is Kodak's mid-range friendly model. Now, that's not to say that it's got no features - there's still plenty to enjoy - but it's more a case of design choices. This thing is handbag - even clutch purse, fodder. It weighs just 95g measuring 42 x 100 x 15.7mm and the end result is something that comes off more like a dictaphone than anything else. A quick inspection of the tripod mount and a peek under some of the rubberised flaps and hideaways on the side will put you on the right course, though.
What you'll find housed along the edges are a mini-HDMI port for connecting the Playfull to your TV, a Micro-USB for charging, a built-in mono microphone and a small speaker - which is a lucky thing seeing as there's no 3.5mm jack to plug into and appreciate any audio you've picked up on device. The final piece of generally accepted apparatus on these gadgets is sitting at the top - a flip-out USB attachment for plugging the camcorder directly into your laptop.
Interestingly, apart from a way of getting the included video editing software onto your PC, there's not really a lot of call for it. Most laptops these days tend to have SD card readers anyway, so the situation where the USB on top comes in handy is quite hard to imagine. One can't help wondering if Kodak - and others - are still building their camcorders like this because it was what the market leader was doing? All the same, the USB fixture is there should you want it.
Operation-wise, the Playfull is very much standard fare. There's a central button for stop and go - the rim of which doubles slightly awkwardly as a navigation key - four pressable areas for quick controls and access to the device menu, and finally Kodak's all important Share button to offer one-touch uploads of your videos to the various social networks. More on that in a while. And at the head of all of that is a 1.5-inch screen to watch what you're snapping. It's small. It doesn't give you a great idea of the details of what your clips are going to look like but it's accurate in terms of exposure and framing. Par for the course with pocket camcorders really.
It's a similar story for the results. The 1080p/30fps top whack footage looks good - not superb but good. Previous Kodak pocket camcorders have often produced footage that's a little too raw and real compared to Flip's, admittedly, washed-out but slightly more cinematic approach. This time, a combination of underexposing ever so slightly and adding an almost grainy texture actually brings an awful lot more personality where there perhaps didn't used to be.
The trade off is that the colours are not quite right unless they're strong enough with the red and green end of things where you really notice it. If it's not bold crimson it can often get washed out towards more of an orange. Again though, you're never going to get it bang on at this level of device. There are a few filters to play with - Black and White, Sepia, 70s flim and Vivid - but they're best avoided.
Fortunately, exposure in general is pretty good and you'll be able to capture most of what you're after both indoors and outdoors, even when backlighting is quite strong and that's no mean feat. This is partly down to a lens with a healthy aperture open to F/2.8 levels. Sadly, there's a slight let down on the focus side of things. While it's fine most of the time, anything from 30cm or less tends not to be as sharp as you want it.
Feature-wise, there's no flash to help you out, no zoom worth using (digital only) but there is image stabilisation technology there to help steady your hand which does need to be pretty smooth to keep pans looking natural at the 30fps rate. Of course, the other option is to drop down to 720p/60fps which works wonders.
On top of all that, there's also some stills shooting as well - at 5 megapixels, to be precise - but, if you'd rather not spend your time chopping and changing between the two, you can select frames on-device to capture as stills in post, as well as top and tail any video footage. It's a little clunky, partly owing to the slightly heavy controls and partly the laggy carry out of commands, but work it does. Fortunately, there is some perfectly decent, basic and easy to use video editing software for your laptop included if you'd like to go a little deeper.
Software and sharing
The ArcSoft package allows you to share out your clips to your friends but, of course, one of the features of choosing Kodak is the Share button that comes with most of the company's imaging devices. In this case, you can set up your credentials for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, the Kodak Gallery and a few more via the bundled Kodak Share desktop software which will then automatically export any clips and stills that you tag with the Share button. That works when uploading both via the Playfull's USB or if you just put your SD card into your computer.
Naturally, it's a bit of a wind up to have to deal with not one but two pieces of added software and one does have to wonder whether a bit or resizing here and there plus having to give over all your details to yet another Facebook app is really worth the while.
So, that's pretty much the end of the story apart from a couple of random annoyances which are well worth a mention. Random annoyance #1: You can't hot swap SD cards in and out of the camcorder without having to turn it on and off each time. It doesn't take long to do so but it seems a bit silly.
Random annoyance #2: the Playfull doesn't let you even look through the viewfinder if your card is full. More understandable but slightly heavy handed. A big flashing icon of an SD card with a line through it would do.
Random annoyance #3: There is a small amount of flash storage space (128MB) and if you have anything on it, it will prompt you to copy it over to your SD card every time you turn the Playfull on. It doesn't take no for an answer. Just give in and remember never to bother with the hard drive again.
Very few pocket camcorders have got it bang on which, in some ways, makes the Kodak Playfull's shortcomings forgivable. The size and simplicity are right even if the £129.99 price tag is around £29.99 too dear. The key plus point, fortunately, is the footage itself. The only chink its armour is the reliably bad close focus but keep reasonable distance and the results are solid with the 60fps shooting a superb weapon to have at your command.
But, if you are going to buy the Playfull - and, to be fair, there are better camcorders out there - just make sure to ignore the software it comes with. It will take over computer if you don't.


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Travel the world while you wait for your flight
Need to go online? It's easy! The Lisbon Airport offers free and unlimited Wi-Fi, so you are always aware of what is happening, both in your email account and in your world. Just follow the instructions and you're ready to browse, anywhere in the airport.
How do I connect to the airport's free wi-fi?
To get connected, just follow these steps:
1 - Turn on the Wi-Fi option on your computer, tablet or smartphone.
2 - Select the network "VINCI Airports wifi" and open your Internet browser.
3 - Write a valid email and select your country. After accepting the Terms and Conditions you will be online and ready to freely access your email and all of your favourite web sites.
Customer Support - Every day from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Only available in English.
This phone call will be charged as a local call.


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The MBT Speed Mix is an athletic women's running shoe that is lightweight and built for speed and support.
These MBT Speed Mix Gardenia White/Black Mesh Women's Shoes have the following features:
This MBT style features removable insoles so that you can add your own orthotic insoles. Although to fully benefit from the MBT technology the MBT shoes should be worn without orthotics.
If you have any questions you can find the answers in our MBT Shoes Frequently Asked Questions section.
The MBT Running Index simplifies the process of finding the right level of MBT shoe for your needs. It ranks MBT Running soles into one of three categories, starting at Lightweight, the least level, and progressing through Performance and ending with our highest level, Cushioning.
Accepted by the American Podiatric Medical Association for promoting quality foot health!
The shoe is made from s stylish mesh material that is black with gray undertones. The shoe's design is obviously orthopedic, but who cares when your feet feel so good.
Sign up to receive new arrival, sale & special event info from us.
Note: we do not share your personal information with anyone. Period.
"I will only order my MBT shoes from Footwear etc. because their Customer Service is excellent and I appreciate their return policy when I have to return. Also, I know that I will only receive authentic MBT shoes from Footwear ect. and I've learned from experience that not all web-sites that sell MBT shoes are the real thing. So, take my advice be safe and only order from Footwear etc. They actually have the best prices and best sales out there."
©2020 Footwear etc.. All Rights Reserved. For any questions or assistance call 1-800-720-0572.


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Ravens take pair of defenders in second day of NFL Draft
Baltimore adds LB Brown, DT Williams to team
The Baltimore Ravens had a singular focus during the first two nights of the NFL draft.
Beefing up their defense.
After taking safety Matt Elam in the opening round, the Super Bowl champions moved up in the second round to snag Kansas State linebacker Arthur Brown on Friday night. Then, in the third round, Baltimore selected 335-pound nose tackle Brandon Williams of Missouri Southern State.
Soon after the Ravens beat San Francisco 34-31 in the Super Bowl, owner Steve Bisciotti, general manager Ozzie Newsome and coach John Harbaugh discussed the team's most pressing need.
"We talked about getting stronger up the middle," Newsome said. "Over the past two days, the picks have definitely addressed the middle of our defense."
Coach John Harbaugh added, "We have really bolstered our front seven, big time."
The Ravens showed patience in getting Elam with the 32nd overall pick. In the second round, however, they couldn't wait to get their hands on Brown.
Uncertain if Brown would still be available at 62nd overall, Newsome worked a deal with the Seattle Seahawks. Baltimore obtained the Seahawks' pick at No. 56 overall, and Seattle took the Ravens' second-rounder, along with their fifth and sixth-round picks.
And that's how Brown became a member of the Super Bowl champions.
"He's a guy we coveted, a guy who's one of the best inside linebackers in the draft," Ravens assistant general manager Eric DeCosta said. "We think he's a four-down linebacker who can play in passing situation, play the run and on special teams."
The Ravens had a void in the middle after Ray Lewis retired and Dannell Ellerbe signed as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins. When Brown slipped past the midpoint of the second round, Baltimore reacted.
"He was definitely consideration for us in the first round, there's no doubt about that," DeCosta said. "Fortunately, we have some compensatory picks, which allowed us to deal a couple picks later in the draft to go up and get him. We started to sweat a little bit as we started to see some good players come off the board, and the idea of not getting him was pretty scary. So we decided to make the move."


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WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Saturdays
Saturdays for three sessions starting 10th October 2020
This exciting and structured course is the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 2 certificate and is intended as vocational training in product knowledge for those employed in the drinks industry who have little previous knowledge of the broad range of wine available. The qualification is suitable wherever a good level of product knowledge is required to underpin job skills and competencies.The course is also appropriate for those not employed in the drinks industry but who have a serious interest in wine, and wish to broaden their knowledge in a structured way. This qualification has full accreditation from the UK Government's Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (NQCF) as a Level 2 Vocational Qualification.
Saturday Courses - who are they designed for?
- We run Saturday sessions for those who have a busy schedule in London unable to sacrifice a working day.
- The sessions run for 6 hours, starting at 10:30am and finishing at 4:30pm, which enables you plenty of time to arrive punctually and enough time to enjoy your Saturday evening. At the end of the final day is the exam (final day 10:30am-6pm).
- There are 3 full sessions and an exam session, spread out over 3 weeks.
Course Outline* (all Saturdays):
- 10th October 2020 - Session 1 - Tasting technique, grapegrowing, winemaking, labelling
- 17th October 2020 - Session 2 - Grape varieties
- 24th October 2020 - Session 3 - Italy, Spain & Portugal, Sparkling & Sweet wines, Fortified wines and the 1-hour Exam. (10:30-6pm)
*Course outline may vary slightly each day due to the individualised nature of each of our courses.
What's included in the Course Fee?
- All WSET course materials including: Looking Behind the Label course manual, Study Guide and Tasting Card
- Use of ISO professional tasting glasses
- All tasting wine (approx 30-35 wines)
- All course handouts
- All course tuition
- Examination Paper
Places remaining: 0
Course Date/Time: Sat 10th Oct 2020 at 10:30am
Duration: 6 hrs (3 days)
Venue: The Wine Cellars, Fulham, SW6 2ST
The Wine Cellars


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Charlie Sheen's Friends Feared He Would Die
Charlie Sheen's Friends Feared He Would Die
Charlie Sheen has been hanging out with some "bad people" over the last few months -- and some people who were trying to save him felt he might die ... this according to multiple sources connected to the actor.
Our sources say Sheen -- who is currently hospitalized after a drinking binge that ended with Charlie allegedly trashing his NYC hotel room -- has been having renewed substance abuse problems since August, shortly after he entered his guilty plea in the Aspen domestic violence case.
We're told several people came into Charlie's life soon after the court case ended that took him "in a bad direction." We're told when Charlie was at the Playboy mansion in August, he was already drinking again.
One source who has been working with Charlie recently says he's been "a tortured soul for months" and his friends openly talked about how they feared for his life. Another source very close to Charlie echoed the fear that Charlie's most recent downturn could end tragically.
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MASSENA, NY -- A high school in upstate New York has received community approval to offer its students a voluntary yoga program, provided that the program is not called yoga.
Massena High School has renamed its yoga program "Raider Relaxation" after the school's mascot, The Associated Press reports. The program includes the same exercises that drew objections from parents and community and religious leaders earlier this fall. Some of those parents and leaders said back then that yoga promotes Hinduism and would violate the separation of church and state.
The compromise was reached during a recent meeting between parents and Superintendent Roger Clough, the AP reports. Clough said parents agreed to change the name of the in-class program and set up an after-school club to give interested students a deeper understanding of yoga.
According to a statement on the Web site of the American Yoga Association, yoga is not a religion, although its practice has been adopted by Hinduism and other world religions.
"Yoga … has no creed or fixed set of beliefs, nor is there a prescribed godlike figure to be worshipped in a particular manner," according to a statement on the Web site. "The common belief that yoga derives from Hinduism is a misconception. Yoga actually predates Hinduism by many centuries. The practice of yoga will not interfere with any religion. Many American Yoga Association students who have practiced yoga intensively for many years continue to follow the religious traditions they have grown up in or adopted without conflict."
This is not the first conflict that involved the teaching of yoga in schools and parents, religious leaders and community leaders. In 2002, parents in Aspen, CO, were successful in demanding the removal of yoga in the local curriculum. In 1999, the American Catholic Lawyers Association filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of parents in Bedford, NY, who were upset over instructional activities, including yoga classes. In Alabama, religious leaders pushed for a 1993 law prohibiting the teaching of yoga in schools, citing connections between yoga and Hindu religious training, the AP reports.


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Its just as, if not more, important to eat well while youre camping. At Blade HQ, get all the gear you need to eat delicious food while you camp. Whether youre just looking for an aluminum mug or a whole camp-cooking set, weve got you covered.
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| 0.8°C Belfast
Jason Bateman has revealed the hardest thing about directing was trying to contain his enthusiasm.
The Arrested Development star makes his directorial film debut with dark comedy Bad Words, which he also stars in as adult spelling bee competitor Guy Trilby.
"The hardest part was, for me, trying to contain how much I loved it. It's just the greatest experience of my life," he said a t the film's Los Angeles premiere.
Jason, who walked up the red carpet with wife Amanda Anka and co-stars Kathryn Hahn, Ben Falcone and Judith Hoag, said he had always wanted to follow in his father Kent's footsteps and direct a film.
Jason, who also produced Bad Words, previously took the reins on episodes of TV shows Arrested Development and Family Matters.
"It's a very complicated process to make a movie, and it's something that I always wanted to challenge myself with. This is a sense of humour that I feel is close to mine. It's a small film - I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew," he added.
"I was excited to play the lead role after the first couple of guys told me they weren't interested, so it seemed like a real big thing to take on. And I like work."
Bad Words follows Guy as he dodges a loophole in the rules to enter a national spelling competition for children.
The 45-year-old father-of-two admitted he wouldn't make a great spelling bee competitor, saying: " I was in one and lost early. I forgot the 'w' in an answer. I'm not a bright person."
Katherine added: " I was never a spelling bee competitor, and I will tell you, I probably would not have been a gifted one. I think I need to write it out!"


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The great Bendis goddess (Bhendis, Mendis, Mhendis) was the feminine divinity from north-Thracian pantheon which was managing people's fortunes, like the Fates.
Goddess' name is build with the indo-European root of bhend, theonym which minds "to relate" or "to bow", whence it comes also the Anglo-Saxon word bind or the Germanic "binden".
From this small but precious idea, we can easy deduce that one of the primordial goddess' appellatives was "Fortune's Goddess" or "Weaver Goddess", "Fate's Goddess", "The Fate goddess".
She, as the Fates, was managing people's fortunes, the indo-Europeans being especially worshipers of the predestination belief.
It is very probably that, after the Dacia's Roman conquest, Bendis was assimilated by Diana goddess (Artemis at the Greeks).
Bendis was also the goddess of the matrimonial connections, of the love and the amorous feeling, like the Scandinavian goddess Freyja, the Greek Aphrodite, the Etruscan Albina, the Assyrian- Babylonian Ishtar goddess, Sumerian's Inanna, the "Dzydzilelyaa" of the old Polish, Albanian's "Prende", Slave's "Shiva" or Roman's Venus.
All the marriages was officiated in her name, under her divine blessing.
The goddess Bendis cult was taken also by Greeks, becoming a stately cult in Athens since the V century b. C. It was adored especially while the ceremonies called "Bendideia" when it was taking place two ethnical ceremonies: one formed by Traces and another by Athenians.
Bendis goddess' temple, associated by the Athenians with Artemis, was called Bendideia and it was situated on the Munychia hill, situated in Athena's part called Piraeus, hill that has approximately 86 m highest. Today it is called with the name of Kastella. Later, after the II century b. C. we can find another goddess' temple on Hebru's West part, in Balkans.
Her cult was attested also in the Asia Minor, more exactly in Bithynia, or even in the Ptolemaic Egypt.
On statues, Bendis goddess was represented wearing Thracian clothes and the Thracian cap (Phrygian, the Phrygians was from the Thracian race). Sometimes the goddess has a javelin in her left hand and a coup in the right hand. On some coins she appears either keeping two javelins and a dagger, or two torches or a torch and a Patera.
Bends has also other attributes as the hunting, but we were appearing also as a Moon's goddess, like Hecate.
By Kogaion


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Hot summer days and cool summer nights lure us to entertain poolside. Even your teeniest guests can't break these gorgeous yet sturdy dishes and serving pieces. Your guests will never believe that they are melamine!
Use them for barbecues, lazy day picnics, and parties on the beach.
They are so well priced- you can buy a set for dairy, AND meat and you still wont break the bank.
Treat yourself !!!
2- Winchester Mandala
4-Polka Dot Fun
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- Acacia Serving Pieces: Serve It Up on Wood Roundup (apartmenttherapy.com)


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In Late-Night Metered-Market Household Averages for Saturday night:
* From 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., "NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly" (4.9 rating, 11 share in metered-market households) is up 14 percent versus last year's 4.3/10 to deliver a three-year high. It's the annual telecast's highest metered-market rating since a 5.2 on December 31, 2009. Other late-night averages last night included: Fox's "New Year's Eve Live," 2.8/6 in metered-market households from 11
p.m.-12:30 a.m.; and "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan
Seacrest 2013" on ABC, 10.6/25 from 11:30 p.m.-1:15 a.m.
* In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, "NBC's New Year's
Eve with Carson Daly" (2.8 rating, 10 share in adults 18-49) is up 8 percent versus last year's 2.6/9 to match its highest rating in the Local People Meters in three years. Other results were a 2.0/7 for Fox's "New Year's Eve Live" and 7.7/29 for ABC's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2013."
* National results for the December 31 late-night programs,
including viewer numbers, are due from Nielsen Media Research on Thursday, Jan. 10.
Monday Primetime Results:
* At 10 p.m. ET, the primetime segment of "NBC's New Year's Eve
with Carson Daly" (1.1/4 in 18-49, 3.8 million viewers overall) is up versus last year's primetime telecast by 22 percent in 18-49 rating (to a 1.1 from a 0.9) and by 23 percent in total viewers (3.755 million vs.
3.053 million). From its first half-hour to its second, the primetime segment of "NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly" grew in all key categories, including gains of 30 percent in 18-49 rating (to a 1.3 from a 1.0) and 20 percent in total viewers (4.1 million vs. 3.4 million).
* From 8-10 p.m. ET, an encore telecast of the 2007 feature film
"Enchanted" averaged a 0.7/3 in adults 18-49 and 3.1 million viewers overall..
NOTE: All ratings are "live plus same day" from Nielsen Media Research unless otherwise indicated.


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Waterville charity in need of holiday donations
Home for Little Wanderers helping 1,600 needy children across Maine
Time is running out, and donations are down for a Waterville charity busy packing Christmas boxes for 1,600 needy children across Maine.
The Maine Children's Home for Little Wanderers is appealing for more donations to make sure that no children go without this year.
The Home for Little Wanderers began as an orphanage in the late 1800s, and today, its charitable mission is to provide help for needy families from Madawaska to South Berwick.
The Christmas gift boxes have been a 60-year tradition.
After word got out on Thursday that the program needed help, the organization said its phones have been ringing off the hook from people offering to donate.
On Friday, one woman came to the door with an envelope containing 20 $100 bills.
Now there is hope the organization will meet this year's need.
"Our biggest need right now are complete outfits of clothing," said Development Director Steve Mayberry.
"My assistant, Christine Sawyer is out shopping right now for clothes; other people are responding, also. We will meet out goal, but we need some help from the community and our friends," he added.
Debbie Ker dropped of several boxes filled with new pajamas. Ker said she works with various shelters across the state and has seen firsthand the importance of the gifts to the children.
"There was this little girl. She was in the hallway; she was just dancing and smiling, and those kids don't have anything, and I thought, 'Tonight this girl has a brand new pair of cozy pajamas and a book to call her own.' When you don't have things to call your own, when you get to hold something, it means something," said Ker.
Next Friday, athletes from Thomas College will load up the boxes and bring them to the Waterville and Augusta armories, from where they will be distributed to the families who signed up.


text: CDKL5 UK seeks to provide a valuable resource for all those affected by, or interested in, the CDKL5 condition. The site is divided into professional and family zones to help you navigate more quickly to the information you require. We hope that professionals, families, and carers alike will find information to assist you in navigating your way around this complex disorder.


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Marlins hold night for first responders on 9/11
MIAMI -- The jersey hung in the Marlins' dugout, and the message was loud and clear.
A white customized Miami Marlins jersey hung with "Never Forget 9/11" on the back.
Major League Baseball on Wednesday recognized the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," Miami manager Mike Redmond said.
On that tragic day, Redmond was playing for the Marlins. The team had returned from a road trip, and the former catcher woke up to tend to his son, Ryan, who was then six months old.
"I was carrying him around the apartment, having some coffee," Redmond said. "I turned on the TV. I remember that initially coming on. When the plane flew into the tower, I woke my wife up. I don't know if I will ever forget that day and what happened."
The Marlins established "First Responders Appreciation Night" on Wednesday night at Marlins Park.
First responders were recognized before the game against the Braves, and a portion of proceeds from each ticket sold as part of a Special Event package or group will benefit the Police Officers Assistance Trust and the South Florida Council of Firefighters.
All home clubs throughout the Major Leagues had a moment of silence. Like the rest of the league, Marlins Park displayed the "We Shall Not Forget" MLB silhouetted batter ribbon throughout the building.
Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan holds a special place for those who serve the country. His brother, Kevin, was in the military.
A few years ago, Coghlan was part of a Marlins contingent during the offseason that visited those in the service.
Coghlan was at East Lake High School in the Tampa area when the 9/11 attacks occurred.
"You think about those who put their lives on the line, firemen and women, police officers," Coghlan said. "They were going in, rushing in trying to save lives. That's what the world is about, it's about being something bigger than just yourself.
"The people we lost through that time is something we should always commemorate and salute, and say a prayer for them."


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SWEETWATER, Fla. – The Sweetwater Police Department found a police horse that arrived in Miami in April, then was "unaccounted for for quite some time," according to a news release.
The horse, named Maverick, was purchased from Asbury University in Kentucky. Maverick was set to join the mounted patrol unit at Dolphin Mall and participate in community events.
Investigators searching for Maverick received a tip that led them to the home of a former city employee, where the horse was found, police say. Once Maverick was identified, the former city employee gave the horse to investigators.
No charges have been filed. An investigation is ongoing.


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Clean Up Crew
Some critter got run over in front of our driveway and the turkey vultures showed up to clean up the remains.
Being mindful that he doesn't get run over.
Taking a quick bite….
While others were checking things out from above.
As I was driving home from the grocery store, this little fox crawled out of a culvert and was trotting around looking for scraps to eat. It was extremely skinny and its face was scabby, probably from fleas. I was shocked to see it in the middle of town in the middle of the afternoon.
Like Mother Teresa, only better.
Pasta, Grains, Gluten? Fuhgeddaboutdit!
weekly paleo recipes, health tips, and more from a couple on the go
WW Freestyle Recipes
All the pretty things....
Sharing Furniture Artistry
Wise cats help you be more like them
A dog and cat in clothing. Puns. Travel. Bacon. Not necessarily in that order.
Disappearing into South Africa's wild places... Again!
Spark Naturals: Life Essentials For Humanity
"Today everything exists to end in a photograph." - Susan Sontag
Sun Protection & Green Info
Nature notes from the Forest of Dean
Thought Bubbles from 2 Aussies
Helping you reach a better state of body and mind
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sailaway from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain


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There's no smoking allowed on the magic bus. The Who front man Roger Daltrey made that abundantly clear at the band's sold-out Madison Square Garden concert Monday evening.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer took a moment during the show to wag his finger at some weed smokers near the front of the stage, telling them he can't abide the smoke. Really.
"All the ones smoking grass down in the front there, I'm totally allergic to it," Daltrey said, while looking out into the arena's lower bowl.
As the crowd chuckled, Daltrey doubled-down: "I'm not kidding."
"Whoever it is down there, you f---ed my night and you made me really ... I'm allergic to that s--t and my voice just goes ..." he added. "It sucks up. So f--k you!"
You can watch video of the incident above.
Other footage from the concert Monday does not appear to show Daltrey struggling at all with his voice.
Daltrey has called out marijuana users at his shows in the past.
Stereogum notes that in 2015, the front man singled out a fan smoking a joint at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum, telling the audience member to "stick it up your f---ing a--."
The Who has tour dates booked in North America through October. Get all the tour dates here.
Photo: Getty Images


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The model 2810-005 coefficient of friction fixture is a testing fixture to measure the static and kinetic coefficient of friction of plastic film and sheet using the ASTM D 1894 standard.
The major items of the fixture include a 200 g square metal sled wrapped with a 1/8 in (3.2 mm) thick foam pad and a rectangular shape metal table with a defined surface finish. A pulley is located at one end of the table which allows the sled, when attached to the crosshead via a nylon or metal tow line to be pulled horizontally along the plate. Test material can be attached to either the sled or the plate or both.
The coefficient of friction fixture mounts in the testing system load frame using Instron's standard type D base grip adapter. The tow line attaches directly to the load cell.
Principle Of Operation
The coefficient of friction test fixture consists of a horizontal table and a moveable sled. Both the table and sled are covered with the test material. A tow line attaches to the sled and a low force load cell with a pulley guiding the tow line during the test. The fixture is mounted to the base of the instrument and, as the crosshead/ load cell moves, the sled is pulled across the horizontal table.
Data is recorded from the load cell during the test and analyzed to determine both static and kinetic friction.
The static friction is derived from the first maximum peak (force) on the load curve and kinetic friction is derived from the average force between two predefined points. The coefficient of friction is defined as the recorded force divided by the weight of the sled.
Application RangeCoefficient of Friction determination on sheet, film and paper products.Testing in the tensile mode only, no high rate applications.
UnitsUS Customary SI (Metric)
|Item Name
|Testing Standards
|Cat #
|Coefficient of Friction Fixture
|0.1 kN 22 lbf


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I stumbled upon this article in The Star today. Jess Teh, aged 30, and still looking mighty fine, is facing two drug charges. One is for methamphetamine consumption and the other is for the possession of 0.79 grams of cannabis. I'm puzzled. 0.79 grams is a minuscule amount for cannabis – it's usually sold in amounts of 10 grams and above.
I digress. I like how the article described her as "always fashionable" and my favorite description of the delicious Jess is "She walked past pressmen in her usual unapproachable manner, with a scowl and in a black T-shirt with the words "Don't ask why" printed on it." (emphasis mine).
She's got attitude, and the photo I nicked from The Star shows that she isn't too hard on the eyes either. It got me wondering though, why do guys like "bad girls"? I know why women like "bad boys" and the dark triad of personalities theory but how does that hold for the XY chromosome persuasion?
I sat down long and hard thinking about this and all I could come up with is The Offspring song Want You Bad. 😉
I know your arms are open wide, but you're a little on the straight side, I can't lie
Your one vice is you're too nice
Come around now can you see?
I want you all tattooed. I want you bad.
Complicated. X-rated.
I want you bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Seriously though, for me, I think it's the appeal of familiarity and the thrill – Aries are notorious thrill seekers.
What about you? Do you get attracted to bad boys/girls?


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Savvy financial advisors know that these days of high market volatility and low interest rates demand strategic thinking to help clients reap fruitful investment returns. That's why more and more FAs are relying on master limited partnerships to capture yield, reduce portfolio risk and hedge inflation.
There are 81 energy-related MLPs with a market capitalization totaling $350 billion. Since 2009, they are up close to 180% on a cumulative basis through March 2012. With their low correlation to the S&P 500 and broader market, MLPs are a four-star diversification tool.
"MLPs are getting more popular with advisors. There is still somewhat limited knowledge about them; but we've definitely seen interest grow in the last two years as investors have become a little wary of depending on price appreciation, and the market has had some gyrations," says Mary Lyman, executive director of the National Association of Publicly Traded Partnerships, based in Arlington, Va., in an interview. "People are looking more for dividends and investments that generate income, and MLPs have fit the bill."
With a current yield of 6%, plus forecasts of quarterly distribution (dividend) increases of 5% to 8%, and total return in the 10% to 15% range, MLPs are indeed appealing to many investors, financial experts say.
Advisors who use them — and some began investing in MLPs back in the 1980s — are enthusiastic about the impressive performance of this still-young, emerging asset class.
"We see MLPs as an alternative because they act differently from either fixed income or equities and should perform differently from the S&P 500," says Phil Blancato, CEO and president of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management in New York, in an interview, who recently rebalanced $1 billion of managed portfolios to include about 2%-3% of MLPs.
A master limited partnership is indeed unlike any other type of investment product. "It's not quite an equity. It's not quite a bond. It's a kind of equity-yield hybrid," says Michael Bollinger, a managing director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney private wealth management in Houston, in an interview. Bollinger uses MLPs with his ultra-high-net worth clientele whose $300 million in assets he and his team manage on a discretionary basis.
"MLPs have been the No. 1 performing asset class over 10 years," says Bollinger, who started using MLPs 16 years ago. "Every client we've had in the strategy — since 2003 — has had a very good experience." Nearly all of Bollinger's clientele has a portion of their portfolios allocated to MLPs, he notes.
Most popular with advisors are the midstream MLPs — the "middle men" of the energy chain; the other two segments are upstream — exploration and production firms — and downstream companies. "The E&Ps have to go and find more energy; the midstream companies don't have to find energy — they just have to transport it," Bollinger says.
Seeking appreciation as well as income for his base of corporate-executive and high-net-worth family clients, Richard Happle, senior vice president of investments with Raymond James & Associates in Tampa, Fla., invests client assets in upstream MLPs, of which there are only a handful. He likes LINN Energy (LINE) because of the company's "high organic growth rate. And whenever they make an acquisition," he says, in an interview, "they have the best hedging strategy of any MLP. We're expecting a 35% total return from LINN." (Happle's investment experience with MLPs dates to 1984.)
Looking for diversity in energy exposure, some advisors invest in both propane and coal MLPs. Although coal is off right now, according to John Thorsen, a senior vice president of investments at Raymond James in Orlando, he expects to see some changes. "What we look for in situations like this," he says, in an interview, "is a high income flow that seems sustainable so that people are basically getting paid to wait for things to get better. Thorsen and his team manage assets of $400 million.
But clients needn't be in the high-net-worth bracket for MLPs to be suitable. "MLPs are for any investor who might be interested in income at any point in time," notes Linda McDonald, vice president of hard assets with Segal Rogerscasey in Dublin, Ireland, in an interview.
At Edward Jones, MLPs are proving to be a sought-after product for clients. "Our clients are buying a lot of MLPs that have high yield. [That's] because when the market goes down, interest rates are low, and their fixed income vehicles aren't returning what they had in the past, they look for higher yield," says Andy Pusateri, a senior utility analyst, based in St. Louis, Mo., in an interview.
"And in view of the financial crisis, along with the low-interest-rate environment that we're in, people are searching not only for yield but for what they feel are safe investments," Pusateri explains.
Clients are also looking for quality. "With fixed income, to get the high yield you do with MLPs, you need to dip down in quality and invest in junk bonds," says Ashley Lannquist, investment research analyst with Segal Rogerscasey in Darien, Conn., in an interview.
On top of yield enhancement, MLPs can lessen portfolio volatility. "Some clients are still concerned about what happened in 2008 and don't want to repeat that experience where everything dropped dramatically," notes Thorsen, who has worked with MLP investments for 18 years. "They feel that when we do see another market correction, they want that income to give them some perceived cushion to the volatility."
In May, concerned about volatility in oil pricing, Blancato replaced his natural-resources allocation — a fund representing about 5% in managed portfolios — with a direct investment in MLPs.
"That has proven to be very beneficial because with natural resources down as much as 14% year to date, the MLPs in that same sector are down roughly only 2.3% for the same period," he says. "We thought: How can we remove the volatility? The MLPs are still in the energy sector but are [performing] as a dividend play rather than a total return play — and that's very important."
About 3% of portfolios owned by Blancato's clients — which have an average account size $225,000 — are invested in MLPs; some higher-net-worth clients have a larger allocation.
Toll-Road Model
Blancato generally sticks to the midstream space, and he uses a simple analogy to explain to clients how pipeline companies get paid on the volumes they pass through their pipelines, which makes them less sensitive to commodity prices.
"An MLP," he says, "is like the [N.J.] Garden State Parkway. Whether the price of gasoline in a car is $10 or $2 a gallon, the Garden State Parkway is indifferent. It will charge that car a toll every time it drives up or down. An MLP is basically a highway for natural gas and oil. We need to get it out of the ground and move it. So the MLP acts as a toll road for a commodity." That explanation, he says, "works well with folks."
MLPs are especially suitable for retirement portfolios. "They're ideal because the dilemma today for income investors is that you can't find attractive income without taking risks in either buying low-quality bonds or long-maturity bonds," Happle says. "The advantage of MLPs, particularly for long-term investors, is that they are operating businesses that have a history of showing 6% distribution growth."
In keeping with MLPs as retirement investments, many advisors are using them for inflation protection, since distribution increases have, over the years, outpaced the rate of inflation. "They are very much an inflation play," Blancato says. "MLP contracts — and hence, revenues — are often tied to inflation indicators such as the Producers Price Index."
As Pusateri points out in a recent MLP report: "A distribution that is increasing consistently every year can help offset the impact of inflation over time."
For Thorsen, the type and extent of MLP investments depends chiefly on client risk tolerance. "For some of our more aggressive clients, an MLP that pays a solid income might be a more conservative portion of their portfolios. For some of the more conservative clients, it might be a more aggressive portion," he shares.
This means "the people that need income are focusing on the higher income-paying vehicles and probably have a little higher percentage of their portfolios in MLPs, because right now they pay very nice income," the advisor notes. "The folks that need no income and are more aggressive tend to have fewer MLPs. But the vast majority of my clients have some MLPs in their portfolios."
One of Thorsen's clients has done so well that he snagged a 30% compounded return investing in MLPs. "It was unusually good — not typical by any means," the FA stresses. But his client, who had been focusing on MLPs since 2009, was "very concentrated in them and a real believer. He went against my suggestion to have more diversification. But so far, it's worked great for him."
Digging Deep
Bollinger employs a comprehensive screening process with a diversification theme. "First we look at geographies the company is playing in, because I want a diversification of that. I wouldn't want anyone that's concentrated, say, only on the Gulf Coast, because if a hurricane came and shut down transportation for a period, that would be a problem."
The advisor also looks "at diversification across the value chain — crude oil MLPs, natural gas liquids, refined products. You start to build a value map for each company: What products do they play in? What geographies? What types of midstream? Are they gathering and processing systems or transportation systems moving the [energy] to a distribution point? If [the latter], do they have big intrastate systems transporting it, or do they have interstate pipes that connect across multiple states?"
The risk profiles are different for each company, the advisor adds. "When you think about Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), the two biggest in the space, you can check almost all the boxes as far as diversification goes," says Bollinger.
He also hones in on the company itself to see how it's capitalized. "One of the most important things we look at is the debt-to-capitalization ratio. The other key statistic is the distribution coverage ratio," the advisor says. "We like to see that at about 'one' because if it's not, they're borrowing money to pay the limited partners."
Bollinger then meets with the MLP's management to understand product mix and to determine whether commodity exposure or counterparty risk exist. Of course, he studies balance sheets, then drills down to how the companies plan to grow distributions over time.
"It's important to know how management is thinking about that," he says. "We spend a lot of time with these companies and always try to avoid blow-up risk. We try to run [MLP allocations] as conservatively as possible, which is why we stay in the midstream and not the upstream space."
McDonald says that diversifying among MLPs themselves is a good idea. "Don't have so much single risk in only one MLP. Have a basket of them. One reason we advocate that investors acquire a diversified portfolio of MLPs is because of management risk — how the general partners are managing the assets and running the MLP."
The addition of an MLP allocation can help reduce a portfolio's overall risk. Blancato uses MLP dividends to balance returns. "Capturing a dividend will smooth out the downside of the return stream . [That means] it will have achieved less on the upside," he explains. "But it's one way to reduce risk. The other way is to have an asset allocation that is not overly susceptible to economic and geopolitical events."
Speaking of the latter, Thorsen shares that a few of his clients are investing in MLPs with the notion that "they're getting paid income while waiting to see if Iran gets bombed or if there's some other political unrest."
MLP Options
There are a variety of ways to invest in MLPs apart from owning the individual units. These include closed-end fund MLPs, mutual fund MLPs, exchange-traded fund (or ETF) MLPs and exchange-traded note (or ETN) MLPs. All of them allow investors to get a piece of the pie using a bundled approach — either passively or actively managed — and avoid the tax complexities of investing in individual partnerships.
"There is a proliferation of these products, because the tax filings are a significant enough hurdle for investors not to want to deal with them," says Kenny Feng, CEO and president of Dallas-based Alerian, in an interview.
"Collectively, it's a pretty meaningful pool of capital that has come into the sector for an asset class that is [only] about $350 billion of market capitalization," Feng says. ETNs and ETFs total about $9 billion, and open-end funds come to another $3 billion. Combined with closed-end MLPs, about $20 billion in total has been invested using this approach.
The first closed-end MLP was launched in 2004; in 2007 an ETN was introduced. The first open-end mutual fund and ETF came on the market in 2010, according to Feng.
"In the last couple of years, in particular, there have been a lot of new funds, especially open-end MLPs," says Lyman. "That part of the sector has grown a lot, as well."
One of the biggest MLP funds is an ETN, the JP Morgan Alerian Index ETN (AMJ), according to Alex Ashby, research analyst with Global X Funds in New York, in an interview. ETNs "expose you to the credit risk of the issuer, whereas with an ETF, you are fully invested in the underlying securities and don't have the same sort of credit risk. An ETF replicates the index more accurately," he says.
In April of this year, Global X Funds introduced the Global X MLP ETF (MLPA), which invests mainly in midstream transportation, pipeline, storage and processing MLPs, as well as exploration and production companies. Composed of 30 MLPs, the fund seeks correlation to the price and yield performance of the Solactive MLP Composite Index.
"You get exposed to the energy industry but not necessarily to the underlying commodity prices," Ashby notes.
At Edward Jones, the Alerian MLP Index ETF is "very popular with most of our clients," Pusateri says. "The reasons are that you get instant diversification within the industry and a 1099 instead of a K-1"
In his recent report on the MLP industry, Pusateri writes that the Alerian "has outperformed the S&P Energy Index" since its 1996 inception "largely due to higher income."
Blancato uses both ETFs and ETNs with his broad-based clientele. In a small mutual fund, the Ladenburg Thalmann Strategies Fund (LTAFX), that he manages, 25% is allocated to MLP stocks. "The fund has had excellent performance over the past 20 months in large part because of the MLPs," Blancato notes.
Happle derives some MLP exposure by way of a unit investment trust from First Trust. "You can get a basket of 15 or 20 MLPs. That's a good way for a smaller investor to get easy diversification," he says. "The UIT has diversification. But it's not over-diversified with too many names — and it gets you past the tax issues, so you don't have to worry about that."
The global financial crisis prompted greater interest in MLPs. "After the Alerian [MLP] Index hit its bottom," Feng says, "people realized that the MLPs were still generating stable cash flow and that you could get an investment-grade company that was continuing to pay distributions and was even growing its distributions as a double-digit yield. There was a V-shaped recovery in the asset class, which has not been the case for the broader economy or the S&P 500."
Blancato began tracking MLPs during the meltdown and says he was "surprised and happy" with their performance. "We were looking for asset classes that were less impacted by the crisis and would pass a high-quality dividend. We looked at the MLP distributions. For the most part, they were significantly less affected than the broader market; and when they rebounded, they not only recouped all their losses but in 2008 were up 76%."
The following year, Blancato reduced his allocation to managed futures and replaced it with MLPs.
Down the road, advisors look for the MLP sector to remain an important, useful portfolio component. Those perpetual high-income yields are a big draw.
"Clients will continue to desire higher-income vehicles, and that will attract people to MLPs. We're looking for better-than-average returns, especially compared to other alternative products," Thorsen says.
The increase in energy production coupled with a shortage of pipeline infrastructure point to ongoing demand for the services of midstream MLPs.
"There is demand for $200 billion to $300 billion of new pipelines. We think that MLPs should, on a regular basis, outperform the S&P 500. MLPs are very, very valued," says Blancato. "And by 2030, we could be an energy exporter. Natural gas is the golden lever that fixes the [problems of] the U.S."
Though most MLPs have little direct exposure to commodity prices, advisors who invest in the partnerships keep careful watch on price movement.
"Next year we could see oil dip to about $80 a barrel and over the next year or so, production increase," Happle says. "It would make sense to get some midstream and downstream MLP exposure because those two do the best if oil prices decline."
Apart from the satisfying returns, advisors are also pleased that investing in energy MLPs appeal to clients' patriotic pride. For instance, when Blancato highlights the sector during portfolio reviews, he finds that "clients get warm and fuzzy knowing there's something we can do as a country that can improve it. It makes them feel positive on the United States," he says.


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Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Co. Ltd.Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company Limited was the first private insurer in the country to be licensed post-privatization in 2001.
The company was the first to offer cashless hospitalization in India.
Royal Sundaram's insurance product portfolio is spread across the travel, health, home and home content, personal accident, and motor insurance sectors. Its also offers marine insurance. In its rural insurance portfolio, the company offers covers for pumpsets, tractors, and personal accident, apart from the usual home and home contents insurance.
5 Insurance product available


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Immortalized by a much-publicized legal skirmish that resulted in a stiff ten-year prison sentence (and an acquittal for co-defendant Puff Daddy), Shyne was well-known among the public before Bad Boy Records even released his debut — which was, for many years, his only — album. That album charted well, thanks in part to all the media attention he'd garnered over the years, and he showcased a remarkable talent for rapping despite his young-twentysomething age. The album wasn't an especially memorable work, however, and Shyne remained far better-known for his story than for his music.
Born Jamal Barrow, the young, gifted, and black New York rapper joined Puffy's Bad Boy camp in 1999, shortly before the episode that would define his life, which occurred on December 27th of that year. That night, a shooting incident occurred at Club New York in Manhattan. The details were initially foggy. A shootout at the club led Shyne, Puff Daddy, and Puffy's then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, to flee. Three people were wounded in the shooting. Police then caught up with the fleeing Bad Boys and ultimately charged Shyne and Puffy with numerous crimes: Shyne for attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first and second degrees, one count of reckless endangerment, criminal use of a firearm, and criminal possession of a weapon in the first and second degrees; Puffy for felony gun possession, as well as one count of bribing a witness (with a diamond ring he'd been given by J-Lo).
The court hearings in June 2000 were a media circus — at the time, Puffy and Lopez were celebrity icons, and Shyne had become notorious overnight despite his lack of recording output. When it was all over and done with a year later, Puffy was acquitted of all charges while Shyne was convicted on two counts of assault (including a first-degree count, for shooting Natania Reuben in the face), reckless endangerment, and gun possession. In the course of the court proceedings, he admitted firing a gun at the club, though he argued that he did so in self-defense. Regardless, he packed his bags and embarked on a ten-year prison sentence (he'd faced up to 25 years in the pen, so it could have been much worse) and looked forward to his parole eligibility in, at the earliest, 2009.
Then there's Shyne's music. Just two weeks after the shooting incident, the Los Angeles Times reported that BMG, the company that owned Bad Boy at the time, was considering shelving Shyne's forthcoming debut album — and perhaps even severing ties with Bad Boy altogether. Well, that didn't happen as commercial interests trumped ethical considerations. BMG indeed retained its very lucrative ties to Bad Boy, and Shyne's debut album did finally surface on September 26, 2000. The shooting scandal certainly helped garner interest in the release, and the self-titled album peaked at number five on Billboard's album chart. It wasn't a bona fide success, however. Neither of its singles — "Bad Boyz" and "That's Gangsta" — was an especially big hit despite the media-circus publicity and a strong marketing push on behalf of BMG, and the album died a quick, quiet commercial death. And that was pretty much the end of Shyne as far as most were concerned — he was locked away in Clinton Correctional Facility, and his fan base was minimal and forgetful.
Then, four years later, in April 2004, surprise news came that Def Jam had signed the imprisoned rapper to a multi-million-dollar contract after a heated bidding war with Warner Brothers (then headed by former Def Jam CEO Lyor Cohen), and a new album would be forthcoming by the end of the year, as well as an attempt by Harvard law professor and practicing lawyer Charles Ogletree to get Shyne an early work-release discharge. (Echoes resounded quietly of 2Pac's imprisonment, his subsequent signing with Death Row, and his eventual prison release to much celebration.) That reportedly forthcoming album, Godfather Buried Alive, did surface months later in August 2004. Like its predecessor it spun off no major hits and got a weak critical response, though the album did benefit from all the media publicity, debuting very strongly at number three on Billboard's album chart and returning Shyne to the spotlight for a fleeting moment. ~ Jason Birchmeier


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The Bold and the Beautiful...and the hilarious? Comedy great Fred Willard has been set for a four-episode guest appearance on the hit CBS soap opera playing John Forrester, younger brother of fashion king Eric Forrester (John McCook). John is also the father of jewelry designer Ivy Forrester (Ashleigh Brewer), the show's new Aussie beauty who was recently brought to America by Eric to help out with the family business.
A B&B rep tells TV Guide Magazine that Willard's character is a traveling salesman-inventor and quite the party boy. He contacts Ivy while he's in the states and decides to come visit her in Los Angeles and reconnect with Eric. No word yet if Willard's character is pure comic relief or trouble in disguise!
Willard's many hit films include This is Spinal Tap, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Best in Show and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The Second City alum and multiple Emmy nominee has also had recurring roles on Roseanne, Mad About You, King of the Hill, Everybody Loves Raymond and, currently, Modern Family, where he plays Phil Dunphy's dad, Frank.
Willard begins work at B&B Aug. 27, with his episodes set to air the first week of October.


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Connecticut proposes to increase sales tax on digital downloads
HARTFORD -- Connecticut residents may soon have to pay more to download an app, e-book or iTunes song.
Some Democratic state lawmakers are proposing to raise the 1 percent tax on such products to match the state's 6.35 percent sales tax, making Connecticut one of nearly two dozen states to extend sales taxes to downloaded products.
Rep. Patricia Widlitz, D-Guilford, co-chair of the Finance Revenue and Bonding Committee, included the provision in the committee's tax package in an attempt to make brick-and-mortar retailers more competitive.
"As our way of doing business changes, our tax structure has to look to the future as well and change with that," she said.
Proponents see sales tax expansion as a way to help fill Connecticut's projected two-year, $2.5 billion budget deficit. The proposal would generate $20.5 million next fiscal year, which starts July 1, and $22.1 million the following year, the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis estimated.
The tax would apply to one-time downloads of music, movies, books, games, apps and even ringtones. Subscription services, such as Netflix and Spotify, would retain the current 1 percent rate as would many elements of cloud computing services and all business-to-business transactions.
Tax reform and consumer advocates call the proposal misguided. States ought to operate within their means rather than raise taxes, said Katie McAuliffe, federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform.
"It's not really about a level playing field," she said. "It's about getting revenue."
Taxing digital downloads is one of many provisions being considered in closed-door budget negotiations. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said his budget proposal includes no new tax increases, and his budget director, Benjamin Barnes, insists that position has not changed.
Connecticut's proposal comes as Congress considers expanding states' tax collection authority. A Senate bill passed this month would empower states to require online retailers to collect state and local taxes for online purchases. Under current law, states can only require a store to collect taxes if it has a physical presence in the state.
If federal legislation passes and Connecticut moves to apply its sales tax to digital downloads, the state could demand payment on such products from out-of-state businesses just as it would be able to do with physical products.
Taxing digital downloads is increasingly popular across the country. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., tax downloaded music, movies or books, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Expanding taxes to include digital goods and services is sound public policy, argues Michael Mazerov, a senior fellow at the center. He said the issue is about fairness: Users of digital goods consume economic resources just as users of physical goods do, so they should pay the same tax rate. The current imbalance disproportionately impacts lower-income households, which are less likely to shop online, Mazerov said.
"There's no justification for states waiting," he said. "This is way overdue. It's a no-brainer."
The Connecticut Technology Council echoes Mazerov's position and supports taking a national approach to taxing digital products. President and CEO Matthew Nemerson said the council accepts that the Internet cannot maintain what in many cases amounts to an exemption from state and local taxes.
Reform is necessary to prevent tax base erosion, argues Mazerov. With more and more products delivered in digital format, he says, states are losing funding for vital services like education and health care.
But opponents of taxing downloads contend that digital products generate a smaller carbon footprint and that their nature makes it inappropriate to tax them as equivalents to physical goods.
"You're just downloading a license," McAuliffe said. "You don't actually own the products. You have less ownership and less power over them."


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BBC AMERICA has long showcased the best of British sci-fi with such hit series as Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Being Human. Today it further demonstrates its commitment to the genre with the announcement of a refreshed primetime sci-fi slate for Supernatural Saturdays. In this slot, the channel will roll out three all new co-productions, Primeval, Outcasts, and Bedlam. It will also be home for new seasons of previous co-productions Doctor Who and Being Human. And as previously announced, BBC AMERICA will premiere the highly anticipated Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day, the same day as its UK broadcast.
Perry Simon, General Manager, Channels says: "BBC AMERICA has been setting a bench-mark for quality supernatural and sci-fi shows like Torchwood and Doctor Who, attracting millions of fans to the channel. Throughout 2011 our viewers will see the return of old friends like Doctor Who and Primeval, which we helped save from extinction, as well as some great new additions to our schedule like Outcasts and Bedlam. Our fans told us they wanted these shows, and we are delighted to give them what they want."
Following Matt Smith's recent appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, the new Doctor Who Christmas Special, A Christmas Carol premieres for the first time on Christmas Day in the U.S. The festive Dickens-inspired adventure is penned by award-winning lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Coupling). Along with newlyweds Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), Harry Potter's Michael Gambon and Opera diva Katherine Jenkins join The Doctor for what might be his most Christmassy adventure yet. Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol premieres Saturday, December 25, 9:00 pm ET/PT.
Supernatural Saturdays starts off the New Year with a roar with the return of the beloved series Primeval. Returning to screens thanks to a unique international collaboration with BBC AMERICA as a co-producer, the fourth season opens the franchise to new audiences with ambitious new adventures. When rips in time called anomalies started opening across the UK, dangerous creatures from the past and future began appearing in the most unexpected places, endangering lives and putting the whole of humanity at risk. A crack team of specialists was appointed by the government to deal with these "creature incursions." This job has proven deadly for multiple team members and threats continue to escalate. From the creators of Walking With Dinosaurs and Survivors, the new season of Primeval sees a new headquarters, the arrival of new faces and the surprise return of some notable guest stars from earlier seasons. Primeval premieres Saturday, January 1, 9:00pm ET/PT.
Hot on the heels on the Primeval finale and from the makers of award-winning and international hit series Life on Mars and MI-5, comes the frontier drama Outcasts in early 2011. The series takes viewers into a new world as it explores survival, sex, politics and the drive for power in a new post-Earth era. Shot in South Africa and created by Ben Richards (MI-5), Outcasts stars Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty, The L Word), Liam Cunningham (Clash Of The Titans) and Hermione Norris (MI-5, Wire In The Blood). With Earth no longer habitable, a group of courageous pioneers have traveled to another planet to begin again. They've built the town of Forthaven on Carpathia and have the unique opportunity of creating a new and better future on another planet. Led by President Tate (Cunningham) and his core team of Stella (Norris), Cass (Daniel Mays, The Bank Job, Atonement) and Fleur (Amy Manson, Being Human), they're determined to run a democracy, but human nature and some tough decisions from the past come back to haunt them. Outcasts premieres early 2011 on Saturdays, 9:00pm ET/PT.
Supernatural Saturdays in Spring 2011 will see the return of two of BBC AMERICA's top rated programs, Doctor Who and Being Human. Doctor Who will open with a spectacular two-parter set in the U.S. and penned by 'Who supremo' Steven Moffat. In the special two-parter co-produced with BBC AMERICA, key scenes have been filmed in Utah for a story set in the late '60s in which the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves on a secret summons that takes them on an adventure from the desert - right to the Oval Office itself. The new season will be split into two blocks, with the first block airing in spring 2011 and the second airing in fall 2011. By splitting the series Moffat plans to give viewers one of the most exciting Doctor Who cliffhangers and plot twists ever, leaving them waiting, on the edge of their seats, until the fall to find out what happens.
BBC AMERICA co-production, Being Human is also back with an all new third season. Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow and Aidan Turner return as George, Annie and Mitchell, the three twenty-somethings trying to live as normally as possible despite being a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost. This season will see the housemates relocate from their current home in Bristol to Wales - a move triggered by events in the dramatic climax of the second series - while encountering some new faces and battling their biggest threat yet.
Future Supernatural Saturdays in 2011 will debut the haunting all new six-part series, Bedlam. The sexy, contemporary paranormal program stars singer and actor Will Young (Pop Idol winner, Skins), Charlotte Salt (The Tudors), Theo James (A Passionate Woman), Joanna Page (Gavin & Stacey), and Ashley Madekwe (Secret Diary of a Call Girl). Set in Bedlam Heights - an apartment building converted from a pre-Victorian lunatic asylum - the inhabitants experience the darker side of the building's history when former asylum spirits come back to claim what they believe to be theirs and seek revenge on those who have wronged them. The terrifying hauntings that follow reveal that sometimes when you scratch away the surface, things aren't always what they seem.
Complementing its primetime commitment to supernatural drama, BBC AMERICA is also introducing a sci-fi block during the daytime schedule comprising episodes of fan favorites like Doctor Who and Torchwood. The weekday block will see The Doctor have a new American companion - sci-fi touchstone, X-Files. Like Doctor Who, X-Files has long been hailed as one of the defining series of its time. Created by Chris Carter, the Emmy award winning program, launched the careers of David Duchovny (Californication) and Gillian Anderson (The Last King of Scotland, Masterpiece Theatre) who starred as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigating the existence of alien races and other paranormal activity. The X-Files premieres Monday, January 3, 11:00a.m. ET/PT after Doctor Who airings at 10:00a.m. ET/PT.
Now in 68 million homes, BBC AMERICA attracts one of television's most affluent audiences and recorded its highest ever profit for the financial year 2009/10. The channel is responsible for bringing some of the most buzzed about UK shows and talent to the U.S. - from the irrepressible Gordon Ramsay and the irreverent Graham Norton to the intriguing Law & Order: UK and the hilarious Peep Show. BBC AMERICA also first introduced American audiences to the original versions of The Office, Top Gear, Skins, The Inbetweeners and Torchwood.
BBC AMERICA brings audiences a new generation of award-winning television featuring news with a uniquely global perspective, provocative dramas, razor-sharp comedies, life-changing makeovers and a whole new world of non-fiction. BBC AMERICA pushes the boundaries to deliver high quality, highly addictive and eminently watchable programming to viewers who demand more. It is available on digital cable and satellite TV in more than 68 million homes.