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Robert Lenzner, Contributor
I'm trying to wise up 300 million people about money & finance
Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil admitted last week that the price of oil–based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range. The reason it's above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds.
That was just one of the stunning revelations made during the Senate hearing on tax subsidies to the oil industry– which featured the 6 most powerful CEOs– BP, Shell, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips and Exxon-Mobil– all sitting like ducks in a row giving the stiff-arm to pressing unfriendly inquiries from a host of Democratic Senators.
The formal showdown between Big Oil and Big Politics was enormously revealing theater about just how selfish and narrow-minded cash-rich industry can be when called upon to do their patriotic duty in balancing the budget. Ouch!!!
Here are some other juicy disclosures from the hearing:
–The average cost of producing 1 barrel of oil was $11; the average price of the oil in the marketplace–$72– some 6.5 times the cost of getting the oil out of the ground.
–The profits for the big 6 oil companies was $36 billion in the year's first quarter. A large part of the $36 billion was used to buyback shares or pay dividends to shareholders.
–These giant US companies have only 1.4% of global oil reserves; the national companies of OPEC have 68% of the reserves. Therefore, argue the CEOs best not to take away tax advantages, ie what the Senators call "subsidies."
– If those nasty Senators take away the tax advantages, exploration for oil in the US will dry up– and move abroad where t he tax advantages are splendid. This is called waving the red flag- and threatening to put the nation's oil deficit in even more dollar-bashing trouble.
–If Obama doesn't loosen restrictions on drilling in Alaska and offshore US– we will become even more horribly dependent on importing foreign oil.
–There is NO energy plan for the US– and warns Sen. Max Baucus of Montana- "we will require the good faith on everyone's part– which is going to be enormously difficult." This is an understatement when one sees the way the oil executives and the Senators agree on almost nothing. No CEO would admit the tax advantages were subsidies.
–The deduction for intangible drilling expenses was given to the oil industry in 1960 when a barrel was worth about $15-17. So, why do they need this favor when oil is $100 a barrel? Good bloody question , I thought. The oil execs looked horrified and warned that all exploration in the US would cease and desist.
The price of gasoline will decrease when all their storage tanks are full. Also, I'm for ending all corporate welfare…
There is going to come a time when the American people who are most adversely affected by this type of corporate greed are going to respond, not with hearings or town hall meetings or any other dog and pony show. Someone has got to forestall this because Americans tend to express their anger in some very primitive and ugly ways when pushed to the wall.
People are beginning to forgo dining out because of the price of gas which is simply a tightening of the household budget; it happens. However, when they stop being able to afford formula for their babies and other food staples there will be a response that I'm not sure those in their ivory towers are taking seriously enough. Thinking, "It can't happen here.", is naive in the extreme. The wall surrounding my community isn't designed to repel a siege.
I don't know what time it is either. But I do know that jewelists don't own gold mines, and they aren't doing bad.
By that similarity the conclusion would be {without 'token' advice} that the oilfield service companies wouldn't want to own oil reserves. Why would they?
Exxon would be okay with $60-$70 per barrel price for whose oil where? Why? Is it almost pure gasoline grade? Some is, obviously they aren't aware of those realities in the conduct of offering their predictive service.
The reason it's high today is because our most frightful enemy in futurists preparations simply prefer that oil and gas will get costlier. They don't know what else to think, and it's an easy guess.
Ignorance is responsible they say in some areas for at least 95% more waste than we would have otherwise.
this is not new or news. oil prices have been 30 or 40 % higher than even the Oil Titans wanted them to be, because people speculate and drive the prices up. Back when Bush was president, the Sheiks of the Oil Emirates were saying the exact same thing as these oil company people said in the story. 1/3rd of the price is due to speculation.
The fact that the oil company guy confessed that its costing them only $11 a 55 gallon barrel to get it out of the ground is interesting though. When Chavez was alive, people were paying way less than $1 a gallon for gas in Venezuela. That's apparently about right. The rest is gravy, or a rip off, depending in whether you own stock in oil or are just a commuter.
US oil doesn't captain the boat – OPEC does. And they;'e been pretty clear recently oil down to $90 gets them to cut production. Recent estimates believe the break even for producers like Saudi has skyrocketed to $70/bbl or more – 10 times what is was 11-12 years ago.
But their extraction costs are around $20 per barrel. The rest is based on their lavish national budget. They could cut spending, they could dip in to the royal family's no doubt vast reserves, or they could run a deficit.
How interesting. With oil selling at a 50% premium to its natural value, one would expect to see a huge growth in inventories of oil plus products. Prices higher than the natural balance point cause too low consumption and to high production. Soon, we would have an ocean of oil and product building up in storage tanks across America. But that has not happened. Inventories of gasoline and diesel are way down from last year at this time, more than making up for slightly more crude.
Looks like its just the law of supply and demand at work. Although Atty. General Eric Holder can bluster against speculators, he cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. Governments have tried, with price controls, to counter the law of supply and demand, but without fail, it fails.
If we want lower oil prices, we have to figure out how to get by with less oil.
Mr. Siegal,
There are actually several different crude oil markets because of how oil is refined. Heavy crudes (high wax content, high API viscosity, high density) cannot be refined efficiently by refineries geared to refine light crudes and vice versa. A similar situation exists with "sweet" and "sour" crudes. Light, sweet crudes are cheaper to pump, transport, and distill and produce more gasoline per barrel than other types of crudes so it generally goes for more dollars per barrel than others. However, This distinction has a important impact on the balance of supply and demand because there is imbalance between production and refining capacity. Refineries designed to distill sour crudes cannot distill sweet and vice versa. The same is true for light vs. heavy crudes as well. The problem is that 75% of the world's crude is sour but something like 40% of the world's refineries are geared to sweet crude.
Further, world production of sweet light crudes has either peaked is close to peaking, which means the imbalance between production capacity and refining capacity will increase. The recent shut down in Libya's production of sweet light crude has further thrown off the supply side of the equation. Other producers of sweet and light crudes like Nigeria simply cannot produce any more. While the Saudi's production can increase to fill the gap, they have only sour and heavy crudes, which does nothing for the 40% of refineries geared toward sweet light. The remaining refineries geared toward heavier sour crudes are already operating near capacity. Increasing production of heavy, sour crudes cannot translate into more gasoline or fuel oil delivered to customers.
World production of sweet crudes has peaked and increasing prices will not impact production.
Why hasn't the price differential between sweet and sour ballooned up???
Mr. Siegal,
That is an interesting question. Consider these facts.
Currently Nigerian Bonnie Light, one of the lightest, sweetest crudes available is selling for 122.62 USD (if it is even available) while Canadian Heavy Hardisty 97.43 USD, a difference of about 25 USD (all Spot Price FOB). However, just two years ago the prices were 51.24 USD and 44.60 USD respectively. That is a difference of only about 5 USD. In other words, the difference between lightest light and the heaviest heavy has increased five fold in two years.
The difference fluctuates with overall demand of course, back in 2007 it was bigger, although not 25 USD. I would anticipate that all other things being equal, the difference should remain large and increase.
Except that oil demand is rather inelastic. If the price of gas jumps up, say, 25%, most people don't have the option of driving 25% fewer miles. Products that use oil as in input can't suddenly be made with less. Over the long term, yes, but that's a matter of years, not months.
NYMex WTI $105.38
ICE Brent $124.13
Dubai Fateh $116.16
Pemex Crude Basket $112.36
Kirkuk Crude $118.00
Light Lousiana Sweet $125.01
Bakken Crude $92.76
Alberta Oil Sands Crude Spot $47.05
Mr Siegel, I have always respected your work, but you must have a different definition of balloned than i do. What I see are, 100 different markets affecting prices in 100 different ways. Why is such a silly question. How about we focus on allowing the free market to do what it does best, supply the greatest amount to the highest bidder and create the greatest supply to the lowest bidder, and find ways to move the imbalances inbetween each other. This is not rocket science nor is it deceptive, this is good companies supply good product to willing payers at the higest price. That sir, is AMerican as the definition provides. Why indeed.
the fact that refining is a controlling factor appears to be lost on the US government, and Congress.
I think its time for the US govt to enter the oil business, and to start with refining.
Mr. Lenzner,
You wrote:"Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil admitted last week that the price of oil–based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range. The reason it's above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds."
What percentage of ExxonMobil 's oil comes from the spot market? It would have to be tiny. A "major" would be getting the vast majority of it's supplies from long term contracts with prices set years ago.
Leave it to Tillerson to be the crackpot emeritus of the oil sector – all to justify his horrific legacy of failing to position Exxon for a future of high (and rising) oil prices. No wonder scrappy Chevron now leads in most metrics (and has almost since the day Tillerson "retired").
I'd love to see anyone investing in deep water, in oil sands, tertiary recovery with oil at $60-$70 – spending and production would fall of a cliff in the West, leaving it even Ore dependent and vulnerble to our "friends" in OPEC.
And let's not forget that "high" oil prices are greatly exacerbated by ruinious US fiscal policies that have (and must continue if we are ever to repay our debts) to debase the lowly Greenback.
@Timothy Siegel
It's funny when people talk about "supply in demand". As a fundamental capitalist principal markets are allowed to fluctuate against ACTUAL demand, not artificial demand created by speculators. Also fundamental to capitalist principals are tariffs, price ceilings and floors to contain externalizes.
It's amazing when people talk about a free market system they only tell 1/2 the story… The 1/2 that lines the select few's pockets at the expense of the working class.
It is particularly disconcerting when oil executives indicate that they will desist in drilling on US soil if the subsidies stop. It sounds more like blackmail to me. It also sounds as if the oil industry wants to throw the cause of oil prices into the laps of Wall Street. Could be, but it appears that both are responsible. What a joke capitalism can be at times. Oil belongs to all of the people in the country not just a bunch of oil companies.
Well, I do agree with you there. I would prefer it if they would just say, "We do have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders, which prevents us from endorsing dropping the tax breaks, but in fact exploration and development will be healthy at these prices, either way."
What are you people thinking? If I understand it correctly, the "subsidies" the oil companies are getting are the same tax deductions, credits, preferences, etc. that are common to business in general. These things should not be taken away on general principles. American business and the American people are way over taxed. The truth is, the congress needs to have their source of funds cut way back. They do not represent us, they represent themselves. They redistribute the money that is taken in, mostly in the name of "promoting the general welfare." Actually, the only welfare that they are promoting is their own (There's always another election.).
It seems that the arguments used by the Senators are framed totally wrong. They are saying to the oil companies, "We are so poor that it seems to us that you have no right to be so rich. So we're just going to take as much of your money as we can!" How dumb! One of the foundations of this country is property rights. How is it that a large, rich corporation loses its rights just because the fools in government continually waste even more money than they take in. And don't tell me that all (or even any) of the federal programs that are justified on the basis of "promoting the general welfare" are even remotely legitimate.
And let's not forget that the last big tax break that the oil companies had went away over 35 years ago. That was the oil depletion allowance which went away January 1, 1975. I'm not sure that that was legitimately done either.
I've got a suggestion: Let's have the Congress go after the real culprits in our financial woes: The major banks, starting with the Federal Reserve System. There is accusation of the oil companies being super rich. Maybe that's so, but let's examine it to be sure. Take a look at the Federal Reserve System…. Oh no! We can't. The books of the Federal Reserve System, a private entity that is primarily owned by a very few of the nation's largest banks, have never been audited, no they have never even been looked at by outsiders, yet they have everything to do with controlling not only the money, but the entire monetary system of the United States. It is said that these "subsidies" being given the oil companies are "a drop in the bucket." I submit that the Federal Reserve System is the bucket and everything in it.
I agree with your assessment of the responsibility of the banks in many of our woes, but what role are the major oil companies playing in the economy now? With 4 dollar gas and the prospect of it going higher, we need to get control of it because it is the engine that drives the economy. We cannot have runaway inflation, and the oil companies are taking advantage of the everyday person with outlandish gas prices. The banks, as you say, are equally responsible.
Hello cwbird,
I believe that you are quite mistaken.
1) In general the corporate tax rate of 35% is almost half what it was in the 1950′s and '60′s so corporate rates are lower than than have been in two generations.
2) The 35% rate is before deductions and credits. To provide but one simple example, there are tax credits for oil exploration. The costs of labor, chemicals, mud disposal, grease, &c. are typically 75 to 80% of the cost of drilling a new oil well. These costs are considered "Intangible Drilling Costs" which are 100% deductible during the first year. If a firm spent 100,000 USD drilling a well, that firm could – with good tax attorneys – recover 75,000 to 80,000 USD in tax deductions during the first year.
How much sense does such a tax "incentive" make when benchmark light, sweet crude is over 100 USD / B. Are oil companies really going to stop exploring for oil at these prices? Even sour and heavy crudes, which are cheaper, are still quite profitable.
Mr. Lenzner, it seems from this article that you want to call yourself a journalist (the article purports to be a news article), but your article has you expressing your own opinions in several cases (well, almost the entire article). If you do this, you are a commentator, not a journalist. To be a journalist, none of your opinions should ever be evident to the reader. Here are just some of the telling words and phrases:
1. "stunning" – from line 1, paragraph 2.
2. "subsidies" – from line 2, paragraph 2.
3. Paragraph 3 in its entirety. This is bashing "Big Oil" and treating "Big Politics" as though everything that they are saying and doing is right. I do disagree with you opinion, but that's not the point. You have no business expressing yours at all.
4. "juicy disclosures" – from paragraph 4. This phrase means that the rest of the article will bash the oil companies.
The bottom line is that, based on this article, you cannot legitimately claim to be a journalist, only a commentator, and I do not need even one more commentator. As one so astutely said, "opinions are like armpits, most everyone has two and they both stink."
If you want to have value to your readers, then I recommend that you just lose your opinions.
It's interesting to read what another of the world's largest multi-national oil companies has to say about the future oil supply and demand balance and how it could lead to a "world of misery" depending on OPEC's ability to sustain higher production levels over the long term as shown here:
Who am I to argue with Rex Tillerson? Yet, I think he's wrong about why oil is so expensive. If the oil majors are really using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, they're SELLING futures. How does that drive up the price? Are hedge funds buying more than the oil majors are selling? Could be, but why? I think the "hedgies" understand the inflationary effects of our current monetary policy. They correctly believe that Bernanke is unable and unwilling to take his foot off the monetary accelerator. No need to discuss the elimination of tax subsidies for oil companies because the (House) votes simply aren't there.
What nonsense! Lenzner left one important fact out of this article. Seventeen dollar oil in 1960 is actually $132 oil in 2011? Check the numbers yourself.
In this Capitalist society, it is not a crime to make a profit, nor is it morally wrong. You are spouting socialist nonsense "about just how selfish and narrow-minded (a) cash-rich industry can be when called upon to do their patriotic duty in balancing the budget." The problem is not the oil companies, or their execs. The problem is this monstrous government empire that has permeated every aspect of this once great Republic. THAT is wrong! Balancing the Federal (or for that matter State) budgets should NEVER be about GETTING more money. It should be about NOT SPENDING more than is already coming in.
Robert, I'm curious about the last point in the article. According to the BLS CPI Inflation Calculator that $15-17 a barrel in 1960 has the same buying power as $114-130 today. Granted current oil prices hover in the $85-100 which makes oil cheaper, adjusted for inflation, than it could be. Isn't it fallacious though to try to directly compare prices of 1960 to the prices of today? Assuming that intagible drilling expense was justified back in 1960 do you feel that it is no longer justified with oil's cost being lower than $114-130?
These number are BS…. I pumped 17 cent a gallon Regular gas into my Grandmother's Buick in 1960… and what is Regular going for in California today? $4.24… Crunch those numbers….
…AND… Tillerson says it's the Oil Futures hedgers that are artificially keeping prices up… he's right. But what he doesn't say is that EVERY large oil company has its OWN trading desk trading…. you guessed it…. Oil Futures…
Damn Lenzner…
Going after Big Banks and the Oil Cartel in a single day! You are My new hero….
Putting the spotlight on these guys is EXACTLY what this country needs. Keep it up… Any other journalists out there with any Balls?
Call the oil companies buff. If they stop looking for oil in US, point out to the public that this is a national defense issue. If we have no US oil we are sitting ducks for the other guys to cut off our oil. No oil company wants to take the chance of being nationalized. Talk softly and carry a BIG stick!!
Rex wants you to believe its futures contracts. It's not true. XOM and CVX set their prices based on simple supply and demand. Unfortunately, OPEC controls supply. So they can manipulate the market to keep prices high. And just FYI, Exxon and the Saudis sleep together. They are one.
balderdash. Big Oil: if you dont bribe us, we will stop playing here. The fact is, if they stop working here, the USA can create its own sovereign corporation, Citgo USA style.
We dont have to lease the oil lands. We can hire our own engineers and workers.
I'm a very small independent geologist in west Texas. I agree that current prices are artificially high. We only do projects that are supported by $70 oil.
As to the cost of producing oil, we have wells that take 50% of the gross revenue to operate and this is before taxes. Some take 10%. Cost of lifting is only one factor in making a profit. I've been involved with some wells that were cheap to operate, but still took 10 years before the original investment was recovered (due to the high initial cost to drill and complete). 'Payout' may not be a concern at ARAMCO, but I assure you it is here. As to making comparisons to 'how it was in 1960′, costs to drill and complete wells tend to trend upward with the price of crude. It now costs about $750,000 to drill and complete a 5500′ test. This is about 10x what it was in 1960.
As to intangible drilling deductions, do you know what one is? An intagible drilling cost is/are expenditures related to the drilling of a well that are not tangible (meaning not a piece of equipement or something that has salvage value). Examples are wages for the crew, the cost to prepare the drillsite, the cost of the rig, etc, etc. They are vey real. The IRS decided years ago that these could be deducted from income before a profit was declaired. Prior to that time, these costs were added to the 'basis' of the well (known as Leasehold). If you read Forbes, you should know what 'basis' is. Deducting real out-of-pocket expenses prior to calculating a profit is not a radical accounting idea. Why is this even an issue unless you have an axe to grind?


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Craftsman 108 PC Mechanics Tools SetSears Exclusive. | Item# 00938108000 | Model# 38108
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Product Description
Get the Job Done with the 108-Pc Mechanics Tools Set
The high quality Craftsman 108-pc mechanics tools set includes an extensive collection of socket wrenches, nut drivers and accessories neatly packaged in their own case. The 6-point sockets include the most useful inch and metric sizes in regular and deep sockets, matched to an efficient ratchet with a quick release mechanism. Also included is a tough extension breaker bar for stuck fasteners and a magnetic bit handle, as well as two open-end wrenches.
This hard wearing 108-pc mechanics tools set offers sockets and accessories made of rugged alloy steel and protected with a durable silver finish. The kit is ideal for doing your own mechanic work, as well as for many miscellaneous jobs around the house. Besides the wide array of sockets, it contains screwdriver bits, nut driver bits and hex keys, all manufactured to high standards and close tolerances for a socket set you can depend on.
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- Screwdriver bits: 10
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J. Maureen Henderson, Contributor
I write about early career issues. Pithily.
As an experiment, I quit the internet in September. I started with Twitter (update: I've since rejoined this particular platform), I moved on to Facebook and ended by shuttering my blog. I didn't stop freelancing or responding to emails, but I dropped social media and my participation in it like a hot potato and I haven't looked back. I held a client meeting at Dunkin' Donuts. If I wanted to see adorable pictures of my nieces, I had to email my sister to request them. I had more room in my schedule for the gym. The less time I've spent working on my online brand, the more offline opportunities have come my way. Here are three reasons you too should disentangle yourself from the social web in 2013:
It harms your self-esteem
While evidence for Social Media Anxiety Disorder is largely anecdotal at present, a UK study from the fall found that over 50% of social media users evaluated their participation in social networking as having an overall negative effect on their lives. Specifically, they singled out the blow to their self-esteem that comes from comparing themselves to peers on Facebook and Twitter as the biggest downfall. It seems trite, but you can't feel anxious about the achievements of your old college roommate or your MIT fellow cousin if you don't know about them in the first place. And forget about social media stalking your ex; it's as unhealthy as you'd guess.
Your blood pressure will thank you
Social media a hotbed of bad behavior – flame wars, bragging, bashing and crimes against grammar, among other misdeeds. If you find yourself getting unduly irritated by, say, entitled Millennials tweeting their displeasure at being denied iPhones by Santa, or falling victim to Godwin's Law while arguing with cyber strangers, it might be time to take a timeout. And make sure that break is a legitimate one – none of this downloading an app to manage your social media obligations for you.
Online is no substitute for offline
Almost a quarter of Americans say that they've missed out on important life moments in their quest to capture and memorialize them for social media. Think about that the next time you're Instagraming your anniversary dinner at P.F. Chang's. With the ubiquity of communications technology in our daily lives, it's easy to convince ourselves that the digital world is where all the action is and that the effort we put into building our online empire directly correlates to IRL benefits such as scoring a new job or landing a new mate. In fact, over 90% of job hunters of all ages look for work online, but less than 5% are conducting offline job hunting activities such as attending networking events or setting up information interviews. And guess what? A full 70 – 80% of job vacancies are never posted, so all that job board scouring is likely for naught. If the only benefit you've derived from flexing your social media muscle was free anti-antiperspirant samples from the folks at Klout, it might be time to direct your energy elsewhere.
Related on Forbes:
Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are 'Suspicious'
Social Media And The Job Hunt: Squeaky-Clean Profiles Need Not Apply
I have to go 50/50 on this article. To completely get rid of FB, not so sure about that. In that past 4 months i've reconnected with 3-4 friends who I was pretty close with. They moved, shutdown FB for a while and even changed numbers. So they ended up finding me on FB. I'm not the type of person who spends hours on FB, only 5-10 mins at the most with each login…and I may log in 2-3 times a day. Life is too busy to spend it all posting and ranting over the net for me. I'm on Twitter also, but the people/companies I follow have interesting quotes or articles to get the brain workin'. But I must agree that too much time on the social media grind is counter-productive. Anyway, I have to say very clever title.Enter Your Comment
January 2012 I quit my only 3 social media sites Facebook, Linked In and SodaHead. They had become all-consuming, and I witnessed many friends get sucked into the vortex of Facebook. My best friend moved to Farmville and never returned. At first I felt isolated, but that slowly went away when I realized that the world is in 3D, and most people still live in it.
I summed up my feelings in this, my final post on Facebook:
I am about to delete my FB page. There is something very liberating about this. It seems to me Facebook has transmogrified life from 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional – it has become the high school
reunion that never ends. It is an endless morass of random posts and viewpoints public and private, from politics to prose to recipes to tragedies.
It can be terribly invasive, and it has taken vanity to
an almost obscene level. For centuries the human condition was geared towards living your life, and encountering friends and enemies along the way, and progressing in a linear timeline. Now with FB the past, present and future all meld into a confluence similar to standing on top of a mountain of scrapbooks in the direct path of a tornado as it passes. People in my past belong in the past – I don't want to be a witness to their growing old. I want them to remain young in my mind, as I knew them.
I felt like an ex-con walking out of prison, time served, a free man. The guards and the warden, betting that I've been "institutionalized" coupled with the high rate of recidivism, said to me "You'll be back."
I think not. Not this time. That was a year ago. I never went back.
Well said!!!
My Twitter account was shut down last summer, Linkedin never got much of a start before closing it out and Facebook is now a blank page that I use to sign in to comment areas.Twitter became a collection of worthless drivel. Linkedin was supposed to be the miracle site for everything business, but it sure fell short. Facebook was restarted this spring after I killed my home page and closed the account. My AOL.com ID was sterilized of any e-mail addresses and the password changed. Then I used the empty AOL.com to restart Facebook with the current password so that Facebook wouldn't send "Friend" requests to people that are not friends. Then I change the password in AOL so that I could restore the e-mail addresses. "Pidgin" watches the Aol,Yahoo, MSN and G+ IM accounts for me if somebody sends a note. Yes I've also dumped Windows for Ubuntu, much better and faster.
Yes, people will definitely quit social media because of this article.
Ironically enough, I stumbled across this great post while quitting facebook today. I have to say, I have tried many times, but I would very much like to do so for 2013 and I figured I would give it a head start today! I run a blog with friends from college and a popular one at that, that we started this year. We have fan pages that are new and I enjoy running the twitter page because i simply post links for our site and not for personal reasons. Facebook on the other hand has been a drain. Once upon a time, I did use it while being featured in articles in the newspapers for my work, but these days, I am tired of it. All in all, I completely agree with this post. If you can't give up everything, I would say facebook would be a good one to give up. It really is a waste or time that could be used for great things and it does make you miss out. I know, I know, their are people who say "I just use it to stay in touch, or, you don't have to log on all the time, but for me, just the thought of it being there is draining." I am very social and it took me a long time to realize that it was not facebook driving my networking…but it was me! Hard to explain what I mean here because I never comment on stories, but I get what you are saying. Between grad school, work, friends, family, website duties and just life, one less thing to focus on is good. You post on facebook, it scrolls and fades with each passing post, and in the end, it serves no purpose. Network yourself I say. Basically, I miss the days where blogs were king/queen. Because only people with relevant information posted on the web in so many words. Facebook has become a "Look at me!" cry for attention and 99% of it is not important. I will miss it for my colleagues and dear friends, but not being on there for me will only strengthen my desire to reach out to those I care for :-) Happy Holidays!
99.99% of people on FB are my relatives and friends. I spend more time on reading articles, and etc. I do see what others people say on their FB, which I find hilarious or outrageous. Some of them do post an inflammatory topic that causing some them to fight on FB. I can do this, but I don't want my friends or relatives to avoid me. I'm sensitive for them, not for me. Most of all, I don't brag about where I went, what I have, or what I will do. I post some photos that are may be interesting.
My purpose to be on FB is to keep my phone bills cheap, and communicate effectively.
99.99% of people on my FB are my relatives and friends. I spend more time on reading articles, and etc. I don't own a fancy phone such as iPhone. My cellphone is an old one-very tiny. Perhaps, it's about $20- now when you buy it. It's may be unavailable these days. The only expensive technology I have are laptop and ereader. However, I witness what others people say on their FB, which I find hilarious or outrageous. Some of them do post an inflammatory topic, or insult that causing some of them to fight on FB. I can do this, but I don't want my friends or relatives to avoid me just because I want to hurt people. I'm sensitive for them, not for me. Most of all, I don't brag about where I went, what I have, or what I will do. I post some photos that are may be interesting. Many of my posts are either funny or, encouragement.
My purpose to be on FB is to keep my phone bills cheap, and communicate effectively.
If I find people who are nasty, I just ignore them. They cannot post on my wall. That's how I manage their bad behavior.
Well I never had to quit social media, as I have never had a twitter or facebook account. I just intuitively sense that "it's dumb!"
It by definition is dumb because the user is a tool. He/she is the product, the more users, the more ad revenue. I have a friend and she frets about her facebook thing all the time. Status of boyfriends, relationship, likes/dislikes, the whole deal.
I have used Craigslist, and long story short the thing was crazy (for hooking up). Not again.
My take is that the demographic is mainly 18-28 year old men and women. In time, the thing will get so old it will be a fad that history has yet to define. But it will fail.
I'd be willing to bet on it!
my co-worker's sister makes $86/hr on the computer. She has been laid off for 9 months but last month her pay was $17202 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this site Bing30.cℴm


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My family climbed into our van and headed to Michigan a few weeks ago, just as we do every other year or so, to stay on the great lake there, for we have come to love its cool breezes and blue water and lighthouses.
It was a fever blister of a morning as we packed too much gear into our wagon and drove north, our onboard thermometer already showing off a nasty 95 degrees before noon, but we wiped the sweat off our foreheads and settled into a not-so-unpleasant 4-hour drive to the land of beach sand and low humidity.
We had no problems whatsoever as we peeled off the miles through the flat, endless fields of corn and wind turbines in Benton and Newton counties, driving through Kentland and Schneider and Lake Station on the way to I-94 and the last leg of our journey. We stopped for gas and a bite to eat, stretched our legs, and soon dove into the five-lane madness of semi-tractor trailers and boat-toting pick-ups just as the day's heat peaked at 97, content in our refrigerated front-wheel drive cubicle. Then, we smelled trouble — literally.
It came in the way of our front brakes locking up. The constant stopping and starting on the crammed interstate apparently put the finishing touches on a brake system that had ironically been inspected and declared "good to go" at a local garage just a few days earlier. We limped to a stop, managing to drag ourselves off the main road to an off-ramp, our right front wheel sizzling and smoking.
We keep a roadside service plan for such emergencies, so I took cell phone in hand and called its number. Due to "heavier than usual" business, I was told by machine before I ever spoke to a human being, it would be 90 minutes to five hours before anyone could come to assist us. After being cut off a time or two, I reached a young lady who seemed to be much more concerned about the color of our van than actually getting someone out to help us drive it, so instead of sitting along the road like an ant under an hourglass, I decided to creep our crippled wheels into the next town that happened to be along Indiana 6. It was Hobart.
I took the first left turn off the down ramp into town and immediately saw a huge brown sign that miraculously read "Brake and Muffler Repair," so we crawled into the baking parking lot that sat beneath it. Within minutes, the problem was assessed, an estimate was delivered, and despite it being past 4 in the afternoon and all of the shop's bays filled with other disabled cars, an already soaked and tired technician named William had our van up on a jack, its calipers and brake pads and metal lines dropping to the pavement at chop-shop speed.
What one does on the outskirts of Hobart with no transportation proved no conundrum: We sat and waited. But as unpleasant as that sounds, the five of us — my son's fiancé, Lucy, went along — actually had a good time. We found a little shade under an awning, catching an occasional whiff of breeze, and we talked, and took part in the fine art of observation. I struck up a conversation with a lady who works as a cook at the local high school; she was concerned that her car's transmission was kaput, but after numerous test drives, nothing could be found wrong with it. She left us with wishes that our repairs wouldn't cost much and hopes for a better day.
By the time William was wiping the grease off his hands, co-manager Pete had done a test drive, and fellow co-manager Jim had us swiping plastic at the cash register; we were back on the road by 5:30, my credit card doing the smoking by then. But I have a lifetime warranty on that new brake system, by the way, and we were driving again. Life was good.
Within two hours, we stood on a breezy Lake Michigan beach, and in contrast to that sweltering asphalt in Hobart, I felt as though we were a world away. On that first evening, we were drawn to the water like moths to a back porch light, and we all waded and walked and gazed and sighed with our sandals in our hands until hunger drove us up the hill to supper and a bath and a bed (although they proved too small for this reasonably tall writer and his even taller son).
Early the next day, we returned to the beach, and I began a too-short string of days sitting in a chair, book in hand, feet buried in the sand; it was as ambitious as I wanted to get. In the time I spent in that place, and in the solitude that the sounds of the crashing waves helped me find in my own head, I tried to count the shades of blue reflected in the lake. I became a watcher of wind-blown marram grass, an observer of shorebirds, and a collector of round, smooth stones. I often gazed upward to see small glints of silver flying thousands of feet above us, but doubted that anyone on those jets was going anywhere I would rather be at the moment. I soon became interested in watching a sailboat that ambled along the horizon, its snow-white sail cutting a path across a bank of deep blue, and I heard Frank Sinatra crooning "Summer Wind," despite there not being a radio in sight.
There was much to do besides read and work crosswords and tell my wife how pleased I was we were back at the lake. I watched a woman pull a Keystone Kops routine as she chased down a runaway beach umbrella and spied a Tony Siragusa look-alike drifting in the surf, the waves pounding his considerable bulk like a forlorn buoy. I observed people who, like my clan the day before, came out to the water for the first time, standing and staring out at the horizon. Like us, I suppose, that endless expanse of water drove them to dreams and deep thoughts and lower blood pressures.
The shorebirds kept us entertained. I wondered more than once how the big white and brown gulls could hover in one place without moving a wing as the wind blew straight off the lake so hard it threatened to tear my book's pages. A flock of them — hundreds, I believe — landed en masse some 75 yards from us, bobbing in the waves like white apples in a blue-green barrel. They eventually took off together and headed north before testing the waters again.
I noticed that as the days wore into evenings, and the sun played tricks with its angles, that the water turned to bronze. I would occasionally take a short walk to stretch out the kinks in my legs and soon learned that not all on the lake was timeless and pleasant. The flotsam brought onto shore held an odd mixture of the natural and the man-made. Among the tiny brown shells and water-worn rocks was the detritus of the careless and uncaring. Cigarette butts and wads of gum, a rubber band and a length of balloon ribbon, the useless tubes of exploded fireworks and a long-drained beer can, all brought me back, for a few minutes anyway, to the messes people often make of such a place.
As we drove home a few days later, groggy from sleeping in strange rooms, too red from too much time in the sun, and tired from our long and full days, I could still see that stretch of beach and hear the rhythm of those endless waves, even as I maneuvered the highway lunacy that carried me away from it.
I daydreamed about that blue water for a long time, but I was just as thankful that we found a steam bath of a brake shop in Hobart, too.
Mike Lunsford can be reached by email at email@example.com or by writing to him c/o The Tribune-Star, P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Read more of Mike's stories at http://tribstar.com/ mike_lunsford, and visit his website at www.mike lunsford.com. His third collection of stories, "A Place Near Home," is due to be released in the fall.


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Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton conducted a workout strictly for media today in San Diego. The Auburn quarterback is working in Southern California with quarterbacks coach George Whitfield Jr. Former NFL QB Trent Dilfer was at the workout and called Newton "incredibly impressive."
No pro scouts were invited. Newton will speak with them at the NFL Scouting Combine next week in Indianapolis. Here's a full report from the Birmingham (Ala.) News, which was on the scene.
---Mark Gaughan
taggedNFL Draft


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By Marjorie Nesin Staff Writer
Gloucester Daily Times
---- — ESSEX — Officials at Essex Elementary School, seeking to better align its students' programs and schedules with those at Manchester Memorial Elementary, have reallocated recess times, without cutting minutes, after a district-run study of the two schools last year.
A district-appointed committee investigated the amount of time each elementary school spent on actual learning over the 2011-2012 school year, with the committee finding a "great deal of disparity between the two schools," Essex Elementary Principal Jennifer Roberts wrote in a November Essexpress school newsletter. And that disparity has sparked the recess time changes,
Pamela Beaudoin, Superintendent for the Manchester Essex Regional School District, which runs both elementary schools, said the schools had previously followed their own time schedules – neither necessarily better than the other, she noted.
"What we knew was we did it differently in both places," Beaudoin said. "It just wasn't consistent across the board."
Beaudoin and other district administrators said the change is no reflection of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test scores, which show that, on average 13.4 percent more of Manchester Memorial Elementary's students scored proficient or higher than Essex Elementary students in each subject and grade.
In fourth grade language arts, 94 percent of students scored proficient or higher, compared to 62 percent of Essex Elementary students. For fourth grade mathematics, 18 percent more Manchester Memorial students scored proficient or higher. For fifth grade mathematics, however, 4 percent more Essex Elementary students scored proficient or higher than at Manchester Memorial.
"There was just a reorganization to make sure we were on the same page," Beaudoin said, emphasizing that changes were unrelated to test scores.
Parents opposing the change said they feared a future further erosion of recess time, which is important in helping their children relax during the day and develop positive social behaviors.
Parent Teacher Organization members were unavailable or declined to comment Monday. But the district's director of curriculum, Scott Morrison, said he understands the importance of recess and stretch time.
"We all need to get up and walk around, relax and refocus," Morrison said. "That applies to all human beings, not just kids."
Morrison said the reallocation of recess minutes — scheduled without cutting overall time, but simply restructuring the recess schedules — will "equalize" the two elementary schools that feed into the single regional middle school.
"Program-wise they'll be the same," Morrison said.
He said the similar scheduling will also put the kids on an equal playing field when they merge at the middle school level in sixth grade and at Manchester Essex Regional Middle/High School.
Morrison said the changes, some of which also occurred at Manchester Memorial Elementary, targeted transition times in an attempt to knock out dead space in the schedule and fill it with enriching or beneficial material for students.
"Transitions are an area that I think all schools struggle," Morrison said. "The fewer stops and starts you have, the more efficient you can be."
By grouping all recess time together — to be held just before or after lunch — teachers spend less time wrangling the students in after multiple breaks and recesses, he said.
And, any saved time is a good thing, according to Morrison, who said that recently incorporated state and federal programs have sparked a change in the morning schedule. Morrison said the additional programs demand additional scheduled learning time.
The students at Essex Elementary now settle into their classrooms at 8:15 a.m., allowing teachers to begin instruction by 8:30 a.m., Principal Roberts wrote in the school's November newsletter.
"This seems small, but with some of the new curriculum teachers are using ("Know Atom Science" and "Write Steps Writing"). it provides the much needed instructional time," Roberts wrote.
The new scheduling also allows for two-minute breaks in between classes that elementary students — who, unlike older students, do not walk from classroom to classroom to learn different subjects — rarely get. And if a class gets antsy, the teacher can lead a movement break or collect up transition times to use as a recess break at their discretion for the class.
"I notice many classes going out on Fridays, but taking movement breaks throughout the week," Roberts wrote. "Teachers still have the option to take their classes outside for recess if they feel they need to."
Marjorie Nesin can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3451, or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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'Run for cover now / I'm takin' over / So please step aside / Because I ain't gonna sympathise / Boy I'm gonna lay it on / From dusk till dawn / With a right to the head and a left to the cheek / (Musically)…' From 1967 with Lynn Taitt, straight to the head of Coxsone Dodd.
Two songs based on Berio's Folk Songs cycle, tunes by Sun Ra and Chick Corea with her own words, and four Joyce settings.
Grooving Lloyd Charmers version of the Ben E. King.
A classic, originally released in 1986 on the Heavyweight label (spun out of the Heavyweight soundsystem, from the Wood Green and Tottenham areas of north London).
A Freedom Sounds from 1978, with Scientist dishing out the dub.
A classic, in its full dubwise, extended glory.
Gorgeous Jamaicanization of The Miracles' Choosey Beggar, just as fluently doowop.
Laid-back jazz and soul with singer-songwriter aspirations. Cape Verdean roots still just about showing, when the going gets good. UK street-soul legend Omar in the house.
Masterpiece. Top-drawer songwriting — thoughtful, soulful lyrics and ace tunes — and definitive performances.


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Independent Study and Field Experience
Information for students and faculty
Three parties participate in arranging and authorizing honors college credit for independent study or internship/practicum/field experience: the student, the supervising faculty member and a Lee Honors College advisor. All three must agree upon the specifics of the project before the student will be enrolled in the course for credit.
To count an internship/practicum/field experience or independent study as an honors course, you must first determine if you will be registered for these experiences through a course offered by a WMU academic department other than the honors college. This determination affects the paperwork you will be required to complete and whether or not you must enroll in HNRS 3990 or HNRS 4950.
If you are registered through a WMU department
- You do not need to register for an HNRS 3990 (Field Experience) or HNRS 4950 (Independent Study)
- You do need to submit to your honors advisor a request to use a departmental independent study or field experience as honors college credit form before the drop/add deadline of the semester in which you are enrolled in the independent study or field experience.
- The form must be signed by the faculty member assigned to the course. A graduate assistant/teaching assistant may not sign this form.
If you are not registered for a course at WMU
- You need to register for HNRS 3990 (Field Experience) or HNRS 4950 (Independent Study) in order to receive honors course credit
- You need to submit an agreement form for independent study or field experience before the drop/add deadline of the semester in which you are doing the internship or independent study.
- A WMU faculty member must agree to supervise you and issue you a grade for your internship (in coordination with your internship site supervisor). The WMU faculty member will sign the independent study or field experience agreement form. A graduate assistant/teaching assistant may not supervise you.
- A Lee Honors College advisor will manually register you for the HNRS 3990 or HNRS 4950 course.
- Once you have completed your independent study or field experience, your supervisor must complete the supervisor's evaluation of student's field experience and submit it to the WMU supervising faculty member. The WMU faculty member will then record a grade for your independent study or field experience.


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By Dylan Goforth
Phoenix Staff Writer
Charges are expected to be filed early next week on a Michigan man accused of traveling to Oklahoma to have sex with a teenage girl.
District 27 Assistant District Attorney Doug Dry said Christopher Dale Adams would likely return to court May 21 for his initial arraignment.
Adams, 27, has been held at the Cherokee County Detention Center since last week on $100,000 bond. Adams is jailed on five counts of first-degree rape and five counts of forcible sodomy.
Court records show that Adams is from Lake Orion, Mich. He's accused of making multiple trips from Michigan to Oklahoma, where he allegedly met a 13-year-old girl for sex.
Law enforcers first met Adams in early March, when Sequoyah State Park rangers pulled his vehicle over, according to an affidavit filed in the case. Adams had a 13-year-old female passenger and was allowed to go. However, rangers referred the information to the Department of Human Services, because they were "unable to establish any reason the two were together."
Another ranger stated in a report that he had seen a silver GMC sport utility vehicle at the lodge, and the driver was later identified as the 13-year-old's adoptive mother. During a later traffic stop, rangers discovered the 13-year-old had allegedly been dropped off by her mother to spend time with Adams.
Rangers also removed items from the room Adams and the 13-year-old had been in, and sent those items to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Less than a week later, the teenager met with authorities, and disclosed she had a sexual relationship with Adams. The girl's adoptive mother said she had paid for Adams to come to Oklahoma multiple times and had also paid for motel rooms. Dry said it's too early to tell if the mother will be charged with a crime.
"I think they were so focused on (Adams) that when the smoke clears, they can get into that," Dry said. "I do know there's a DHS case. We'll probably wait on that DHS case to clear up."
Adams was arrested last week after law enforcers set up a sting for him using information gleaned from the teenager.
The dates for the proposed charges match up with receipts obtained by law enforcement showing dates Adams had allegedly stayed with the girl at "Oklahoma State Park Lodge" and Days Inn in Wagoner.
Reach Dylan Goforth at (918) 684-2903 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Jay Neal
Jacksonville Daily Progress
WILBURTON, Okla. —
Jacksonville College head women's basketball coach, Lynn Nabi, said that his team received a priceless lesson during its scrimmage last Saturday at C. C. Dunlap Fieldhouse on the campus of Eastern Oklahoma State University.
"I think that we made a critical mistake right before the half in our game/clock management," Nabi said. "I hope that we can learn from this and carry this lesson with us throughout the season.
The Lady Jaguars lost one segment (by just a single point) of the scrimmage against Eastern Oklahoma, won a period by five points and tied the remaining stanza.
"We were up two (points) with 17 seconds to go in the half and we put a shot up instead of just holding on to the ball and going in with the lead," Nabi said. "We have to improve our game-management skills and play smarter basketball before we get into the game that count."
Another area that Nabi will be looking for improvement in is in the turnover department.
"We had 24 turnovers against Eastern and that's just way too many," he said.
According to Associate Head Women's Basketball Coach, Leasa Ailshie, one of her team's freshmen really gave a good account in the most recent dress rehearsal.
"Susan Agesen, our 5-foot-10 post from Edgewood led us in scoring with 26 points and also had eight rebounds," Ailshie said. "She's been a real surprise and has played well this fall."
Jasmine Robinson, a sophomore from Fort Worth and Parade All-American Khadijah Carter, a first-year talent from Goodrich, Texas, also had memorable games, according to Ailshie.
Robinson scored 16 points and came down with eight boards,while Carter poured in 14 points and accounted for seven rebounds.
"These three really played good," Nabi said.
Final scrimmage set for this weekend
The JC ladies will have only one more opportunity to get things dialed in properly before opening the regular season on Nov. 2 against Southern-Shreveport in the Panola College Classic.
The Lady Jags will travel to Hawkins on Saturday to take on what Nabi expects to be a seasoned Jarvis Christian team that is a member of the Red River Valley Conference (NAIA).
"That's why we scrimmage good teams on the road," Nabi, who has led the Lady Jags to two trips to the NJCAA Region XIV semi-finals while being named Coach of the Year, twice, said. "We want to see how our girls react when they are under pressure and we will be facing a veteran team in Jarvis Christian that will pit our freshman and sophomores up against their juniors and seniors, so you never know what will happen.
"She (coach Elissia Burwell) really does a good job with the Jarvis Christian women and they will be ready to get after us."
Ailshie said that she is still looking for the best combinations of talent to put on the deck and that the Lady Jags are still without a starting five at this point, which should give all of the players that see action an opportunity to put their best foot forward, with much riding on the outcome.


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That was weird.
The Lakers were dreadfully boring on offense last season, finishing a couldn't-be-more-average 15th in points per game (97.3).
Who could forget their excruciating January slump when they failed to score 100 points in 13 consecutive games? Actually, plenty of confused season-ticket holders could during a vastly unremarkable run.


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Simply click on your area of interest or expertise, for a complete list of all job openings in that category. When the list appears, clicking on any job title will get you complete, detailed information on that job, including instructions on how to apply.
All Federal Employees to Rate their Job Satisfaction
The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey asks government employees how happy they are with their jobs and their agencies. For the first time, the survey will be sent to all 1.8 million government employees in 2012. The results will be used to produce the annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government report.
Bills Would Give Federal Workers a 3.3% Raise
Twin bills now before Congress would give federal workers a 3.3 percent raise.
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Find out where the best government jobs were in 2010. Discover what the worst government jobs were in 2010. See where employee satisfaction is improving and worsening in federal government agencies. Find out how employee satisfaction in the public sector compares to that of the private sector.
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Why the job satisfaction on federal government workers just keep going down.
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Read this guide to learn how to find Postal Service jobs for free. Discover why the government is warning job seekers about Postal Service job scams. Learn how to detect scams and find Postal Service jobs without hassle.
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Need some career advice? The Department of Labor's 'My Next Move' web site is an online career advice tool for all categories of jobseekers.
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Federal government employees enjoy a wide range of family-friendly benefits that go far beyond insurance and retirement. Here is an extensive list of government job benefits.
Veterans' Preference in U.S. Government Job Hiring
Since the time of the Civil War, veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces have been given some degree of preference in appointments to U.S. government jobs. Recognizing their sacrifice, Congress enacted laws to prevent veterans seeking Federal employment from being penalized for their time in military service.
Applying for U.S. Government Jobs
The federal government is the largest single employer in the united States, with almost 2 million civilian workers. About 1.6 million are full-time permanent employees. contrary to popular belief, five of six federal employees work outside the Washington, D.C. area, in locations across the U.S. and even abroad. When you apply for a job in federal government, there are some specific instructions you need to follow in order to give your application best chance of winning an interview.
Job Resources at Major U.S. Government Agencies
Handy links to employment information Web pages at several major U.S. Government agencies and their sub-agencies.
OPM Director Touts Careers in Public Service
The U.S. Federal Government is quietly but quickly becoming the employer of choice for American's just entering the workforce, according to Office of Personnel Management Director Kay Coles James.
Annual Salaries of Top US Government Officials
Current annual salaries of top elected and appointed US government officials, along with the annual salaries for these officials in 2000 or 2001.
How to Work for the CIA
It seems everybody wants to work at the CIA, these days. From spies to textile workers, the Agency has openings, but do have the right stuff for them? Learn about jobs and working at the CIA right here.


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Murder is a Piece of Cake is the top read among adults for the week ending Nov. 18, according to the St. Louis Independent Bookstore Alliance.
The bookstores include Subterranean Books in University City, Left Bank Books in the Central West End, Main Street Books in St. Charles and Pudd'nhead Books in Webster Groves.
- Murder is a Piece of Cake by Elaine Viets
- Bitter Brew by William Knoedelseder
- Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
- Off the Leash by Jean Ellen Whatley
- Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman
- The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
- Winter Dream by Richard Paul Evans
- NW by Zadie Smith
- Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
- Guerrillas in Civil War Missouri by James W Erwin
Children/Young Adult
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney
- Count to Sleep St. Louis by Adam Gamble
- To the Top!: A Gateway Arch Story by Amanda E Doyle
- The Elf on the Shelf by Carol V. Aebersold
- Dinosaur vs. Santa by Bob Shea
- Safari by Dan Kainen
- This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers
- You Are My Little Cupcake by Amy Sklansky
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney


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Clinton recognizes spring athletes
PLATTSBURGH — On May 14, the Clinton Community College Athletic Department held its annual spring 2013 Athletic Awards Ceremony.
Certificates were presented to members of the baseball and softball teams.
The baseball team was coached by Tom Neale and assistant coach Josh Chapman. The softball team was coached by Sami Stoughton with assistant coach Erin Terry.
The 2012-2013 President's Trophy Award was given by President Jablonski to Jason Favaro, a Dannemora native. The President's Trophy Award is presented to the student-athlete with the highest QGPA over two seasons of participation.
Favaro played two years of baseball and worked in the Forrence HPER Facility. While at Clinton, he was a two-time scholar-athlete, recipient of a Presidential Scholarship, inducted into Phi Theta Kappa and honored on the Dean's List or President's List each semester.
Softball MVP: Alisha Ducatte
Softball Coach's Award: Lyndale Nephew
Baseball MVP: Chris Roenbeck
Baseball Coach's Award: Eric Rock
Basketball officials award scholarships
The Champlain Valley Basketball Officials Association, comprising I.A.A.B.O. Board No. 142 and the Southern Adirondack Girls Basketball Officials Association, has awarded scholarships to two area high school seniors.
This year's scholarship recipients are Jessica Bain of Indian Lake Central School and Derek Brassard of Moriah Central School. Both have participated in their schools' respective basketball programs over the past four years, are proven leaders both on and off the court and have excelled academically. We wish them much success as they further their education.
MIR hosting races tonight
AKWESASNE — After getting rained out last Friday, Mohawk International Raceway is looking forward to getting back on track this week as Keegan's Tobacco presents the first round of the Frenchie's Ford "Go Further" Sportsman Series, a visit from the TUSA Mod Lite Series, and a regular program for Modifieds and Pro Stocks. The Bandit Division will have the evening off and will return the following Friday.


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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Parents lined up again Monday morning to make sure their children get a present under the tree this Christmas.
The Last Minute Toy Store officially opened Sunday for people who couldn't get help from other programs.
The store is on a first-come, first-serve basis and is located at the United Methodist Church on 61st Avenue.
The Last Minute Toy Store runs through Wednesday.
If you want to still give, they still need things especially for older boys. Donations are accepted at the church.
you need toys you can call (615) 463-0191. No pre-registration is
needed, but parents/guardians must bring: -- Parent or Guardian's picture ID-- Proof of Davidson County address ( utility bill, rent receipt, etc)-- Parent or Guardian Social Security card-- ID showing children's names and ages ( such as birth certificate, report card)--
Proof of Income ( bring all that apply on official letterhead, pay
stub, government assistance letter, separation from work notice, child
support letter, etc)


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$ 100.00
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Reviewed (8)
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Lunch (29)
Dinner (33)
Late Dinner (10)
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This sophisticated coffeehouse, located behind the Capitol Theater, is known for its relaxing atmosp...
A fun, casual, warm, and upbeat atmosphere featuring music, monitors, and NTN.
A coffee break with snacks.
Prime rib and lots of homemade entrees, plus a large vegetarian selection.
Funky eatery serving up tavern fare.
Bop on up to the fountain at this old-fashioned diner. Burgers and shakes to share.
WOW!! 4-lb. burger, 50-lb. burger. More than 40 tons of beef sold annually.
Enjoy one of the many breakfast specials offered at this classic greasy spoon.
Décor here is reminiscent of Chinatown. A lot of dragons and fans. Sweet and sour dishes are a speci...
(American, Irish, Tavern Fare)
"Downtown Windsor's only Irish Pub! Full menu featuring Irish and Canadian cuisine. DJs Thursdays an...
This "mini"-spot serves Vietnamese food at its best: a wonderful combination of contrasting textures...
"To enter Noi is to enter a dream for the appetite as well as the mind. If Alice in Wonderland felt ...
(American, Cajun-Creole, Caribbean)
"A warm and casually elegant restaurant with a sensational view of the Detroit skyline. The diverse,...
A cozy authentic Irish pub with dishes such as Guinness steak and mushroom crock, fish & chips, and...
Twenty years after opening as Chez Vins, a small, romantic French restaurant, proprietors Karen and ...
Cross the border to the heart of Windsor for authentic Ethiopian cuisine. Specializing in vegetarian...
This roadhouse specializes in tavern fare. The menu offers steaks, ribs and chicken. Play a game of ...
A vegetarian-friendly place featuring real tandoori cooking. Offering a daily lunch buffet.
A gathering place for family, friends and couples to enjoy a fabulous Italian dining experience. The...
Specialty cappuccinos. Located in the heart of Windsor's Little Italy. An Italian cafe where the loc...
Specializing in BBQ baby back ribs and chicken. Prime rib of beef. Fine dining. Entertainment on the...
Authentic Italian cuisine is highlighted by the surrounding neighborhood at this Windsor restaurant....
Vivo! Ristorante recently opened its doors in downtown Windsor. Your hosts, Chef Rino Bortolin (form...
The lunchtime specialty is dim sum: waitstaffers bring trays of dumplings, rolls, balls or potsticke...


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We would like to thank York County Councilmen Bruce Henderson and Michael Johnson for questioning the Convention and Visitors Bureau staff about its request to use $1.5 million from the county's hospitality tax reserve account to relocate the visitors center services to Riverwalk in Rock Hill.
While we support the CVB in its mission to promote the wonderful destinations of York County, we feel the money could be better spent meeting the needs of many of the 850 county residents in Lake Wylie, who in a online survey last year told county planners what improvements they'd like to see.
According to planner Dave Pettine some of the biggest weaknesses residents mention are not enough park or public spaces, a lack of recreational opportunities, and too few pedestrian/bicycle paths.
The idea, Pettine said, is to create "a desirable community to live, work and play" in for current and future generations.
"It's not to say that we don't already have a great community, but we just feel like we can do a better job," Pettine said while presenting results late last year.
Well here's an opportunity for York County Council to do just that. For 10 years, York County councilmen representing Lake Wylie, from Perry Johnston to Tom Smith and Henderson, along with many community members, have been working to establish a public park near Crowders Creek. About 50 acres have been deeded for the plans. Partnerships with businesses to help have been forged. But in order for it to happen, planners need York County support.
Why would the hospitality tax collected in unincorporated areas of York County pay for a visitor center in a municipality of Rock Hill, and not support project requests in unincorporated areas of York County?
Why are these park planners having to beg for financial backing?
Lake Wylie park planners shouldn't be having to beg for this money when the majority of this hospitality tax comes from the Lake Wylie, Fort Mill and Carowinds areas. The park, with multiple soccer and ball fields, could help keep games here, and the tourist dollars that come with them, instead of seeing them being played in other counties like Mecklenburg and Gaston when Rock Hill's fields are full.
According to the latest 2010 U.S. Census figures, the unincorporated area of York County called Lake Wylie saw a population spike of 189 percent from 3,061 residents in 2000 to 8,841. Fort Mill also is a hot spot of growth. Why wouldn't the county want to create destinations here?
While we love the River Walk, but we want recreational opportunities here, too. Yes, we have a lake, but unless you have a boat it's not of much use. Nanny's Mountain is a quick 45-minute trail, but with no restroom facilities it's not exactly drawing in tourism dollars. Again, York County loses out because nearby in Mecklenburg is McDowell Nature Preserve and Gastonia has several wonderful parks and trails.
Park planners say they envision a similar park to Martha Rivers Park in Gastonia. The 57.95 acres feature:
• four lighted soccer fields
• three lighted youth baseball fields
• one lighted youth softball field
• two batting cages, and a scorers' tower with a concessions stand and restrooms.
There are paved walking trails that loop around the outer edge of the baseball fields, playground and soccer fields with several adjoining crossovers to vary distance and geography. There are two large picnic shelters, a sand volleyball court, two horseshoe courts, and a restroom building.
The highlight for most children is the result of Operation Playground, a one-acre playground designed by children, and built by hundreds of community volunteers who were organized by a group of dedicated citizens using thousands of private fund donations, according to the website.
Chuck Dellinger of Gaston County Parks & Recreation Department said the total cost, excluding the playground, was about $5 million, not the more than $11 million quoted by the group consulted by the county. And, he said, yes, the tournaments held there "definitely has an economic impact on the area." Sports, he says, is an industry and "economic engine."
Dellinger said this park, like Cherry Park, were in concept for more than 10 years. "Everything is key to funding mechanisms and all the pieces have to come together."
Lake Wylie's amenities have not grown with it. Those unincorporated area tax dollars should help those unincorporated areas first. Rather than drawing residents or tourists from here to there, perhaps we could entice them to come here.


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MA-09: Update on Progressive Mac D'Alessandro vs. ConservaDem incumbent Stephen Lynch
by MassDemActivist, Sat May 08, 2010 at 11:45:12 AM EDT
The big news this past week out of MA-09 is that progressive challenger Mac D'Alessandro will make the Democratic primary ballot against anti-choice, anti-health care reform ConservaDem incumbent Stephen Lynch. He submitted 5,000 signatures to city and town clerks offices by the May 4 deadline. As long as at least 2,000 are certified valid (should be no problem with 5,000 submitted), Mac submits the 2,000+ certified valid signatures to the Secretary of State by June 1 and he'll give voters a choice against ConservaDem Lynch.
Mac took to YouTube to thank his grassroots supporters for their help making the signature drive a big success: Progressive Democrats across the country have reason to be active in this race. There were 34 House Democrats who ultimately opposed health care reform; and Lynch's vote was among the most perplexing:
Then there are the real head scratchers. Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY) and Stephen Lynch (D-MA) famously abandoned the reform push late in the game, after having voted for the House bill. Lynch, in particular, went on a very public crusade of opposition to the bill from the left, and cast his vote despite pleas from President Obama and AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka that he vote with the party.Of the 34 anti-health care reform Dems, some are running for other office (Senate or Gov), some are retiring, but most are running for re-election. Best I can tell though, few if any have serious primary challengers. MA-09 will provide progressive Democrats nationally with an opportunity to send a message to a ConservaDem who abandoned one of the Democratic Party's central pillars - expanding access to health care and moving toward truly making quality health care a right instead of a privilege.
That appears to be why Mac's campaign has found itself on MoveOn.org's radar screen as a viable primary challenger worthy of progressive support:
In the wake of Rep. Stephen Lynch's vote against health care reform, many progressives have expressed frustration with him—and now he's facing a serious primary challenge.So get in the game! Now that Mac has demonstrated grassroots strength through the impressively successful signature drive, he has to raise money - and ConservaDem Stephen Lynch starts off with a $1.3 million campaign war chest. So, please, please, please head over to Mac's ActBlue page and contribute as generously as you can!
Mac D'Alessandro is the New England Political Director for the progressive Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and he's pledging to "be on the side of consumers and workers, and not on the side of health insurance companies and big banks."
Here is some background on Mac, from his Facebook group:
Mac D'Alessandro of Milton, Massachusetts, has spent his career fighting on behalf of working families. For the past nine years, Mac has worked for the Service Employees International Union, most recently as New England Political Director. Prior to working for the SEIU, Mac worked for Greater Boston Legal Services, directing legislative efforts to help families combat poverty. Mac earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Human Ecology and Environmental Policy from Rutgers University and his Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School. Mac, 40, is married to Jennie Mulqueen, an early childhood arts educator, and is the proud father of five-year-old Sophie and three-year-old Atticus.


text: HOUSTON -– A young man was taken into custody early Wednesday following a chase in southwest Houston, but the search for his three accomplices continued. It was just after 4 a.m. when officers started chasing four male suspects on foot in a neighborhood near W. Orem Drive and Buffalo Speedway. Officers with the Houston Police Department said they lost sight of the suspects and later heard gunshots in the distance.


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Trevor Butterworth, Contributor
I write about reason, risk, and regulation.
Last May, Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer-winning science writer and a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin, published a column pleading with the New York Times' opinion columnist Nick Kristof to stop writing about chemical risk:
"…if we, as journalists, are going to demand meticulous standards for the study and oversight of chemical compounds then we should try to be meticulous ourselves in making the case. And much as I would like it to be otherwise, I don't see enough of that in Kristof's chemical columns. They tend instead to be sloppy in their use of language, less than thorough, and chemophobic enough to undermine his legitimate points."
Blum's column got a lot of positive coverage, with many commenters further "fisking" Kristof's apocalyptic claims and the politics behind them. It made, alas, not a blind bit of difference. At the bookend of summer, Kristof is at it again, beating his favorite chemical conspiracy theory – "Big Chem" is preventing the Federal Government from protecting Americans from dangerous, endocrine disrupting chemicals. Growing numbers of scientists are increasingly concerned and so on and so forth.
But even though Kristof claims to be reading the "peer-reviewed" research, it appears that he only reads that produced by a very, very small group of scientists – all on the farthest reaches of the environmental left. He applies no statistical or experimental criticism to these studies: they always "really" find what they claim to have found; and he seems unaware of the many non-industry funded studies or regulatory agency assessments that contradict them. There is no mention, for instance, of the 15-page point-by-point rebuttal written by the Food and Drug Administration to the Natural Resources Defense Council's petition to ban BPA, a rebuttal which relies, primarily, on non-industry funded research.
Moreover, readers of Kristof would have no idea that the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) is presiding over a $30-million dollar evaluation of BPA, which will result in, arguably, one of the most comprehensive characterizations of the properties and the pharmacokinetics of any chemical in the history of mankind. (This is on top of the millions spent by the FDA and EPA). The NCTR is doing so in conjunction with all the federal agencies, including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which has funded much of the "BPA is dangerous" research in the past.
Notably, the scientists who conducted this controversial research (controversial because other regulatory agencies in the US and around the world couldn't replicate it) now have to repeat their experiments according to higher standards of reporting, statistical power, and experimental control. The studies are also being blinded so the researchers won't know whether the lab animals they are analyzing are from the control or dose group, and the final results will be interpreted by the NCTR. Results will begin to trickle out soon.
Asking for proof of replication is not a devious, anti-science tactic on the part of what Kristof call's "Big Chem;" it is the only way to establish validity in science. Remember – according to the much-cited work of medical mathematician John Ionnaidis, the probability that most basic research findings are wrong is surprisingly high.
I have interviewed many scientists who work with regulatory agencies around the world on BPA and other chemical issues. There is a consensus that the cluelessness of journalists like Kristof has not just wildly distorted the actual scientific evidence on BPA, it is contributing to a more general and broader assault on scientific integrity.
The outcome of this will be terrible: regulation by politics - and not by a disinterested enthusiasm for best experimental methods and the best data. This, of course, would suit Kristof's sources just fine, because the kind of science they are doing doesn't have anywhere close to the funding priorities, say, of cancer or AIDS. But the more alarming the message that they can put out about the low dose risks of chemicals, the more funding from the dwindling federal pot of research money they are likely to pull in, thus keeping them in academic employment. Unfortunately, an academic conflict of interest doesn't make as good a media conspiracy story as that of "Big Chem."
The point is that we need good regulation. We need quantified risk – not hypothetical risk. We need agencies that pursue the best possible scientific research without fear of unemployment or favor to industry or politics. Which is why Kristof's ongoing, studied refusal to talk to the FDA on BPA is unconscionably bad opinion journalism. It is doing to the agency for Democrats what right-wing criticism is doing to the Environmental Protection Agency for Republicans: stripping both of scientific legitimacy. The public needs to know what the FDA is doing, because it is doing a lot and doing it well. And for evidence of that,don't just take it from me, take it from NPR.
Closer to the truth is always better than farther from the truth. I'll be happy to teach you community college logic — when you get to senior level rhetoric, I can teach you that, too.
We use a lot of nasty chemicals, and we should pay attention to whether they leach into our foods and drink, especially whether it gets into our children who are most vulnerable to diseases caused by chemicals.
In the case of BP-A, health care agencies have been unwilling to say that our usual very conservative exposure standards are careful enough in the case of BPA, because the stuff keeps showing up in worrisome concentrations in the urine of children.
Actually, this is par for the course for Kristoff.
Overall, this article is well written. I find the authors assumption that Mr. Kristof can understand the ins and outs of a scientific article rather laughable. I do not doubt Mr. Kristof's intelligence, nor of any other reader or journalist for that matter. But there is a reason why these articles of research are published in specialized journals: the content is so highly specialized that it requires years of scientific training to get an honest grasp. I am a scientist, holding a PhD degree. There is no way I would venture trying to really understand a field that is as foreign to me as learning another language, despite years of training. Regarding the replicability of scientific experiments, what the author implies based on Mr. Ionnaidis' work is at the very least misguided, and certainly misleading non-specialists into thinking that science is a story of flukes. This is non-sense. The ability to replicate an observation is at the core of basic science research. We understand how cells divide, how they grow, of their DNA is replicated. Mr. Ionnaidis claims are for the most part focused on medical research articles (read research done on patients). This leaves basic science off of the table. On a side note, what leads you to believe the Mr. Ionnaidis is right? He is a scientist after all …
I think that what is being observed here here is just a small part of a larger issue. I am a published researcher who has been watching both the scientific literature and news publications for over 30 years. What I have found is that there is a large community out there who come up with wildly inaccurate and even stupid ideas that they think is based in science and is not. A classic example is Jenny McCarthy's attack on vaccinations. Where the problem occurs is that the press and news stations allow this nonsense to be released. This problem will only be fixed when news magazines, news shows and others vet the information before releasing it. Instead, publishers like to focus on controversy and we end up in situations where, for example, we have families not providing immunizations for their children – sometimes with tragic consequences. Until these news organizations take responsibility and vet the information before they publish it, they are the ones who are really responsible for scientific illiteracy and the fostering of stupid and sometimes dangerous ideas that are not suppported by legitimate science.
Just another example that the left in our country doesn't care about science. Certainly not real science. What they care about is using science to further their extreme left wing agenda. The moment the real science doesn't support them they ignore it or attack it.
I would remind all that the propensity of any society to employ, much less develop, lifesaving technology is directly depending on the wealth of that society.
When we attack business, industry and wealth we attack this country's ability to progress, and while that devastation is hard to see or measure in human terms, it certainly exists.
We are never going to get away from politicized science until we get to the root of it: conflicts over values, regarding which facts are irrelevant. We ought to see that many if not most of the science-deniers are, on the Left, comfortable people who wish for zero risk, by any means, and on the Right, uncomfortable people who want to roll back history. Let's call them on it!


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Russell Hobbs 14583 Gizmo Jar Opener
- Was
- Was £19.00
- Now
- Now £14.00
- Save £5.00
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9 reviews
- Delivery
- Next day delivery available
Opens jars effortlessly. Collapsible for easy storage. No strength required. Opens virtually any size jar.
Replacement Guarantee available:
4 Year Protection £11.00
Russell Hobbs 20520 Madison Toaster
- Was
- Was £39.00
- Now
- Now £19.00
- Save £20.00
- In Stock
3 reviews
- Delivery
- Next day delivery available
Get your day off to a flying start with the Russell Hobbs 20520 Madison Toaster.
Whether it's brad, muffins, crumpets or any other delicious food, it boasts boasts a range of useful features designed to take the hassle out of toasting.
Variable browning control on this 2-slice toaster gives you total control, from lightly browned to nice and crispy.
The defrost setting lets you quickly and easily thaw bread when you want to make a sandwich, while the re-heat function lets you warm your food when its gone cold. If you want to cut your toasting short just press the cancel button.
There's a removable crumb tray for easy cleaning, while its black finish with silver detailing makes it a stylish addition to your kitchen.
Complete the look in your kitchen with the Russell Hobbs Madison Kettle (see item number 49WH7).
Useful info:
- Russell Hobbs 20520 Madison Toaster
- 2 slice
- Frozen bread function
- Cancel function
- Re-heat function
- Removable crumb tray
- Variable browning control
- Cord storage
- Gloss black finish with silver
Replacement Guarantee available:
3 Year Protection £11.00
Russell Hobbs 18579 Stylis Kettle
- Was
- Was £49.00
- Now
- Now £24.00
- Save £25.00
- In Stock
187 reviews
- Delivery
- Next day delivery available
Give your kitchen some design heat with the Russell Hobbs 18579 Stylis kettle.
With its Red and Black design, illuminated water window and 360° base, it brings a sense of style to every cuppa you make!
A large 1.7kg capacity means this is also the perfect kettle to help out when you're cooking with large pans to feed the whole family.
This Russell Hobbs kettle features a concealed 3kW element for rapid boiling and a removable limescale filter that ensures your hot drinks taste as good as possible.
Useful info:
- 1.7-litre capacity
- 3kW
- 360° base
- Illuminated water window
- Removable, washable filter
- Russell Hobbs 18579 Stylis kettle
Replacement Guarantee available:
4 Year Protection £11.00
Russell Hobbs 18580 Stylis 2-Slice Toaster
- Was
- Was £49.00
- Now
- Now £24.00
- Save £25.00
- In Stock
33 reviews
- Delivery
- Next day delivery available
Start the day in style with the Russell Hobbs Stylis 18580 toaster.
Using the grill usually ends up in blackened bread and scorched fingers, so make life easy on yourself with this stylish, simple to use toaster.
A high lift pop-up feature is perfect for hot cross buns, crumpets and bread from smaller loaves. A pull-out crumb tray takes the hassle out of keeping your Russell Hobbs toaster clean.
Why not coordinate your kitchen with the matching Russell Hobbs Stylis kettle - see catalogue number 2426H.
Useful info:
- 2 toasting slots
- Defrost, reheat and cancel settings
- Variable browning control
- Pull-out crumb tray
- High-lift facility
- Colour: Red
- Russell Hobbs Stylis 18580 toaster


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State Victim Assistance Academy (SVAA) Initiative Competitive Solicitation
Funding Source:
Office for Victims of Crime
Monday, May 13, 2013
$210 000
Number of Awards Available:
Award Ceiling:
35 000
state governments and institutions of higher education
his grant opportunity offers up to six first-year awards of $35,000 for the development of State Victim Assistance Academies (SVAA) that will provide comprehensive, academically based, fundamental education and training for victim assistance providers, victim advocates, criminal justice personnel, and allied professionals who routinely work with victims of crime. Applicants must demonstrate a commitment from the state Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) victim assistance and compensation program offices to help develop the Academy.
Learn more.
said on 04/12/2011
said on 04/12/2011
said on 04/11/2011
posted on 07/30/2014
posted on 07/29/2014
08/07/2014 - 8:00am
08/07/2014 - 1:30pm