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A method of and apparatus for efficiently communicating between a provider of video on demand services and a cable television subscriber. The communication is implemented using a message protocol specifically optimized to communicate between a multimedia application server and a set top subscriber box. The message format includes unique identifiers for addressing and synchronization to permit the multimedia application server to manage the communication process.
1. An apparatus for delivering video on demand programming from a multimedia application server having a first hardware and software architecture optimized to provide a low cost approach to a wide and highly expandable variety of functions to a set top subscriber box comprising:
a. a temporary memory responsively coupled to said multimedia application server into which said multimedia application server spools a selected video program;
b. a plurality of video servers each having a second hardware and software architecture optimized to handle high input/output rates which is different from said first hardware architecture responsively coupled to said temporary memory wherein one of said plurality of video servers selected by said multimedia application server streams said video program from said temporary memory;
c. a network responsively coupled to said video server which delivers said video program as streamed by said video server to said set top subscriber box;
d. a separate administrative message path responsively coupled to said set top subscriber box and said multimedia application server; and
e. a message generated by said set top subscriber box and transferred from said set top subscriber box to said multimedia application server via said separate administrative message path, wherein said message further comprises a message length field located within said message which indicates a length for said message, and a message sequence number which identifies said message within a plurality of messages,
f. a response message generated by said multimedia application server in response to receipt of said message and transferred via separate administrative path to said set top subscriber box.
2. An apparatus according to
This application is related to commonly assigned and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/304,907, filed May 4, 1999 and entitled "Video on Demand Transaction Server"; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/304,906, filed May 4, 1999, and entitled "Video Server"; all of which are incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to digital data transmission of video information and more particularly to the delivery of user selected video information to subscribing users.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The mass distribution of video programming signals (i.e., television) was originally accomplished primarily by the broadcasting of a very high frequency (i.e., VHF) carrier containing an amplitude modulated video signal and a frequency modulated audio signal. Through the addition of more broadcasting transmitters, a modest number of different programming signals could be simultaneously distributed to a large number of potential users with a modest capital commitment. Using this technique, the capital commitment increases almost linearly with number of different programming channels within the limits of the available spectrum space for separate and independent carriers.
Within a couple of decades, most of the scarce VHF spectrum space had been committed, and increasing demand for additional programming channels resulted in the allocation of spectrum space in the ultra-high frequency (i.e., UHF) region. Whereas virtually all receivers became UHF compatible, as a matter of policy, and UHF channels were assigned to requesters, it was appreciated that there were no economies of scale through the addition of more broadcast programming channels.
The cable television channel era was the result, wherein a capital commitment was required to wire each user home within a service area. As a result, about one hundred separate programming channels became readily available at a lesser cost than providing the same number of channels using conventional broadcast means. Initially, cable television was simply an analog system in which low power modulated carriers were transferred over a coaxial cable rather than being broadcast into the ether at substantially higher power levels. The cost saving was realized because the broadcasting was accomplished at substantially lower power.
With approximately one hundred different programming channels, it is typical to charge cable service user fees in accordance with a hierarchy of programming channels. The least expensive channels tend to be the preexisting broadcast channels and those cable channels supported primarily by advertisers which are intended for the most general audiences. The subscriber fees to access other channels increase as the programming becomes more specialized, advertising revenue becomes less likely to pay the programming costs, and the programming materials tend to have substantial economic value through other distribution channels. The so-called "premium channels" which show current and/or near current movies without advertising are typical of the higher cost programming options.
Most commercial cable television providers package the various programming channels into programming channel groups with different prices such that a given user can select a suitable programming package and pay the equivalent fee. Typically, a cable provider box, which couples the user television receiver to the coaxial cable source, is controlled by the cable television provider to give access to a given user to only those channels for which the appropriate subscriber fee has been paid.
The most expensive cable television channels currently available are "pay-per-view" or PPV. With the PPV concept, a given user can subscribe to a given programming channel for a single individual program of up to several hours for a separate subscriber fee. Typically, PPV channels provide sporting events and almost current movies.
Perhaps the major disadvantage of the PPV concept as currently implemented, is that the programming is provided in the "broadcast" mode. That means that the programming begins and runs on a predefined schedule. As a result, programming is missed if the user receives a telephone call, for example, during the viewing. Furthermore, it ordinarily requires the user to allocate viewing time to coincide with the predefined schedule. To overcome this disadvantage, many users rent video programs as video cassette recordings (i.e., VCR) from commercial stores which provide such a rental service. This permits the viewer to watch the program in accordance with her/his own schedule, stop the program during interruptions, and replay portions of the program which may not be readily understood. The primary disadvantage of the VCR rental approach is the need to physically go to the rental store to obtain the program and return to the rental store to return the recording.
With the capital commitment for cable television in place, their appear to be substantial new uses for the basic coaxial pathway. Such uses include, telephone, computer modem, facsimile, and video conferencing. To properly coordinate such diverse information transmission activities, attention is being directed to digital transmission schemes which provide for easier management of the distribution resources. U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,355, issued to Dail et al., discusses the handling of a number of diverse information transmissions within a single system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,265, issued to Gupta et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,773, issued to Ozden et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,017, issued to Gupta et al., all discuss multi-media distribution systems. U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,244, issued to Gupta et al., is directed to multimedia distribution to residential users.
The digitization of video results in a great deal of data which must be transferred at a high rate to yield acceptable performance and resolution. By current standards, 3 mbits/sec. is considered to be a very acceptable rate. Such high data rates require systems which can provide high data rate transmission. U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,543, issued to Ozden et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,362, issued to Makam, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,110, issued to Ozden et al., all concern themselves with high data rate retrieval and transmission. U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,573, issued to Karol et al., discusses the management of high data rate bandwidths.
In addition to retrieval and transmission of the required high data rates, there is also the need to provide high speed switching for switching as between data sources and destinations. U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,704, issued to Kostic et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,176, issued to Gupta et al., discuss high speed digital switching systems.
Whether it is data storage and retrieval, data transmission, or data switching, the fundamental technological problem associated with digital video results from the sheer volume of digitized video data and the tremendous rate at which it must be provided to the ultimate user for satisfactory performance. One technique for reduction of the volume problem is in reducing the resolution (and hence the volume of data) for those applications for which such reduction is acceptable. U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,308 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,768, both issued to Civanlar et al., directly address the handling of multiple resolution digitized video signals within a single system.
Notwithstanding attempts to reduce the resolutions to the lowest acceptable levels, the total data volume of any commercially useful system will remain high. The most common way to treat extremely high data volumes is through data compression. U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,829, issued to Chen et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,742,343, issued to Haskell et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,256, issued to Haskell et al., are concerned with digital compression techniques. Specific attention to compression of digitized video is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,803, issued to Jacquin et al. Compression of 3-dimensional images is treated by U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,735, issued to Haskell et al.
The evolving techniques of digitized video transmission have resulted in a transmission standard, called Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,841, issued to Haskell et al., describes data transmission using the ATM standard. An ATM converter is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,022, issued to Byers et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,349, issued to Cloonan et al., suggests an approach to packet switching within an ATM system. An ATM architecture is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,781,320, issued to Byers. Interfacing to ATM systems is addressed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,111, issued to Byers.
A solution to the PPV problems noted above utilizing digitized video has been termed, Video on Demand (or VOD). In a VOD system, digitized video programming is made available to individual cable television subscribers in response to specific requests made by the user. U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,155, issued to Williams, describes the use of VOD for a very specialized application. Sea Change, International, has proposed a VOD approach for cable television subscribers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,561, issued to Baker et al., assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference, discloses and teaches a complete, modern VOD system employing a centralized architecture utilizing an enterprise server developed by Unisys Corporation.
To fully utilize VOD for commercially useful subscriber levels, substantial administrative message traffic is required between the subscribers and the central controlling site(s). For current PPV, this typically takes the form of telephone communication with the subscriber. This is acceptable for PPV only because the total programming selections and timing are so limited. However, VOD on demand so increases the options available to the subscriber, such manual attention is impractical.
The present invention overcomes many of the disadvantages found within the prior art by providing a video on demand system which separates the tasks of supplying video to subscribers from the tasks associated with managing the subscriber interface. The subscriber message interfaces can thus be automated such that most administrative matters are easily handled without operator attention. A message protocol is provided which enables the system to properly sequence and manage the message traffic.
The key to this approach is to provide an architecture in which the necessary functions are divided into two separate portions. A first hardware and software subsystem, called a video server, is specifically dedicated to retrieving and transmitting the stream of video information. Virtually no other functions are performed by the video server. A second hardware and software subsystem, called the transaction server, handles virtually all other functions including control interface with the subscribers, digitized video data storage, subscriber accounting, etc. In accordance with the present invention, the transaction server automatically manages message traffic with the subscribers using the preferred protocol.
The video server has two primary design criteria. First, it must be highly optimized to handle the extremely high input/output data rates. In essence, this is the sole function of the video server, and therefore, the design of the video server hardware and software are most directed towards this characteristic. Because the role of the video subsystem is simplified and single dimensional, video subsystems utilizing current technology can be produced at a surprisingly low cost.
The second major design criterion of the video server subsystem involves modularity. The addition of active subscribers, each viewing individual video programs (or the same program at different times), tends to increase the total input/output load of the video server subsystem linearly. Therefore, there is great economic incentive to design the video server subsystem in such a manner that the hardware resources to implement the video subsystem may be linearly increased in relatively small (and inexpensive) increments. In the preferred mode of the present invention, the video server subsystem consists of one or more input/output data rate optimized, industry compatible computers operating under a readily available, commercial operating system, such as Windows NT. Using 3 mbits/second per video stream as a standard, each such device can effectively service thousands of different and independent video streams. Within each video server, storage can be added to handle more video programs and communication interfaces can be added to provide more video streams. Therefore, the same design architecture and components are suitable for a wide range of system sizes, and the capital cost to the video programming supplier can be readily determined as further subscribers are added to the system.
Unlike the video server subsystem which is optimized to provide a low cost, highly modular approach to a single function, the transaction server is optimized to provide a low cost approach to a wide and highly expandable variety of functions. In fact, all of the functions of the video on demand system, except for the video streaming function performed by the video server, are accomplished by the transaction server. Typical tasks include: transactional interface with the subscribers, subscriber fee accounting, requested program storage, video server subsystem control, receiving video from a satellite and storing it in an archive, etc. Thus, the ideal hardware/software platform for implementation of the transaction server is a readily expandable, highly flexible, high availability, highly recoverable, realtime oriented mainframe system. In the preferred mode of the present invention, the Unisys 2200 is used to host the transaction server.
In accordance with the present invention, a subscribing user transfers a programming request to the transaction server. The transaction server makes the required subscriber accounting entry and notifies the corresponding preloaded video server platform of the new subscriber request. If the asset is not preloaded, in addition to the subscriber accounting, the transaction server must access the request video program and spool it for the video server. Depending upon the rate of use of the requested video program, the data might be stored in memory (for high volume use), on a disk or other mass storage device (for medium volume use), or in some other medium (for low volume use).
In the preferred mode of the present invention, the user is permitted to pause, reverse, or fast forward the requested video program though commands entered from the set top subscriber box. These functions are intended to appear similar to normal VCR commands to the user. These commands are sent to the transaction server which utilizes them to control the corresponding video stream output of the video server subsystem. Thus the user is provided with all of the advantages of VCR rental without the need to physically transport the medium (i.e., cassette tape) back and forth between the rental store and the user site.
In view of the power and flexibility of the transaction server, other diverse but somewhat related functions may be provided. For example, a user might order a pizza delivery via the set top subscriber box to transaction server interface, or the user might access the internet, e-mail, or faxes via the transaction server. If this interface is implemented over a readily available, publically accessible, network, such as the internet, many additional functions are possible.
As can be readily appreciated, the volume of message traffic between the subscribers and the transaction server can become substantial in order to implement these functions. Furthermore, it is necessary for the transaction server to manage these message, because the set top subscriber box at the subscriber site is typically a rather "dumb" device having limited or no programmability. The preferred embodiment of the present invention employs the basic UDP protocol for data transfers between the set top subscriber box and the transaction server. However, in order to properly manage the large number of messages, each is tagged with a sequence number and set top subscriber box address. These messages also contain a function code which identifies the basic content of the message and indicates whether a particular message needs to be acknowledged.
Other objects of the present invention and many of the attendant advantages of the present invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals designate like parts throughout the figures thereof and wherein:
In many respects, set top subscriber box 32 is similar to the set top subscriber boxes utilized with existing cable television systems with the slight functional differences described in more detail below. The basic reason for these slight differences is to permit a subscribing user to communicate with transaction server 12 in a two directional manner. Not only does set top subscriber box 32 receive video programming data via coaxial cable 30 and present it to television receiver 34, but set top subscriber box 32 is capable of transferring user requests via coaxial cable 30 and network 26 to transaction server 12 via path 28. The most important requests in accordance with the present invention are those which initiate and control the individualized video on demand programming.
When the user is interested in viewing a particular video program, a request is made from set top subscriber box 32 and transferred to transaction server 12 via coaxial cable 30, network 26, and path 28. Transaction server 12, a Unisys 2200 system in the preferred embodiment, is provided access to video programming information from satellite receiver 14, from analog video storage 16 and digital mass storage 18. In each instance, the video programming data is either received in digital form or converted to digital form. According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the MPEG-2 standardized format is utilized.
Whenever a request is received, transaction server 12 checks various security parameters, makes appropriate subscriber billing entries, and generally performs all of the necessary administrative functions as described below in greater detail. Additionally, transaction server 12 stores digital video data for transmission by the video server assigned to the requesting subscriber. One of video server platforms 20, 22 . . . , or 24 is assigned the task by transaction server 12 and the stored digital video data is supplied via the digital data bus shown. In the preferred mode of the present invention, each video server platform is a separate industry compatible, Windows NT based, computer platform. Once transferred to the selected video server, the requested video programming is transmitted via network 26 and coaxial cable 30 to set top subscriber box 32 and television receiver 34.
Individual storage disks 48, 50, . . . , and 52 each store a number of video programs in MPEG-2 format. As requested, this data is transferred via storage bus 46 through disk control 42 through I/O bus 38 and placed in memory as program file 55 via path 40. A software program spools the data to the ATM interface 54 at the required speed.
If a program is a high volume program, it is preferably stored in auxiliary memory 56. Upon request, software residing in memory 36 directs the storing of data from auxiliary memory 56 and transferring it via path 40 and I/O bus 38 to ATM interface 54. It should be noted that this is significantly more efficient than the storing operation shown in
First time slot 60 provides the first minute of video programming to one or more requesters. During one minute time slot 62, the initial requesters receive the second minute of programming, and one or more requesters may be starting with the first minute of programming. At the nth time slot 64, the initial requesters are viewing the nth minute of programming, the second group of requesters is viewing the n−1 minute of programming, and the nth group of requesters is viewing the first minute of programming. At final time slot 66, the initial requesters are viewing the final minute of programming, the second group of requesters is viewing the second to last minute of programming, and a new group of requesters is viewing the initial minute of programming.
The reduction in total data requirements utilizing these one minute time slots is substantial. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,561, issued to Baker et al., incorporated herein by reference, discusses this feature in greater detail. The total delay to a requester is no more than one minute and will average one half minute, making the process perfectly acceptable and barely noticeable to the subscribers.
Instruction processors 102, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, and 116 communicate with main memories 86, 88, 90, and 92 via crossbar interconnects 94, 96, 98, and 100. Each instruction processor may be coupled with up to four third-level caches, as shown. Direct Input/Output bridges 118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128, 130, and 132 each handle video output functions. Each of the direct Input/Output bridges may be partitioned into separate partitions as shown. Additional description of partitioning may be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/779,472, filed Jan. 7, 1997, commonly assigned to the present invention and incorporated herein by reference.
The transaction server may be utilized to interface with the internet. The selected hardware and software system selected for the preferred mode provide internet server facilities in a commercially usable form. Video server session management module 146 provides the detailed functions (e.g., spooling of digital video programming) associated with the primary video on demand service. These control functions are directly interfaced to the video server subsystem via video server interface 150.
Event logging module 154 journals the functions performed. This log is made available to digital network control services 152. Media directory services and asset management module 162 provides long term control and asset management. Historical storage of these data is performed by asset storage management and asset capture.
In performing the actual video on demand service, the appropriate requested digitized video program is accessed from databases 160. It is spooled by asset delivery, video streaming module 158. The transfer is made via video server interface 156 (see also
Multimedia Application Server 172 interfaces with all other major system elements via path 182. ATM channel adapter 192 provides the link using the ATM protocol to interface 194 and ATM network 200.
ATM interfaces include path 196 to router 198 which communicates with workstations 204 via radio frequency path 202. Router 212, coupled via path 208, also interfaces to Local Area Network (LAN) and to workstations 218 and 220 via stubs 214 and 216, respectively. ATM 200 is also coupled directly to individual set top 228 via path 210 and to VODA 222 for streaming video along path 224 to QAM modulator 230, which supplies video to set top 228.
Within Multimedia Application Server 232 (and corresponding MAS 266) are found the Multimedia Application Server core software 240 (and corresponding core software 274) which communicates via middleware 242 (and middleware 276). Communication is with Relational Database 234 (268) via path 238 (272), and Message Retention Services 256 (280) via path 254 (278). CPCOMM 252 (282) and ATP 250 (286) communicate directly with Video Server Frame and Stream Spooling 236 (270) via path 248 (284). Similarly, communication is had maintained with FTP 246 (290) via path 244 (288).
Multimedia Application Server 310 receives messages directly from set top subscriber box 322 via path 312. It transfers messages to set top subscriber box 322 through path 314 to Sonnet Ring 316 to Hub 318 and then through cable 320. This path also provides the video for display on television receiver 324.
Field 330 is designated Set Top Command and Control Protocol (STCCPL). It is a four byte integer which specifies the length in bytes of variable length field 342. Field 332 is a four byte integer which provides the sequence number. This sequence number permits the Multimedia Application Server and set top subscriber box to synchronize message traffic by establishing the order in which messages have been generated. The sequence number is created by incrementing the sequence number of the previous message. For those messages which must be acknowledged (see below), the sequence number permits coordinating messages and acknowledgments.
The basic function code is specified in the four byte integer of field 334. These function codes are defined in more detail below. The Multimedia Application Server defines a unique four byte integer which is inserted into field 336. This is defined as the Connection ID. Field 338 provides for the entry of eight one byte integers. In the preferred embodiment, only the first five integers are used to uniquely address one set top subscriber box within a network. The remaining three one byte integers are left blank.
Field 340 is the packet type. It is specified as a four byte integer. The packet type is undefined for messages sent from a set top subscriber box to the Multimedia Application Server. For every message the Multimedia Application Server receives, it sends a response back to the set top subscriber box containing the STCCP output. This packet type is given the value of 1. An unsolicited administrative message sent from the Multimedia Application Server to the set top subscriber box which does not require an acknowledgment is defined as packet type 2. A similar message requiring an acknowledgment is defined as packet type 3.
Variable length field 342 may be from 0 to 952 bytes in length. The length is specified by field 330. This provides great flexibility in creating new and unique messages for specific occasions.
Messages sent from the Multimedia Application Server to one or more set top subscriber boxes are assigned the function code of 2. A message having a function code of 3 notifies the Multimedia Application Server that the corresponding set top subscriber box has been powered down.
The set top subscriber box acknowledges messages from the Multimedia Application Server using a function code of 4. Reinitialization of a set top subscriber box is identified by a function code of 5.
Having thus describe the preferred embodiments in detail, those of skill in the art will be readily able to use the teachings found herein to make and use yet other embodiments within the scope of the claims appended hereto.
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If Beckham has to move to 2B or 3B, that's fine if his bat is for real (power to all fields, great eye at the plate, good bat speed, level swing, has done well in wood bat leagues). It's one of the reasons you draft a SS with a quality bat, he doesn't have to be a SS in the final analysis. Plus, Beckham's bat at this juncture is an order of magnitude better than Valaika or Hill's were heading into their drafts. He's got a 1.305 OPS. That's just insane production.
I'm with you on Beckham being the only high schooler of interest where the Reds will be picking. I'm hoping Hosmer and Skipworth go higher just to increase the pool of players I'd like the Reds to be selecting from.


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In response to the controversy, Cerf and Kahn argued that, "We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. Gore would later poke fun at the controversy on the The Late Show with David Letterman when he read Letterman's Top 10 List, which for this show was called, "Top Ten Rejected Gore - Lieberman Campaign Slogans." Number nine on the list was: "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away! A few years later, on 06 June 2005, Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at the Webby Awards.
Gore's daughter, Karenna, together with her father's former Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones, officially nominated Gore as the Democratic presidential candidate during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Gore accepted his party's nomination and spoke about the major themes of his campaign, stating in particular his plan to extend Medicare to pay for prescription drugs, to work for a sensible universal health-care system.
On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well. Florida Secretary of State Republican Katherine Harris eventually certified the Florida count. This led to the Florida election recount, a move to further examine the Florida results.The Florida recount was stopped a few weeks later by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the ruling, Bush v. Gore, the Florida recount was called unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. This 7-2 vote ruled that the standards the Florida Supreme Court provided for a recount as unconstitutional due to violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and further ruled 5-4 that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline. This case ordered an end to recounting underway in selected Florida counties, effectively giving George W. Bush a 534 vote victory in Florida and consequently Florida's 25 electoral votes and the presidency. The results of the decision led to Gore winning the popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes nationwide, but receiving 266 electoral votes(1 DC Elector abstained) to Bush's 271 . Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but said "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
In the introduction to his global warming presentation, Gore later jokingly introduced himself as "the former next President of the United States". Gore became the fourth candidate in American history to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote.
Another theory, is Al Gore attempted to run a populist campaign but failed to separate himself from the abuses of the Clinton presidency. The public was not able to forget the Campaign fund raising controversy at the Hsi Lai Temple


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About Schools in Oak Grove, TX
Contact a Coldwell Banker® real estate agent to learn more about the schools and school districts in Oak Grove, TX.FIND AN AGENT
Oak Grove, Texas is located in Kaufman County. Nearby cities and towns include Kaufman, Scurry, Grays Prairie, Cottonwood, Post Oak Bend City, Kemp, Oak Ridge, Rosser, Crandall, Talty, Combine, Terrell, Seven Points, Bristol, Seagoville, Mabank, Elmo, Forney, Gun Barrel City, Tool, Ferris, Travis Ranch, Payne Springs, Balch Springs, Wilmer, Wills Point, Alma, Enchanted Oaks, Palmer, McLendon-Chisholm, Garrett, Rice, Sunnyvale, Mesquite, Myrtle Springs, Heath, Eustace, and Hutchins. Oak Grove is a rural community with a population of 640. The median household income is $65,499. In Oak Grove, 62% of residents are married, and families with children reside in 30% of the households. Half the population of Oak Grove commutes 32 minutes or less to work, with 61% of residents holding white collar jobs and 39% residents holding blue collar jobs. The median age of homes in Oak Grove, TX is 14 years, with 70% of those homes owned, 24% rented, and 6% not occupied. In the previous year, 10 Oak Grove properties were sold. The median sale price of a home in Oak Grove in the previous year was $135,187.
Contact a Coldwell Banker® real estate agent to learn more about the schools and school districts in Oak Grove, TX.FIND AN AGENT
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Glen Argan
As the years go by, it gets increasingly difficult to detect without research some of the shifts in thinking that occur in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. They have been part of us for so long and, indeed, a majority of today's Catholics have no recollection of the Church prior to the council.
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The fathers of the Second Vatican Council were prescient in their decision to write a document on the Church's relation to non-Christian religions (Nostra Aetate). The trends of mass immigration and the expansion of mass communications were likely not foreseeable 50 years ago, and they have brought Christians in many parts of the Western world into close contact with people of other faiths.
Religion is based on sacrifice. The problem that religion faces is that even the greatest sacrifice offered by a finite person cannot hope to bring one into the presence of the infinite God.
Father Raymond de Souza in last week's WCR chose to criticize the exuberance of Phil Fontaine, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, who saw the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha as a step towards the reconciliation of Canada's aboriginal peoples with the Catholic Church.
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was the first document approved at the Second Vatican Council. Unlike the council's other major documents, it sailed through the approval process fairly readily, although a tiny but vocal minority at first raised strenuous objections.
To some, it might seem odd that Pope Benedict has inaugurated a Year of Faith, a "year" that began Oct. 11 and will end Nov. 24, 2013, the feast of Christ the King. "Why would one need a year of faith?" one might ask. "Either you have faith or you don't."
Patriarch Maximos Saigh, head of the Melkite rite in Antioch, made his introduction to the Second Vatican Council by breaking a rule. Instead of speaking Latin as the rules required, the patriarch spoke unapologetically in French.
The federal government should restore the $1.3 million in funding that it hopes to save by eliminating part-time chaplains from the federal prison system. The most noxious aspect of this particular funding cut is that it will mean an end to almost all non-Christian chaplains who work to meet the spiritual needs of inmates in federal prisons.
All of the preliminaries were now over and the Second Vatican Council got down to business. But what business would that be? Of the 70 schema (proposed documents), the council fathers had seen only seven. Of those seven, by far the most important were those on divine revelation and on the liturgy.
MP Stephen Woodworth did what many thought was impossible – he put the issue of abortion back on the political front burner in Canada. By trying to establish a parliamentary committee that would look at medical and other evidence of whether the unborn child is human, he made the rights of the unborn a topic of discussion across Canada.


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Ralph Lauren takes an extra 30% off sale items, already marked up to 55% off, via coupon code "RLMEM15" as part of its Memorial Day Sale. Shipping adds $5 (choose "Economy" during checkout), or bag free shipping on orders of $125 or more via coupon code "FREESHIP125".
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American Eagle Outfitters takes an extra 40% off its men's and women's clearance items, already marked up to 50% off. (Discount applies in-cart.) Even better, all orders qualify for free shipping. Some exclusions apply.
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Oakley Vault offers its Oakley Packable Lightweight Backpack in Jet Black or Sulphur for $14.99 plus $3.50 for shipping. This model can pack into its integral pocket for easier carrying.
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Ralph Lauren offers its Polo Ralph Lauren Men's Canvas Beore Sneakers in five colors for $31.49 via coupon code "RLMEM15" with $5 for shipping (select "economy" at checkout). They're available in sizes 7 to 15.
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Lenovo cuts up to 80% off a selection of laptops, desktops, tablets, and accessories during its Graduation Sale. (The banner states up to 50% off, but we've found larger discounts.) Plus, all orders qualify for free shipping.
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As one of its daily deals, DealGenius takes 52% to 68% off select garden items, including 2 Pennington Wicker 13" Planter Baskets for $26. Plus, they each qualify for free shipping.
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DealBase offers select last minute American Airlines Weekend Roundtrip Fares in the U.S. with prices starting at $219.20. Book this travel deal by May 22 for outbound travel May 22 and 23 and return flights on May 25 and 26.


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Travel Blogs from Marathon
Big Bend National Park
... running up a hill. She was so excited she couldn't figure out why she was not getting any photos! The lens cap on her new Canon Power Shot was on tight! She grabbed her iphone but it was too late to get a good shot. We have to believe her as I didn't see him!
In the park we saw roadrunners, lizards and a grey fox. No javelinas!
Small towns of West Texas
... towns we pass is called Valentine - population 215!! It looks pretty much like a ghost town - several vacant buildings and who knows how far they have to go for a grocery store. NOT my cup of tea! Along the way we stop along the road at a picnic area. The train track runs next to the road, but no trains in this area. We are surprisingly next to a tethered Drone Blimp - the kind we saw in Yuma. They are used to photograph the border. The ...
Beautiful west Texas
... pretty funky village. There are a few galleries, a freaky looking hostel that caters to the many cyclists who ride from California to Florida (crazy!), couple of coffee shops, and some interesting locals. Many from outside of Marathon have settled here too, the woman working at the grocery store (who also runs the hostel) is Slovakian, another who worked or maybe owned it ...
Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center/ Marathon
... are so run down houses there and you think the visitor center is there but you need to travel down the road a little passed the church to find this museum and visitor center.
Leaving the visitor center we drove miles and miles and miles of what I call Apache country. Hills and mountains of dry, gray, dirt and land of cacti all over the place with some ranches and fence. It is really stunning and it just goes on and on. I can ...
The Big Bend in the Rio Grande
... board meeting we were ready for a destination. Marathon it is.
We chose Marathon because of its proximity to Big Bend National Park which was on our do list of places to see. We were not disappointed with either Marathon or Big Bend. Marathon has an elegant hotel (Gage Hotel), the Marathon Motel and RV Park (where we stayed), a couple of ...


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Speakers Corner
It's free to register, to post a question or to start / join a discussion
What Sound Would You Go For
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 9:55AM
The problem of the quietness of electric cars is now being debated and it seems some regulation will be brought in so that they make some form of noise. What would you like to hear?
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 10:02AM
Richard Wagner: The Ring
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 10:25AM
The sound of silence.
Likes # 1
Posted May 17, 2011 at 10:33AM
As it would be from a digital file of sounds, you could choose anything from this Honda 6 to this Windows sounds
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 10:38AM
I watched a bit about this subject on TV this morning and thought then that a little bit of classical music might do the trick. Then again maybe not. Most vehicles owned by teenagers these days can be heard long before the engine anyway. Windows down, speakers full on and blasting out some type of head-banging music (sorry noise, because it's not music). So they wouldn't need to adjust to any new ruling about electric vehicles.
Maybe some sort of cheeky baker's boy whistle would do the trick. Remember when nearly all working men used to whistle on their way to work...
There's no doubt some noise indication is needed for the benefit of the blind etc.
Without noise it would be very eerie if one was stopped on the motorway after breaking down. Just feeling the wind of all the passing silent cars. Then the very nice AA man would probably say. "It doesn't sound too good to me, I will have to tow you to the nearest hearing aid station". Would they be equipped with a stethoscope to locate the problem area?
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 10:53AM
Think how easy car repairs would become, just download a new mp3 track, and away you go...
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 11:26AM
After I recent trip to London, where many Prius drivers tried to kill me by sneaking up at me, I thought that some kind of noise was required.
I decided that the most appropriate noise for an electric vehicle would be rattling milk bottles...
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 12:24PM
"the most appropriate noise for an electric vehicle would be rattling milk bottles..." I wouldn't care to live adjacent to the M1 in 20 years time!
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 12:53PM
Maybe this inbuilt noise will be controlled by an on/off switch. So we could switch off when on motorways. But rattling milk bottles? Come on surely we can do better than that? How about rattling beer cans?
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 1:16PM
Up to 30mph - the laughing policeman. Over 30 the noise of the tyres would be enough.
Likes # 0
Posted May 17, 2011 at 3:58PM
Something like this; Ferrari
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text: On 19 Jun 2008, at 8:30 am, Circular Function wrote: > Is there a styleguide somewhere on Erlang? "Do what Joe Armstrong does in his book." > Hmm while writing I got a thought. Is the last function tail- > recursive? > I have only heard that term but never used it. > Is tail-recursion faster or uses less memory, what is the advantage/ > disadvantage? I prefer the term "Tail-Call Optimisation" because it is more accurate. The idea (as explained in "Lambda - the Ultimate Goto") is that if the dynamically last thing a function does (in any language) is to return the result of another function call, then there is no point in keeping the current stack frame. You might as well arrange for the new function to return directly to the original caller. Think of *all* tail calls as "argument binding + GOTO". It is always better if a compiler does tail call optimisation (correctly) than if it doesn't. Even the C compiler I normally does it. (It may not be a coincidence that the machine is a SPARC where stack frames are larger than you would think.) It doesn't cost you anything in time, and it's a win in (stack) space. [I am ignoring debugging issues here, which is why Smalltalk doesn't do TCO.] However, there is a *different* question, which is whether writing a function so as to exploit tail call optimisation is always a win over writing in some other fashion. And that has the answer, "no, sometimes one way is better, sometimes the other, depending on what you are doing." The main advantage of TCO is the way it lets you think: control structure = procedure call. You don't have to choose between tail recursion and iteration, because they *are the same thing*. So it's OK for Erlang not to offer a 'while' loop, for example. > > powerx(N, 0) -> 1; > powerx(N, P) when is_integer(P), P > 0 -> > N * powerx(N, P - 1); > powerx(N, P) when is_integer(P), P < 0 -> > 1 / powerx(N, -P). > There are no tail calls here; after the calls to powerx/2 have finished, there is still something for the caller to do. > > powerc(N, P) -> > if > P > 0 -> > N * powerc(N, P - 1); > P < 0 -> > 1 / powerc(N, -1 * P); > P == 0 -> > 1 > end. The only change of any significance here is the PAINFULLY EYE-JARRING indentation by 8 columns. The stack space required is O(N). > > > power(N, P) when is_integer(P), P >= 0 -> > ipower(N, P, 1); > power(N, P) when is_integer(P), P < 0 -> > 1/ipower(N, -P, 1). The first call here is a tail call, the second is not. > > > ipower(0, _, R) -> R; > ipower(N, P, R) -> ipower(N, P-1, R*N). This is equivalent to ipower(N, P, R) { while (P != 0) P--, R *= N; return R; } The amount of stack space required is O(1).


text:
News from WTOP
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- Agency of the Month
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HHS pacing its move to the cloud
Tuesday - 7/9/2013, 9:45pm EDT
The long-awaited solicitation to move the Department of Health and Human Services to the cloud for email is coming in the next month or two.
Frank Baitman, the HHS chief information officer, said the request for proposals likely will be more about collaboration than just basic email services.
"There's so much more tied up in the vendor offerings of putting email in the cloud that would really modernize the systems we are using. You get things like video chat, instant messaging and office tools in the cloud," he said. "All of those things, they are what our users, our employees, have in their personal lives now and what they expect to have in their office."
Industry sources say HHS has been talking about this for more than a year and promising a request for proposals.
Baitman said the email-as-a-service contract would not be for the entire department right away.
"No operating divisions have yet moved to the cloud. We are doing an assessment right now, what the cost and benefits are across the department," he said. "As that comes in, we will make a decision about which parts of the department are going to migrate. The bottom line, though, it's pretty rare in a large, diverse organization like HHS that any single initiative benefits every corner of the organization equally."
Baitman is taking a similar approach with its virtual desktop initiative (VDI) pilot.
About 500 employees in the office of the secretary are testing out the VDI concept to better understand the benefits of this approach to computing.
"Why do we love VDI? Well first, we have to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 before Microsoft ends support for XP next April. Moving people to VDI means we simply can move them virtually. We don't have to go out and change their machines," Baitman said. "Some of the older machines will work even better with VDI than running an operating system right on them. One of the things we really enjoy about VDI, it will help us mobilize our workforce. We are going to make it possible for people to use VDI on mobile devices, with no security risks."
Baitman said VDI is more secure because no data is transferred to the personal device so the information remains secure in the data center.
"We've had the pilot going now for about six weeks. Our assessment of the pilot will be completed at the end of August. Beginning in the fall, we will roll out from pilot to production for the appropriate folks within the office of secretary," he said. "Until the pilot is completed, I don't know how many people that's going to be or I don't know what sort of cost savings we're hoping to get. The pilot is going to help us do those economics."
One area where Baitman is surer about the savings is moving HHS' human resources systems to a shared service provider.
Baitman said HHS is consolidating its major HR systems, under the program the agency named hire-to-retire, in the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center's shared services center.
He said the migration should be completed by February 2015, with the first operating divisions in the department moving to NFC in less than a year from today.
HHS expects the migration and consolidation to save about $6 million a year, and Baitman said he plans to shut down 10 legacy HR systems as well.
"We are in the project design phase. Over the last six months, we've received conditional approval from OMB and OPM on our business case. We've completed our first major milestone review and we've gotten buy-in from stakeholders across the department," he said. "We've agreed upon a deployment and transition schedule. We've just completed our fit-gap analysis so we can take all the existing systems, know what they provide and know what are lacking and will need to be adjusted during the migration."
Baitman said the PortfolioStat process helped HHS determine its best course of action.
"We were already heading down the path of saying the HR system we are using is end of life so we need to do something about it regardless," he said. "PortfolioStat helped us highlight places where we have challenges in gathering information across the department. It helped us bring together that information in a common measurable way, and it became an exercise that allowed us to prioritize among other things, hire-to-retire as being one of those things we were going to focus on early on."
Baitman starts HHS commodity consolidation effort with HR systems
OMB's revised PortfolioStat process simplifies IT reporting requirements
FedRAMP achieves another cloud security milestone


text:
This plugin provides automated SASS stylesheet generation.
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I do this for compiling Zurb Foundation 4...
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text:
News from WTOP
News from the AP
Mike Causey
Shows & Panels
Shows & Panels
- Agency of the Month
- Business of Government Hour
- The CFO Agenda: Delivering value from financial transparency and audit efforts in the public and private sector
- Cloud-Driven Data Insights in Government
- CXO Surveys
- Disaster Resilience for America
- Federal News Countdown
- Government Perspectives on Mobility and the Cloud
- Reducing Risk in the Cloud
- Reimagining the Next Generation of Government
Shows & Panels
- AFCEA Answers
- American Readiness: Renewable Power and Efficiency Technologies
- Ask the CIO
- The Business Case for Cloud Computing in Government
- Cloud-Driven Data Insights in Government
- Connecting the Dots: Digital Authentication in Government
- Cybersecurity Game Changer: Real-Time Event Processing in Government
- Data-Centric Approaches to Government in the Cloud
- Delivering the Digital Government Mission
- Federal Executive Forum
- Federal News Radio's National Cyber Security Awareness Month Special Panel Discussion
- Federal Tech Talk
- The Future of Government Data Centers
- Government Perspectives on Mobility and the Cloud
- Industrialized, Interoperable and Insight-driven Federal Health Panel
- Innovation and Tech Superiority through Acquisition Reform
- Mitigating Insider Threats in Virtual & Cloud Environments
- Moving Agency Applications to the Cloud with PaaS
- Reducing Risk in the Cloud
- Security in the Age of Targeted Attacks
- Air Traffic Management Transformation Report
- The Business of Cloud
- Cloud First Report
- Data Driven Cloud Series
- Disaster Resilience for America
- General Dynamics IT Enterprise Center
- Gov Cloud Minute
- Government in Technology Series
- Homeland Security Cybersecurity Market Report
- The Intersection: Where Technology Meets Transformation
- Modern Mission Critical Series
- National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- The New IP for Federal IT
- The Social Platform Solution for the Department of Veterans Affairs
- Technology Insights
- The Cyber Security Report
- The Next Generation Cyber Security Experts
Shows & Panels
- Cloud-Driven Data Insights in Government
- Disaster Resilience for America
- F-35 Lightning II Program
- Government Perspectives on Mobility and the Cloud
- On DoD
- Pentagon Solutions
- Reducing Risk in the Cloud
- Reimagining the Next Generation of Government
- Transforming Business Operations at the Defense Department
Navy rethinks plans to purchase cutting-edge warship
Monday - 8/27/2012, 9:06am EDT
The Navy may be rethinking plans to acquire a cutting-edge warship. The service has assigned high-ranking officers to a council. They will study problems with the Littoral Combat Ship program.
The ships are supposed to be able to sail in shallow water and ward off various threats from submarines to pirates. But internal reviews have revealed serious problems with the first vessel. The USS Freedom is scheduled to sail to Singapore in the spring.
This story is part of Federal News Radio's daily DoD Report. For more defense news, click here.


text:
Eighty advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Glenn Beck's Fox News program since he called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people." Here are his November 24 sponsors, in the order they appeared:
It is truly amazing that Time allowed Mark Halperin to publish the following caption and image on his blog, The Page -- no matter how briefly (the site has since pulled it down):
Maybe Halperin thought it was really clever to echo a scene from a late-90s romantic comedy, but it isn't. The image and all that it suggests -- yes, her hair is supposed to be held up by semen -- isn't supported by any facts provided by Halperin in his post. The page to which he links doesn't have anything to do with semen, romantic comedies, or hair gel. In fact, it's a statement from Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) Communications Director "on motion to proceed timing" on the Senate's health care reform bill.
In other words, it's part of a broader, sexist right-wing narrative that the U.S. Senator from Louisiana is, as Glenn Beck put it yesterday, "a high-class prostitute" engaged in "hookin'" -- all because she lobbied Senate leadership for expanded Medicaid funding for Louisiana in the Senate health care bill in what was characterized by the media as an exchange for her "yea" vote to proceed with floor debate on the bill.
Not to be left out, Rush Limbaugh got in on the action yesterday too, declaring that Landrieu "may be the most expensive prostitute in the history of prostitution."
These types of backwards, sexist remarks are what we have come to expect from Beck or Limbaugh, but this is truly a new low for Halperin, and, by association, for Time. As my colleague Julie Millican pointed out last week, the other weekly news magazine -- Newsweek -- has a sexism problem that it needs to address concerning another female politician.
So let this serve as a word of warning to those media figures like Halperin who like to think of themselves as separate and apart from -- perhaps I should say above? -- right-wing bloviators and pot-stirrers like Beck and Limbaugh: When you engage in baseless, sexist smears of women politicians, you are no different than the side-show commentators. Maybe you're worse -- at least they don't purport to be journalists.
On Wednesday, President Obama will pardon Courage, a turkey raised on a family farm in North Carolina. In doing so he will carry on a long tradition dating back to the administration of George H.W. Bush. (Seriously -- it's not a long tradition.)
But the pardoning comes at a particularly vulnerable time for Obama. Following a week of coverage in which he was attacked by the conservative media (which was amplified by the mainstream media) for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito (which the majority of Americans approved of), Fox News senior correspondent Brit Hume claimed of the "bowing and scraping" overseas: "This president seems quite willing to embrace weakness as a position for the United States."
Combined with the right-wing media's outrage that by actually demonstrating that the U.S. actually practices the kind of justice it promotes around the world, the pardoning couldn't come at a worse time for Obama.
How will Fox News react to this latest sign of Obama's "weakness"?
One thing is for certain: If Sarah Palin were president, she would pardon Courage as well, but would ensure that the rest of the turkeys were slaughtered.
Sarah Palin's book tour was the third-biggest news story from November 16-22 -- and second-biggest on television and radio talk shows:
Given her status as a polarizing public figure, it's no surprise that Palin's book tour last week-which included her doing interviews with everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Oprah Winfrey-was a hot topic in the talk show world. Indeed more than one-fifth (21%) of the airtime studied on the 12 cable and radio talk shows in the NCI was devoted to the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate, making it the No. 2 story there after health care. By a narrow margin, coverage of her book tour last week (8%) exceeded the attention devoted to her decision to resign as Alaska governor (7% from July 6-12, 2009).
That's an extraordinary amount of attention for an unpopular politician who holds no office.
Fox News host Greta Van Susteren aired the first part of her interview with Sarah Palin last night, during which she "hopped on the [book tour] bus with Governor Palin." But the people who were really taken for "a ride" were Van Susteren's viewers: throughout the nearly 40-minute long interview, which spanned questions of policy and political ambitions, Van Susteren failed to disclose that her husband, John Coale, reportedly advised Palin after her 2008 vice presidential run and reportedly stated that he conceived of and created Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC.
This lack of disclosure isn't terribly surprising given Van Susteren's track record. It's not like she bothered to mention that fact when she used her Fox perch to actively "campaign" to secure the interview and hype Palin's memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life.
And it's not terribly surprising given Fox's record of giving free rein to its evening commentators to seamlessly merge commentary and advocacy, most notably in the case of Glenn Beck. If Fox isn't concerned about its Beck problem, presumably Van Susteren's journalistic malpractice isn't even showing up on their radar screen.
Maybe Van Susteren will go rogue tonight when she airs the next installment of her Palin interview and, in a radical departure from Fox's status quo, disclose her conflict of interest. But somehow I doubt that she'll get off the bus and on the level with her viewers.
Interesting piece in Editor & Publisher, by college prof's Christopher Martin and Peter Dreier who argue that, thanks to lazy journalism, reporters often got the ACORN story wrong during the last year.
Write the duo:
How is it that after laboring in relative obscurity as a community organizer for almost 40 years, ACORN was so falsely framed in news stories that many Americans believed the absurd and alarming notion that it stole a presidential election? The answer is a tale of not only how the Republican Party and conservative news media framed ACORN, but also how most mainstream journalism organizations were negligent by repeating rather than fact-checking the spurious allegations.
And the Andrew Breitbart freak-out begins in 5...4...3...2...1!
WorldNetDaily -- the far-right web site that even some conservatives say peddles "paranoid conspiracy theories" -- is now touting a book that purports to demonstrate that liberalism is a mental disorder:
WND goes on to assert: "Rossiter explains with great clarity why the kind of liberalism being displayed by Barack Obama can only be understood as a psychological disorder."
Given WND's track record, I can only assume WND is engaging in a Rovian effort to accuse their counterparts of their own shortcomings.
With its signature breathless/naive style, Politico plays the role of Lou Dobbs booster [emphasis added]:
Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president — and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign.
Honestly, is there anyone besides Lou Dobbs and Politico reporters who can detect any kind of "rampant speculation" about his political future? (I'd settle for any speculation.) Seems like it's been mostly crickets on that front since Dobbs left CNN.
UPDATED: I think humorist Andy Borowitz gets it about right:
Former CNN host Lou Dobbs said today that he was seriously considering running for president after being urged to do so by an imaginary friend.
The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib has a piece about Sen. Joe Lieberman's opposition to the public option that serves as a clear reminder of why politicians lie: they know they won't get called on it.
Seib writes:
Mr. Lieberman also notes that the public option wasn't a big feature of past health-overhaul plans or the campaign debate of 2008.
Well, no. Mr. Lieberman doesn't "note" that. Mr. Lieberman lies about that.
Lieberman claims that "if you look at the campaign last year, presidential, you can't find a mention of public option...It was added after the election." In fact, the Obama-Biden campaign health care plan included a public option, and the New York Times reported as far back as May 2007 that "Mr. Obama would create a public plan for individuals who cannot obtain group coverage through their employers or the existing government programs." And when it is pointed out to Lieberman that his claims are incorrect, he reiterates them.
Seib, continuing directly:
So he says he finds it odd that it now has become a central demand -- which it has, he suspects, because some Democrats wanted a full-bore, single-payer, government-run health plan, and were offered a public option as a consolation.
But it isn't "odd" at all -- because Lieberman is lying when he says the public option wasn't part of the discussion until post-election. Seib completely gives him a free pass on those lies. Worse, he presents Lieberman's lies as the truth.
What happens when reporters present politicians' lies as truth? They encourage politicians to lie. That's pretty obvious, isn't it? Gerald Seib and the Wall Street Journal are encouraging Joe Lieberman to lie about health care.
Seib also quotes Lieberman's claims that he opposes a public option for fear of increasing the debt -- and, no, Seib does not bother pointing out that CBO says health care reform containing a public option will reduce the deficit.
It's important to keep in mind that Seib's entire piece is about Lieberman's opposition to health care reform. This isn't a case in which a reporter inserts a quick paragraph about Lieberman into a larger health care article without fact-checking his statements. That would be bad enough. But this is so much worse: an entire piece dedicated to Lieberman's opposition that presents Lieberman's false claims as truth, and neglects to mention that the CBO contradicts his claims.
For reasons no one seems able to explain, the right's criticism of health care reform legislation tends to drift toward matters of counting. First they complained that the bill(s) had too many pages, falsely claiming that Tolstoy's epic War and Peace boasts a lighter page count, as if this is indicative of anything other than an irrational prejudice against long books. Now, RedState.com has decided to sharpen their criticism by counting the words in the Senate health care bill -- not all the words, mind you, just arbitrarily selected words that offer "an interesting study in word choices that tell you all you need to know about the bill."
In one column they listed what I assume are the scary-liberal-socialist words, like "shall" and "provide" and "tax." In a second column are the freedom-liberty-Constitution words, like... well, "freedom," "liberty," and "Constitution." Without ever explaining what the point of their little exercise is, RedState shows that the scary-liberal-socialist words appear with much greater frequency than the freedom-liberty-Constitution words.
Well, two can play at this incredibly stupid game. I took RedState's two lists of words and checked* to see how frequently they appear in the twenty-or-so pages of the Constitution. The results are damning:
|Scary-liberal-socialist words
|Freedom-liberty-Constitution words
Shall or Shall Not: 337
Provide: 20
May: 42
Require: 6
Authority: 8
Tax: 12
Enforce: 9
Government: 9
Qualify: 1
Apply: 1
Rule: 1
Certify: 2
Law: 53
Authorize: 2
Reasonable: 1
Freedom: 2
Free: 3
Liberty: 3
Choice: 8
Choose or "Chuse": 11
Own: 1
Constitution: 29 (not entirely fair)
Federalism: 0
If the raw numbers themselves aren't shocking enough, consider this: by RedState's count, the words "Shall" or "Shall Not" appear 3607 times in the 2074 pages of the health care bill, meaning they appear 1.74 times per page. Those same words appear 337 times in the 20 pages of the Constitution, for an average of 16.85 appearances per page.
The evidence is clear: the Constitution of the United States is at least 10 times as socialist and tyrannical as the Senate health care bill. Thank you, RedState, for helping us to expose this founding document as the commie, Marxist, rag that it is.
*My "methodology" consisted of copying and pasting the Constitution into a Word document and using Find-and-Replace to count the instances of each term. It's admittedly crude, but conducting a thoroughly scientific analysis of the words in the Constitution for the purposes of smacking down RedState's on-its-face-stupid premise would be like using a bazooka to kill a mosquito.


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Rated 4.6 out of 5 by 65 reviewers.
Rated 2 out of 5 by heresy0 Trifle complaint I had the pleasure of staying at St. Regis for one night on April 24, 2015. Though your facilities and service were quite impressive, there were two incidents that significantly married what would otherwise have been a perfect honeymoon experience at your establishment, and I would like to file a complaint about them. 1. Opening time of Lagoon (the restaurant) Last year, I reserved a room at St. Regis online for one night on April 24, which was a Friday, specifically to enjoy a meal at Lagoon. However, after I booked the room and was making resevations at the restaurant, I was informed via e-mail that it was closed on Wednesdays and Fridays. My St. Regis reservation was non-refundable but my wife and I really wanted to try the food at Lagoon, so we decided to visit the restaurant the day before while staying at another resort (Pearl Beach Resort), even though this was a big inconvenience on our part. Imagine our dismay when we learned while at the restaurant that from about a month ago it began opening on Fridays as well! However, when we had checked the St. Regis site a few days ago, this change had not been announced in any way. You can check that on your web-site as well. If we had been notified of the changed opening hours, we would not have had to go through all the trouble of taking two boat rides and two taxi rides to go to Lagoon and then return to Pearl Beach the day before our stay at St. Regis. 2. Delays with our luggages Upon our arrival at St. Regis, we were told that our luggages will be sent to our room in about 20 minutes. After waiting for half an hour, I called the reception and was told that we needed to wait for a few more minutes. This process was repeated several times, and to make a long story short our bags arrived more than 2 hours later than was promised, after I had made 5 to 6 calls to the reception. I never thought that we would have this kind of an issue at an establishment as esteemed as yours. What was really upsetting was that we really wanted to enjoy your swimming and snorkeling facilities as much as possible that day (since we were staying for one night only), but since everything we needed were in our bags, we couldn't do anything but to helplessly wait for them. It was also frustrating that we had to keep on waiting although we were told every time we made an inquiry that we just needed to wait for another 10 or 20 minutes. My wife and I had really looked forward to our stay at St. Regis, which also happened to be the last day of our honeymoon. So you can imagine how disappointed we were by the two incidents described above. I really hope that improvements will be made to ensure that similar problems will not recur when we visit you the next time, or for any of your other customers, for that matter. May 4, 2015
Rated 4 out of 5 by irisml Beautiful property. Spacious Bungalow. Poor SPG recognition. Just returned from honeymoon in FP. This hotel is very well maintained with spacious bungalows in an amazing lagoon. And we had a great experience overall. There were a few petty things that bothered us tho which was disappointing given how much the stay had cost. 1)Minimal SPG platinum recognition--I did not come during high season but there was no room upgrade, no late checkout allowed. Nor was there any welcome drinks/fruits/dessert/note at all for platinum or honeymoon. 2) My main butler was unenthusiastic and did not care about what we had to say whatsoever. She was not at the hotel when we arrived because she was apparently "seeing off some other guests"--but she did not show up for our departure either. When we finally met her on day 2 of our stay for the hotel tour, it was a disappointment (she told us to call after 11am, which I did. But I had to call 5 or 6 times before someone picked up!). She was clearly unaware of our plat membership as she kept telling us about free internet in the biz center even after we reminded her about complimentary wifi in the room. And she kept telling us about food options/dress code at the Lagoon restaurant even after we explained that we have eaten there the evening before. We gave up trying to talk to her after a while since she was clearly not listening. It seems that she had a speech prepared for the tour and was keen on finishing it asap regardless of guest comments. She never checked in on us again after the intro tour. So much for the signature butler service! I would say though most other staffs we met were super friendly and helpful. The hotel is overall very nice and very expensive. I would prolly recommend it to friends who are willing to splurge. Hopefully they would not get the same butler tho. April 7, 2015
Rated 2 out of 5 by AKhalid Disappointment I expected an exceptional stay, however, I was totally disappointment and this mainly because of the hotel staff who were unprofessional. March 31, 2015
Rated 5 out of 5 by kizmit8888 Exceptional experience in the resort This was one of my "bucket list" trips and it lived up the expectation. The room, food and staff at the resort were fantastic. If we could have controlled the weather it would be a 10 out of 10 February 17, 2015
Rated 5 out of 5��by MALCRUZZIN HONEYMOON BEFORE THE WEDDING "HONEYMOON BEFORE THE WEDDING" 5 of 5 stars Pending review I thought I had posted this,but as I looked back I did not,so here it is. In the 15 years that Steve and I have traveled together,I said We are going to make this our honeymoon before we get married.Words will never describe how VERY SPECIAL you feel from the moment you are met at the airport,board a boat and whisked away to the ST.REGIS BORA BORA.Oh,butler service,OOOOOLALA.....Marine is MAGNIFIQUE!!!!!! Our Deluxe Overwater Villa....left me speechless As well as every staff member you encounter,and guests....The food,cocktails,private oasis,and the overwater hammock....felt like I died and went to Heaven!!!!!!!!..A piece of my heart lies there.....We were Blessed!!!!!! Will post more photos soon....xo Stayed November 2014 January 5, 2015
Rated 5 out of 5 by LizaB Absolutely Amazing! Staying at the St. Regis Bora Bora Resort was like a dream! Immediately upon arrival, we were greeted with juice and our own personal butler who was accessible to us throughout our entire stay. We never touched our own luggage as the staff took it to our room and had it waiting for us when we arrived. The food was amazing, the staff was always friendly and helpful. They all took the time to get to know us personally. I can't say enough good things about this hotel. Please do yourself a favor and experience Bora Bora as a guest at the St. Regis! December 5, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by jj1ove1ess 50th Birthday celebration From the first point of contact at the Bora Bora airport, St. Regis staff was superior. Upon arrival at the resort we were greeted with a cool towel and drink then taken on a short tour of the facilities. Walked into our villa and it was fabulous! Total relaxation for 4 days. The included breakfast was very good, again the staff was excellent. The resort never felt busy- 6 people at the beach, 4 people in the pool, we were the only people snorkeling in their Lagoonarium. Complimentary use of kayaks, paddle boards, snorkel equipment and windsurfers was a great feature. Contacted the concierge prior to arrival to arrange 2 tours and we were pleased with his recommendations. The housekeeping staff was a little late cleaning our rooms, but once they arrived they were speedy and thorough. Can't wait to return! November 4, 2014
Rated 3 out of 5 by Chris1128 Great stay but front desk staff not helpful, SPG barely recognized We stayed at the St. Regis Bora Bora for 6 nights in September 2014. Pros: Our stay was great, I booked directly through SPG site, and we received a complimentary bottle of champagne and a free couples massage. you can't beat the overwater bungalows, and the rooms are just magnificent, very spacious, bathrooms are enormous, and decor is very nice. Staff, for the most part, were very friendly at all times, including the butlers, beach and restaurant staff. Lagoon restaurant is unbelievable, including views and food. Spa is also great. Cons: we paid for breakfast package, breakfast food was average at best, needs improvement. Overall food at resort is extremely expensive in USD prices, and does not reflect the overall mediocrity of the food quality. Lagoon food is exquisite, but expect to pay $55-65 USD or more for fish plates. They also need new bikes, the ones they have are all rusted out and some don't even work. I'm also an SPG Gold member and was expecting a bit more for my Gold Status. We did received complimentary wifi, and a late 4pm checkout. However, we were paying $1300**+ per night for 6 nights. I requested a room upgrade (room far along on the pontoon) prior to arriving as were booked in a Standard Overwater Villa. They did upgrade us to a Superior Overwater Villa but it was the first villa in the pontoon and we specifically had requested beforehand a villa far along on the pontoon. You would think that for a 6 night stay (most people only stay 4-5 nights) they could have given us a better room. I spoke to Frede****, the front office manager on several occasions and I explained that we would like to obtain an upgrade as it was our honeymoon and I was an SPG Gold member. First he explained that everyone was there on their honeymoon, and that we had already been given an upgrade as a Gold member (though the first villa on the pontoon is hardly an upgrade). He then explained that all the villas farther along on the pontoon were already reserved, but that we could obtain a Deluxe Overwater Villa for an additional $400 USD per night, but we would not receive the complimentary 4pm checkout which we currently had, we would likely need to pay an additional amount for the late checkout. He was very rude about the whole thing and went on to ask us whether we like the resort facilities (in a condescending tone) and that we wouldn't need the late checkout as we could change in the pool or spa facilities prior to leaving. For our high room rate plus our Gold status, I thought this was very rude. We decided to not go with the upgrade to the Deluxe room as we did not want to spend another $400 USD on top of the $1300 per night we were already spending. Why would we ever pay an extra $400 per night and then not even get a late checkout? It gets even more frustrating as we later found out that most guests book through travel agents and not through the SPG website (the Bora Bora St. Regis travel agents have close affiliations with the Hotel) and the agents obtain deep discounts and they reserve the best rooms on the pontoon (we learned this by speaking to other hotel guests). Example, if your looking to stay at the end of the pontoon, your best shot is to book through a travel agent affiliated with the hotel, you will pay a lot less than the SPG published rates and you will get a much better located room on the pontoon. Conclusion, great facilities and hotel, staff was very friendly for the most part, with the exception for Frede****, the front office manager, who was not very accommodating. As an SPG Gold member, don't expect to get the most for your money, if you're looking for a great room (either far along on the pontoon or with a view of the mountain) you won't get it through the SPG website, you should book through a travel agent. I have stayed at SPG resorts throughout the world, and we routinely get upgraded to suites and great rooms at no additional cost. Don't expect to get this treatment here. October 20, 2014


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Santee council takes stand against power plant
"We have a slew of experts who will leave no stone unturned. We welcome a transparent, open and continuing dialogue. We are here to try to work with you and the community to do the right thing. We are here and we are listening."
Opponents say the CEC needs to evaluate Cogentrix's application to show it running its planned 100 megawatts of power at 100 percent capacity.
"It keeps me awake at night," said one resident. "I lose sleep thinking about seeing those towers, 11 of them 100-feet high. Maybe it's just going to be steam coming out of them, we really don't know what it is. Somebody was out of their mind to think a power plant should go up next to one of the most beautiful parks ever."
Bill Paxton, a retired member of the U.S. Marine Corps and a mobile-home park resident, urged the council to check out Mission Trails; the San Diego River; to feed the birds.
"What we do with the wildlife is the future," Paxton said. "We owe it to the children to stop these power plants," he said to applause.
Robert Cook, a 39-year Santee resident said, "This plant does not belong in anybody's backyard."


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Best racquet switch you ever made?
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Hall Of Fame
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 4,394
Age 17: Switched from POG mid to Profile 2.7 OS.
The Profile seemed to feel like cheating. Thundering overheads, a wall at net. More dominating serve. It didn't fix my crappy fh, but it really suited the serve and volley style that I'd developed to compensate fro my lack of a fh. True story: I had only been playing competitively for about 18 months, and had never beaten a seeded player in a junior champs tourney, just trying to catch up to the kids who'd been playing 10 years longer than me. My first match with the Profile demo from the pro shop, and I took out the #2 seed in the biggest PNW junior tourney of the year (a 15-year-old who would be the top-ranked kid in 18's in the section 2 years later). I simply overpowered him with huge serves that kicked high to the backhand, and followed in behind with pounding volleys.
I used the Profile for 10 years - even won prize money in singles once due to my giant serve. Eventually moved next to Prostaff 4.7 (similar huge head, but longer and a little flexier). I noticed that the 4.7 demo let me 'shape' my shots better than the Profile. Played another 10 years with the 4.7 (and reached a very high level 9 years ago, winning prize money in both men's doubles and mixed doubles, even though my forehand still sucked).
I've gone through a lot of frames since then, but strangely, I'm now back the 4.7, except that I play it almost 3 ounces heavier than I did 10 years ago. Now my forehand is finally much better than before due to the lead in the right places, and my volleys are better than before, also due to the added lead. Unfortunatey, I don't have enough to time to practice my serve like I used to. So my rusty serve keeps me stuck as a double-faulting 4.5 with 5.0 rest of game who can dominate 8.0 mixed.
POG OS. 368 SW, 12.54" balance, 21.0 MgR/I.
Problend kevlar 16 / Prestretched SPPP 17, 72/50 lbs.
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DERICK DIMENT (From Dorset Echo)
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DIMENT - Derrick. Remembering a dear husband, dad and gag on your 88th Birthday, forever in our thoughts ~ Muriel and family.
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Hello, my name is Marie Bauml. I am the special education campus coordinator at Virginia Myers Elementary School. I have been fortunate to be at Myers since it's opening in August 1996. In addition to being the campus coordinator, I am also The Fourth Grade Collaborative teacher. I am very fortunate to work with such a wonderful special education team and so many very special students.To reach me please email me or call 397-6670.
Office 210-397-6670Email me


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Felix Hernandez signs 7-year deal with Mariners
The no-trade clause was a major part of the negotiations, Pucino said.
"I think it's important more than anything that he wanted to be here. He was expressing this over and over and over," Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln said. "That's pretty unusual. How many players tell you to your face, `I'd really like to stay here.' That makes you feel pretty good."
This is the second time Hernandez has decided to stay with Seattle rather than seeing what could come his way in free agency. He signed a five-year deal with the Mariners before the 2010 season coming off a 19-win season and just before he won the 2010 AL Cy Young Award.
He's represented hope for the franchise since he made his debut as a 19-year-old who wore his hat crooked.
"He's going to be here for a long time and I think it says a lot about his character and what Seattle means to him and what the Mariners mean to him but I think it also says a lot about his belief in the direction this big league club is going and the organization is going," Seattle manager Eric Wedge said.
Hernandez will turn 27 on April 8 and still be just 33 when he enters the final season of this new contract in 2019. He is 98-76 with a 3.22 ERA in eight seasons with the Mariners, a record that would be far better if he didn't pitch for the worst offensive team in baseball each of the last three seasons.
But Hernandez said he can see the potential in what the Mariners have put together. Now Seattle's challenge is doing what it can to ensure Hernandez gets to pitch on the biggest stage - the postseason.
"I think this officially quiets the whispers. We were committed to keeping him here a long time," Zduriencik said. "He's a young, talented guy. We all recognize that. The best thing I can say: He's ours. He's ours and we kept him."
NOTE: The Mariners acquired minor league outfielder Abraham Almonte from the New York Yankees for right-hander Shawn Kelley. Almonte, 23, batted .276 with four homers, 25 RBIs and 30 steals in 78 games for Double-A Trenton last season. He was an Eastern League midseason All-Star. Kelly was designated for assignment by the Mariners on Feb. 7 when the club signed catcher Kelly Shoppach.
AP freelance writer Jose Romero in Peoria, Ariz., contributed to this report.
The Associated Press