text:
The Dwarf had to go. It wasn't just that the little man neglected, every damn morning, to empty the coffee filter, forcing Ed to extract the saggy bag of grinds, the limp filter dripping carelessly on the floor, creating brown splatter marks like its own CSI crime scene. Nor was it because Ed was weary of the parade of barflies the Dwarf dragged home; haggard women, some heroin-thin, some grossly obese, nearly all with horrible teeth, who sat on Ed's couch, spilling Mateus Rosè onto on his buttercup-colored cushions. Strangely, and this was another trait that grew to antagonize Ed, the Dwarf had a knack for attracting women. True, sometimes he paid for their services, and sometimes they followed him home from the bar because he fascinated them and they would have a story to tell their friends, but there was rarely a night that the Dwarf was alone. And Ed could see why. The Dwarf had a self-confidence that belied his physical stature. The word that sprang to Ed's mind was "cocky," and it struck him as odd that someone with such a distinct physical handicap could so readily compensate for this steep disadvantage.
. No, Ed thought, as he washed the crusted dishes the Dwarf left behind in the sink, the Dwarf had to go because of that nasty incident this past Christmas, when Ed had graciously invited the small man to his mother's house for Christmas dinner.
Christmas, as everyone knows, is peak season for dwarves, and the Dwarf worked a steady stream of mall jobs. Nearly every evening from mid-November until December 24th, Ed would come home from work to find the Dwarf sitting on the couch, drinking Johnnie Walker in a Dixie cup, and wearing the sad costume of the day. Mostly, the Dwarf was Santa's Helper, and he would don the requisite green and red elf tunic, green tights, and curved elf shoes, but occasionally the Dwarf would be asked to play a Hobbit (pointy silicone ears, black coat with a button vest, a cloak, matching pants, and giant rubber feet), a Wooden Toy Soldier (red jacket with royal blue pants and a black fur busby hat), and, for reasons that eluded Ed entirely, a Munchkin from the Wizard of Oz (knicker shorts, plaid shirt, and a giant swirl lollypop hairpiece). On Christmas Eve, Ed, desperate to get to his mother's house on time, frantically searched the apartment for his car keys. As he bent over the sofa, ramming his hands in between the cushions, he noticed the Dwarf, sipping on his JW, his tired elf hat hanging limply to the left, drooping like a fading erection. Ed felt a surge of pity for the little man.
"Would you like to go with me to my mother's house?" Ed asked. "She's baking a ham. We don't have to stay very long," he continued.
"Is this some sort of mercy invite? 'Poor dwarf doesn't have anywhere to go on Christmas Eve. I know, I'll invite him to Mom's.'"
"No. No. Not at all. I only—" Ed stumbled, caught off-guard by the Dwarf's hostility.
"You only what? Felt sorry for me?" he challenged.
"No. Absolutely not. I just . . . you know . . . if you didn't have plans . . . ."
"Do I look like I have plans, man?" The Dwarf grandly swept his hands in front of him, inviting Ed to survey the emptiness of the apartment. "Yeah, I got Carmen Electra in my bedroom waiting to give me a Christmas blow job."
"Forget it," Ed said churlishly. "I can't find my keys. If you can help me look for a minute, I'll be out of your way." He stood up.
And then, unexpectedly, the Dwarf laughed, a deep, masculine wave. "It's fine, man. I was just messin' with you. I'd love to eat your mom." The Dwarf chuckled and placed his hands in front of his mouth, an exaggerated Japanese-girlish gesture of foolishness. "I mean eat at your mom's."
The Dwarf flicked the remote and shut off the TV, but as he rose from the couch, he stumbled, nearly knocking Ed to the floor. "Give me a minute to change," the Dwarf said as he staggered into his bedroom, but before Ed heard the bedroom door close, the Dwarf yelled, "Your keys are in the bowl on the sofa table!"
Ed realized, on the long car ride to Brooklyn, as the Dwarf compulsively pushed the radio buttons, maddeningly changing from station to station, that his judgment was flawed; he had made a serious mistake. He should have known, some sort of primitive instinct should have kicked in, warning him not to invite the Dwarf to a family gathering.
And later that evening, as Ed's mother leaned over the table, balancing the platter in one hand as she lifted slices of glazed ham with the long serving fork with the other, Ed saw the Dwarf stare down into his mother's cleavage, her clingy paisley shirt revealing the top of her freckled breasts.
"Nice Boobaloos," the Dwarf remarked.
Much to Ed's horror, his mother giggled and blushed like a thirteen-year-old girl. "You're so bad," she said, hefting large slices of ham onto the Dwarf's plate. Ed heard a flirtatious inflection in her voice that troubled him.
"You have no idea,Doris," the Dwarf slurred back playfully.
AsDorismade her way down the dining room table, serving glazed ham to a cadre of Ed's overweight relatives, he felt the Dwarf nudge him in the ribs.
Leaning in close, so no one else could hear, the Dwarf whispered, "Maybe I will get that Christmas blow job, eh?" He slapped Ed on the back, snorted in laughter, and then went back to shoveling spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
After that tortuous night, as Ed drove back toQueens, the Dwarf snoring loudly beside him, he realized that this roommate situation was not to his liking. That he must suggest politely, and if that doesn't work, more forcefully insist that the Dwarf start looking for a new apartment.
But he didn't always feel this deep well of hostility. In fact, at first, he had liked the Dwarf. Ed had advertised in the Queen's Chronicle, looking for someone to share the expenses of his two-bedroom apartment, and he remembered how he carefully worded the ad: "Must be neat, have steady income, and like cats." Well, the Dwarf was none of those things; he was sloppy, could not keep a regular job (except for the brief Christmas season), and once, in a drunken rage, grabbed Lola by the scruff of her neck and tossed her, nearly punted her, outside the apartment door, into the hallway, because she had taken a dump on his bed.
Furious, Ed retrieved his cat, and told the Dwarf that if he ever mistreated her again, he could find himself a new apartment. The Dwarf grabbed his coat and stumbled out of the apartment. Ed was relieved, believing that finally the Dwarf would, on his own, look for a new place, but a few hours later, as Ed sat on the couch stroking Lola while he watched the news, he heard the familiar drunken jingle of keys as the Dwarf struggled to put the key into the lock. The Dwarf had come back.
When the Dwarf finally managed to open the apartment door, he carried with him a small, plastic bag. He walked over to the couch and plopped down next to Ed, clutching the bag in his small hand.
"When I was eleven," the Dwarf began, "I used to pass this pet store on my way to school, and every day I would come home and beg my mom for a pet. I knew we couldn't get a dog or a cat because my brother had asthma, or some shit, but I was willing to compromise: a guinea pig, a bird, an iguana, a hamster–anything. Well, for my twelfth birthday my mom got me this turtle. And I was stoked. It wasn't a puppy, but it was something. I took it outside and played with it on the patio for about an hour, and then I got bored. I wanted to go inside and watch TV, but I didn't want him to run away, right? So I found this empty flowerpot and put it over him. You know, a makeshift cage. I thought he'd be safe. But I left him in the sun, and it must have been really freakin' hot that day, 'cause when I came back the next morning, that sucka was fried. Fried. "
"Who cares? Why are you telling me this?" Ed said.
The Dwarf shrugged. "People fuck up, man. Even when they finally get something they want, they somehow manage to fuck it up." And with the flourish of a magician demonstrating a trick, the Dwarf pulled a cat toy from his bag. He grinned at Ed and tossed the toy on the floor. Lola sprang from Ed's lap and jumped at the jingling toy mouse, batting it between her paws. In amnestic cat fashion, all was forgiven. The Dwarf stood up. "Sorry," he said, and then walked into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
That first morning, however, when Ed met the Dwarf, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Ed recollected that the Dwarf had a steady knock, and while most would have rang the doorbell, he realized, much later, that the Dwarf couldn't reach the bell, so he knocked, hard and solid, like a much larger man. Ed opened the door.
He looked down at the Dwarf, surprised. The Dwarf was only about three feet seven or eight, and he had the distinctive markings of his kind: a relatively long trunk and shortened upper parts. His head was large, with a prominent forehead, but Ed noted that the Dwarf was also strangely good looking, with longish hair, nearly down to his shoulders. He had dewy, intense brown eyes, reminding Ed of a miniature Jim Carrey.
"Not what you expected, huh?" the Dwarf said, extending his small, misshapen hand for Ed to shake. He didn't wait for Ed to answer, but instead walked through the door, scanning the apartment.
"Nice place. Kitchen's small."
"Do you cook?" Ed asked. He thought he could detect the faint scent of liquor on the small man's breath.
"Me? Nah. But if I did, the kitchen's kind of small."
After he inspected the apartment, the Dwarf sat down at the kitchen table and told Ed that he would sign the lease papers. While Ed hadn't intended on making an offer on the spot, he was taken with the Dwarf. Perhaps Ed was intrigued with the idea of being friends with a dwarf. After all, he hadn't any dwarf friends, but if truth be told, he hadn't any friends at all. He was painfully shy, conscious of his receding hairline, and he hated the idea of sitting at a bar and approaching a strange woman. It filled him with dread, a sickening pit in his stomach. Instead, he went on Match.com and J-Date (even though he wasn't Jewish), and he managed to meet a freckled-faced, heavy-set woman named Myrna Goldberg. She was a school secretary, or something like that. They had dinner a few times, and while her company wasn't objectionable, he stopped returning her phone calls.
But on that initial meeting with the Dwarf, and some weeks after he moved in, the Dwarf seemed like he would work out. He was congenial, did the dishes, occasionally vacuumed, and frequently invited Ed out to the neighborhood bar, although Ed rarely accepted. But it was after one of these bar excursions that Ed first realized he had made a grievous error. As the night wore on, and the Dwarf pounded Jack Daniels, he grew embarrassingly boisterous and obnoxious After he grabbed a woman's ass on his way to the bathroom, and was then unceremoniously slugged, slammed against the bar, and repeatedly pummeled by the enraged boyfriend, the bouncer told the Dwarf he needed to leave. While Ed urged him to leave, nearly dragging him out of the bar, the Dwarf grew belligerent, his face red with alcohol and rage.
"Fuck you," the Dwarf said to the bouncer, a six-foot four African American, who, at least in Ed's estimation of this man's biceps, had done some serious prison time.
"Fuck me?" the bouncer countered. And without warning, he picked up the Dwarf, kicked open the bar door, and tossed him onto the concrete. Ed followed behind, apologizing to the waitress, and leaving a small tip on the table.
When he made it out the door, and saw the Dwarf sprawled on the sidewalk, Ed reached his hand down to hoist the Dwarf to his feet.
The Dwarf swatted Ed's hand away, and pulled himself into a seated position. He wiped blood off his lip. "Don't you pity me, man. I hate that shit."
"Come on," Ed said gently, reaching his hand down to the Dwarf again.
This time, the Dwarf conceded, letting Ed hoist him to his feet. He staggered, but Ed caught him, and they made their way back to their apartment.
It was subtle at first, like gaining weight—barely perceptible, then starkly undeniable, but, around March, Ed thought that the Dwarf seemed happier. At first Ed attributed the buoyancy to the Dwarf finally getting a part-time job as an Internet sales consultant, making cold calls for an online used-auto dealership. But it was more than that. Ed could detect that the Dwarf appeared to move with a different rhythm, a slower more controlled cadence, seeming to dance to an inner waltz.
And then, at breakfast one morning (a Cherry Pop Tart for the Dwarf; sliced mango and whole wheat toast for Ed), the Dwarf announced that he had been cold stone sober for three weeks.
"Why?" Ed asked. He realized later that it was an odd question, and that a more appropriate response would have been to say something banal like, "Good for you," or "I knew you could do it."
"You want to know 'why?'" The Dwarf said, incredulous at the question. They ate in silence for a few moments, and then with his mouth still full of Pop Tart, crumbs spilling out the side, the Dwarf continued. "Sometimes you're a real asshole, you know that?
"Me?" Ed stopped eating and stared dumfounded at the Dwarf. The small man irked him with every breath.
"Yeah, you," the Dwarf persisted. "Look around, Little Suzy. How come your phone never rings? How come you never leave the apartment? Don't you see what's happening, man?"
Furious, Ed stood up, whisking his plate to the sink. He roughly turned on the faucet, adjusting the water, and then started furiously scrubbing his plate with a worn, green scrub pad. "Why am I forced to explain myself to an alcoholic—oh, excuse me, ex-alcoholic, whose only life ambition is to get plastered and sleep with hookers."
"They're not all hookers," the Dwarf answered evenly.
"Really?" Ed countered angrily. "The Redhead? The one with the poodle purse. She wasn't a hooker?"
The Dwarf guffawed, his deep baritone laugh filling the kitchen, taking Ed by surprise, as it always did. "Oh, Tangerine was definitely a hooker."
The doorbell rang. Both Ed and the Dwarf looked at the door. Neither spoke, startled by the interruption.
"I'll get it," the Dwarf said, after a few seconds had passed, and he wiped the remaining crumbs away from his lips with the back of his hand.
The Dwarf opened the door, and Ed saw his mother.
"Mom?" Ed panicked. His mother never came to Queens, and she certainly would not come unannounced. "What's wrong? What happened?" Ed felt the pit form in his stomach.
Doris ignored Ed and turned toward the Dwarf. "You didn't tell him, did you, Caleb? You promised."
And then, in that moment, it was startlingly clear. The shared intimacy between them, a palpable unveiling. And Ed knew.
"I tried, Dee, I really did. But you know Ed. He doesn't listen very well."
Doris nodded, confirming the Dwarf's assessment, and that slight gesture, that assent of her head, wounded Ed, and he could feel the rush of tears start to rise deep in his throat, but if you asked him why, he would not be able to tell you. His words had dried up.
The three of them stood in the doorway, waiting for someone to continue. Instead, The Dwarf put on his coat and wrapped his arm around Doris' waist. And then Doris, with the backside of her hand, gently touched Ed's cheek.
Together, the Dwarf and Doris exited, leaving Ed alone to shut the apartment door. He leaned against the closed door for a few minutes, afraid to move, and then he picked up the phone. He dialed Myrna's number. She wasn't pretty, but she would do.
Andrea Greenbaum, Ph.D., is a Professor of English at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida, where she teaches classes in fiction writing, cultural studies, gender, multimedia writing, and screenwriting.


text:
Ticket Prices:
Single Day: $8
Student/Senior Single Day: $5 (includes tri-state area colleges and high school)
UTC Students are admitted free with Mocs Card.
Frost Classic Inspired by Memorial
Friday, Feb. 24
Saturday, Feb. 25
East Tennesee State 5, UT Martin 1
Sunday, Feb. 26
Team listed first occupies 3B dugout. Bold team represents home team.
Local News Features:
Friday, Feb. 24
Unique Setting Primes Frost Classic Growth - Nooga.com
"Grandma Fuzz" Leads Lady Mocs into Frost Classic - WRCBtv.com
UTC Softball Team Home for Frost Classic at Warner Park - Times Free Press
Lady Mocs get Home Sweep to Open Frost Classic - WRCBtv.com
Lady Mocs Softball Wins Home Opener - WDEF.com
UTC Softball Wins its First Two at Home - Times Free Press
Saturday, Feb. 26
Purdue Tops Unbeaten UTC - Times Free Press
Everett Hot for Struggling ETSU - Times Free Press
Lady Mocs Split at Day 2 of Frost Classic - WRCBtv.com

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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LOUISA COUNTY, Va. – Ever since the August 2011 earthquake, the 550 students who make up Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Louisa County have gone to school in modular classrooms. Next year they will finally get inside their brand new school.
"I haven't concentrated so much on those road blocks that we hit along the way, I just kept looking to the future," Louisa County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Deborah Pettit said. "That's how you make it through something like this, and we've done it–and done it well. It's a happy day for us."
The 5.8 magnitude earthquake damaged the old T.J. Elementary School and forced the hundreds of students and staff to look for an alternate place to learn. It was on the soccer field at Trevilians Elementary School, where portable units were turned into a temporary school for T.J. students.
"It's a wonderful example of how the community came together and tried to provide a sense of normalcy to the students," Virginia Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran said.
Moran, Congressman Eric Cantor and Jeff Jones with FEMA were just some of those on hand Tuesday to get a look at where the students and staff have temporarily set up shop.
"It's really a testament to their resilience and fortitude," Moran said.
The leaders were also given a glimpse into what's next for the T.J. students, as the new elementary school is slated to open in August. On June 2, the mobile campus is set to be dismantled and the ground will once again become a soccer field.
"It's pretty unimaginable to see what it was then…to now what it has become," Congressman Cantor said. "It is due to real leadership here in Louisa."
The portable complex being used by Louisa County High School, will remain in use until their building is complete in August 2015.


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apparently this movie is doing real well internationally, it already made back all its money and broke records in China as it was the biggest box office opening warner bros ever had in china. and it hasn't even opened in Japan yet
from the article above.
The latest development is the 3D sci-fi actioner's Wednesday opening in China to a record-breaking $9M from an estimated 5,700 digital 3D screens, 117 digital 3D IMAX screens, and 22 China Giant Screen sites. That's a new high for any Warner Bros release and 23% bigger than for any Harry Potter film including 3D Harry Potter 7B. Pacific Rim grossed a huge 70% of the Top Five market share there. This is after the pic broke through to become the #1 film internationally on July 19-21 as it rolled out into less than half the global territories. Pacific Rim releases in Spain, Brazil and Japan on August 9th.
im going to be real shocked if this movie doesn't do well in japan off all places, but real glad that its turning a profit now,
hope they fully confirm and give del toro the full greenlight to do a sequel, as the idea floating around (spoilers for those who havent seen it) sounds pretty interesting.


text:
Thank you, Chris. I'm pleased to be here at the American Enterprise Institute. I have some long-time friends here, as you know if you've studied the published wiring diagrams that purport to illuminate the anatomy of the neo-con "cabal."
This AEI conference is being held to look at Iraq now that a year has passed since Coalition forces overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime.
At the beginning of May last year, seven weeks or so after the war started, major combat operations ended. Iraq has changed greatly over the last twelve months, and largely for the good, though the intensity of the fighting in recent days tends to overshadow the progress. It is true that the past weeks have been as costly to us as any since March 19, 2003. We're in a difficult period now. So, sober reflection on where we stand, where we're heading and why Iraq is important should be at a premium. This conference is timely.
Iraq has been transformed since last May.
First and foremost: The Saddam Hussein regime is gone and is not coming back. The threats that he posed to us and to his region have been eliminated and 25 million Iraqis have been liberated.
Economically, Iraq is recovering, though the ruinous results of the Ba'athist decades continue to impede progress.
Given its oil resources, and the education of its people, Iraq should have been a wealthy country. Under Saddam, however, its infrastructure became pathetically dilapidated. Coalition forces managed to spare most of that infrastructure from destruction during the war and, over the last year, the coalition has worked to repair and upgrade it.
Electricity generation has surpassed pre-war levels and is more evenly distributed. Iraqi schools have been repaired in large numbers. Health care spending in Iraq is 30 times greater than its pre-war levels.
Unemployment has fallen by nearly one-half over the past year. Inflation is a quarter of what it was before the war. A large-scale currency exchange was conducted successfully at the end of last year. The new currency has been remarkably stable, and its value has risen lately by 25% or so over its value last fall when the conversion was underway. Iraqi marketplaces are filled with consumer goods for the first time in decades.
Politically, too, Iraq has moved forward.
At the national level, the major achievement has been the unanimous approval by Iraq's Governing Council of the Transitional Administrative Law – the TAL – which will serve as the interim constitution until an elected assembly drafts a permanent constitution to be ratified by the Iraqi people.
The TAL is the most liberal basic governance document in the Arab world, with assurances of basic freedoms and equality of all citizens before the law.
As you may remember, the status of Islam was one of the more controversial issues in the drafting the TAL. The result was a compromise that includes protection of "freedom of religious belief and practice" and a provision that no law may contradict "the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the [enumerated individual] rights cited" in the TAL.
This latter provision's precise meaning will have to be worked out over time – as is often the case with constitutional principles. But it's noteworthy that the TAL assumes compatibility among individual rights, democratic principles, and the "universally agreed tenets of Islam."
The TAL's text is important. But the process by which this interim constitution came into being may be even more so. After all, non-democratic regimes often have high-minded constitutions, decreed by the dictator, that are belied by the actual practice of officials who are above the law. By contrast, the TAL emerged from vigorous bargaining among diverse Iraqis – men and women, secularists and Islamists, Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds. It was not decreed by a cynic from on high. Rather it was debated, crafted, and approved by the most representative governing body that Iraq has ever had.
There have been welcome political developments at the local level too. Over ninety percent of Iraqi towns and provinces have local councils. More than half of the Iraqi population is active in community affairs.
A number of Iraqi towns have held popular elections for local officials. Here is a press report about some successful local elections in Dhi Qar province. It comes from the Guardian, which – no doubt gritting its teeth – reported as follows on April 5:
"… Hundreds of would-be Iraqi voters pushed into a sparsely equipped school … to cast their ballots for the local council of Tar. Deep in the marshlands of the Euphrates, the town of 15,000 people was the first to rise against Saddam Hussein … in 1991. Now it was holding the first genuine election in its history. The poll was the latest in a series which this overwhelmingly Shia province has held in the past six weeks, and the results have been surprising. Seventeen towns have voted, and in almost every case secular independents and representatives of non-religious parties did better than the Islamists."
This good has been wrought collectively by a large number of people – Iraqis, Americans, and Coalition partners, military and civilian, government employees and others, who have served in Iraq during the past year. They have been self-sacrificing and brave. Iraqis in this effort have risked assassination, and refused to be intimidated as they committed themselves to building a new, free Iraq. Coalition troops – our own and those of partner countries – have borne the brunt of the fighting and are making sacrifices every day. Our forces deserve praise and gratitude for their bravery, resourcefulness, high mindedness and devotion to duty.
It's especially important to make this point now, as the horrific stories are told of the abuse of some Iraqi prisoners. The Defense Department's leadership will continue to ensure that the ongoing investigations are completed properly and remedial action is taken. Individual accountability is crucial.
Let me add: No country in the world upholds the Geneva Conventions on the law of armed conflict more steadfastly than does the United States. This is true not only because Americans recognize a moral obligation to be humane and because Americans are law-abiding by nature and in practice. It is true also because no country in the world has a greater practical interest than the United States in respect for the laws of war. We'll deal promptly and properly with the terrible abuses. The interests and dignity of our numerous, admirable military forces must not be undermined by the reprehensible actions of a few individuals.
Now, I'd like to shift to some comments about the current security picture. There has been great interest in whether the fighting in Fallujah represents a widespread insurgency. It is not one now. Coalition forces, Iraqi authorities, and the Coalition Provisional Authority are working with Sunni tribal and other leaders to try to ensure that it does not become a broad-based attack that could threaten the progress country-wide toward Iraqi self-rule. They are working to prevent the other major Sunni cities from erupting in sympathy with Fallujah.
In the Shia community, Moqtada al Sadr's power grab has not succeeded. According to all reports, support for him continues to decrease as the major Shia religious figures influence their community against him. Our desire to avoid fighting in the Shia holy city of Najaf has given Sadr something of a sanctuary for the moment, but the Shia community continues to pressure him to agree to a peaceful resolution of the situation.
So neither Sadr nor the Fallujah anti-coalition fighters represent a broad movement or insurgency in Iraq. Unlike in other historical guerrilla or terror campaigns, hardly any bombings in Iraq have been accompanied by a claim of responsibility. The Ba'athists and terrorists behind the bombings know that they have no philosophical or political basis on which to appeal to the Iraqi people.
Their only hope is that we will lose heart and depart, and that they will then be able to impose their rule on the Iraqis. This is not going to happen.
This AEI conference is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of why we went to war in the first place.
The controversy concerning our failure to find stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons has obscured the actual strategic rationale for the war – the public debate lately has focused on questions relating to the intelligence failure: Were the assessments "cooked?" Was there political influence on the intelligence process? And so forth.
The intelligence failure, and the blow to US credibility that it caused, is a serious matter. We should get to the bottom of it, and the President's decision to appoint a commission on WMD intelligence reflects his desire to do so.
But that matter shouldn't blind us to the larger point: The strategic rationale for the war didn't actually hinge on classified information concerning chemical and biological stockpiles. Rather, it depended on assessments about the nature of the Saddam Hussein regime and its activities. The relevant facts were available to the public.
Intelligence can play a crucial role in operational decision-making. But it should surprise no one that the grandest strategic considerations of statesmen in democratic countries are commonly based on open, rather than secret, information. Such statesmen, after all, would have a hard time arguing that their country should go to war, for example, but the reasons for the war cannot be shared with the public. President Bush made no such argument. Rather, he explained to the American people and the world the reasons that it was necessary to oust the Saddam Hussein regime.
Saddam's regime was recognized widely as a threat to world peace since at least 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam had launched aggressive attacks against a number of countries in his region. His military was the first in history to use nerve gas on the battlefield. He was outspokenly hostile to the United States and defiant of numerous attempts by the UN Security Council over a dozen years or so to constrain him and compel him to account for and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam had ties of various types with various terrorist groups. For example, the terrorist Abu Nidal lived in Iraq for years, as did Mahmoud Abbas, who was responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. In addition, Iraq maintained links with the Palestinian terrorist groups responsible for "suicide bombing" attacks and Saddam famously boasted of paying $25,000 to each family of a suicide bomber. Iraqi intelligence also carried out its own terrorist actions, notably the assassination attempt against former President Bush in Kuwait in 1993.
All of these points were known to the public.
The 9/11 attack compelled US policy makers to reevaluate the known dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. It was clear that the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks would have gladly killed a hundred or a thousand times the number of their 9/11 victims if they had had the means to do so. The principal strategic danger to the United States in the war on terrorism is the possibility that terrorists could get their hands on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. That was and remains the focus of our attention.
Given Iraq's record of hostility, aggression, WMD use and ties to terrorists – and given Saddam's frustration of a dozen years' worth of efforts by the UN, the US, and others to "contain" him – President Bush concluded in light of the 9/11 attacks that it was necessary to remove the Saddam Hussein regime by force. The danger was too great that Saddam might give the fruits of his WMD programs to terrorists for use against the United States. This danger did not hinge on whether Saddam was actually stockpiling chemical or biological weapons.
President Bush told the American people and the world that the removal of that regime would make the world safer, would free the Iraqi people, and would open the way for the development of democratic institutions in Iraq that could inspire the growth of freedom throughout the Middle East. If Iraq built democratic institutions, it would not only help ensure that Iraq remains off the list of terrorism supporters, but it could help us in the crucial task of countering ideological support for terrorism. It would be of great practical benefit if Iraq became a model of moderation, freedom, and prosperity. The terrorists of al Qaida and other organizations know how devastating that would be for their interests, which is why they are doing what they can to fight the Coalition in Iraq.
It bears stressing again: What I have just summarized here was the strategic rationale for the war. Those were the considerations that moved the key US policy makers. On that basis, the President appealed for support to Congress and to the American people. On that basis, the President obtained the support of our coalition partners. As interesting as the intelligence questions are, assessing the strategic rationale for the war did not require anyone to have access to any secrets. Reasonable people did and do dispute whether that rationale justified the coalition's military action. But I think no one can properly assert that the failure, so far, to find Iraqi WMD stockpiles undermines the reasons for the war.
Accordingly, the Coalition's strategic goal has been a unified Iraq that:
· Is on the path to democratic government and prosperity,
· Forswears WMD,
· Does not support terrorism, and,
· Seeks to live in peace with its neighbors.
We aim to achieve this by transferring power to a government in Iraq that will govern by compromise and consensus among the various ethnic and sectarian groups – that is, by the means used to produce the Transitional Administrative Law – rather than allow one group to oppress the others.
The creation of such a government not only serves our strategic purposes, but it is a key to managing Iraq's current security problems. We have a security interest in Iraqis' understanding that the US and the Coalition have no desire to control, much less exploit, Iraq or its resources. We want Iraqis to run their own country. Our strategy is to encourage and enable Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own affairs in all fields – security, economic, and political.
This is why the upcoming restoration of sovereign authority is so important to achieving our objectives in Iraq. I would argue that those who say that the current security problems will or should lead to a delay in the transfer of sovereign authority to the Iraqis have the analysis backwards.
First, an early end to the occupation is essential to the political strategy for defeating the anti-Coalition forces. A sovereign Iraqi government will be better able to marginalize its extremist opponents politically while Coalition forces defeat them militarily. As the captured letter from Zarqawi to his Al Qaeda associates demonstrates, such a transformation is the worst possible scenario for those who oppose the emergence of democracy in Iraq. Zarqawi wrote: "How can we kill their cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? This is the democracy... we will have no pretext." The Ba'athists and terrorists fear the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, and that's why they are trying so hard to derail it.
Second, Iraqis have shown reluctance to take responsibility if the Coalition Provisional Authority appears intent to remain in charge. This is understandable. Anybody who demonstrated leadership qualities and initiative under Saddam's tyranny, more likely than not, was quickly killed by the regime. Consequently, without the sense of urgency and accountability that a fixed deadline imposes, Iraqi leaders have been unable to resolve the difficult issues required to conduct elections and shape a new government. But when such a deadline is established, as it was with the Transitional Administrative Law, Iraqi leaders have shown that they can come up with the compromises necessary for the Interim Iraqi Government to take shape.
The situation in Iraq is not easy. There is value in thinking calmly and comprehensively about our strategy – assessing the facts, updating assumptions, reviewing the formulation of our objectives, and deciding the ways to achieve them. Strategic thinking aims to see the important connections among the ideas and events that may appear superficially to be unconnected. And it aims to think ahead many steps into the future. Strategy takes a long view from a high elevation.
It is well known that no pre-war prediction will unfold perfectly, and that there will be setbacks that require adjustments in both objectives and courses of action. In war, plans are at best the basis for future changes. This Coalition has the benefit of leadership and strategic thinking, but it has shown also that it can be flexible as necessary.
Examples of flexibility include:
· Requesting a large amount of supplemental funds when it became clear that Iraqi reconstruction was going too slowly, in part because the Iraqi infrastructure proved to be in much worse shape than we expected.
· Creating a new type of indigenous force (the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps) to fill the gap left by the Iraqi police service, many of whose members turned out not to be as well trained as we had supposed.
· Responding to Iraqi demands for an earlier resumption of sovereignty by developing the idea of a transitional government that could take power before a permanent constitution is ratified.
· Dropping the "caucus plan" for selecting the transitional government, when it turned out to be unpopular with Iraqis, and substituting a two-step process involving an interim government that can take power before legislative elections.
· Revising the mechanisms for implementing the de-Ba'athification policy to address complaints that the appeals process was not working as intended, and to respond to the Sunni minority's fears of marginalization.
Throughout all these changes, we have retained the strategic objective of Iraqis stepping forward to run their own country under a proper, representative arrangement that can win broad-based support.
A challenging mission such as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) requires steadiness. If the basic strategy is correct, then steadiness in the face of setbacks is required. Even as tactical adjustments are made, the essence of the strategy continues to provide direction.
Having a strategy means not being buffeted by the news of the day, not allowing fluctuating polls to determine what we do.
History teaches that steadiness is a gem-like trait of a wartime leader. Yet when a president is steady, as President Bush has remained throughout OIF, some folks inevitably will describe his steadiness as unapologetic stubbornness. One can only imagine what today's news media would have said about Winston Churchill in the face of his dogged refusal to change his strategy in the face of repeated setbacks! Steadiness, so long as one is willing as we have been to revisit assumptions and demonstrate tactical flexibility, is a virtue.
One year after the end of major combat operations, we are still at war. As our target date for the hand-over of sovereign authority to the Iraqis draws close, we must expect that the enemies of a free Iraq will become more violent. They know that the establishment of a sovereign, credible, representative Iraqi government – a government that builds democratic institutions in Iraq – would be a major defeat for them, and they are determined not to let it happen. The struggle against them will not be easy, but they offer nothing to the Iraqi people but a renewal of oppression. The Coalition has the will, the forces, the resources, and the strategy to succeed. And what we are fighting for is important and right.
Thank You.
Staff: Good morning, almost good afternoon, everybody. I'm Danielle Pletka. I'm the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies here. I'm going to moderate our Q&A.
Let me ask you all, as I always do, to remember that you, like Doug, are guests in our house. Please behave courteously. Identify yourself, identify your organization and, as always, put your statement in the form of a question.
The gentleman over there. Someone will bring you a microphone. Please wait.
Q: David Ruppe with Global Security Newswire. The President has said that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction still might be hidden in the country or have been moved out of the country. So, to what degree do you consider it a defeat for the U.S. that we have been unable to secure those weapons, if they exist, and to what degree is the administration concerned that those weapons still might be in the hands of al Qaeda, might get into the hands of al Qaeda or into the hands of insurgents and be used on our forces or civilians at home?
Feith: Well, we are still in the process of finding out exactly what the situation is, what happened with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which we know Saddam had, but we don't quite know what became of them. That work is on-going by the Iraq survey group. When its work is completed and its report is done, we will announce it publicly.
One of the great problems with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is precisely the one that you called attention to. There is always the danger that they could get into the hands of terrorists or other people that you don't want to acquire them. It's a serious problem worldwide, and it's obviously a problem in Iraq. But, as I said, we have not completed our work on the subject yet.
Q: Michael Rubin from AEI. Looking ahead, the United Nations, the United States, the Iraqi Governing Council and the transitional administrative law have called for elections before the end of January 2005. There's two ways to do direct elections. One is a constituency-based system, and the other is a party slate system, and they would have very different results. I'm curious about what the position of the U.S. Government is with regard to what direct elections mean and how they should be carried out.
Feith: It's an important question. We haven't resolved it yet. It's something that we've been discussing. It's a decision that I think is one that the Iraqis will take the lead in making, but it's one of those great questions that states face when they organize themselves ─ they either organize themselves as a new democracy or reorganize themselves through a constitutional process. There is a lot of experience on this subject in the world, and it's being reviewed right now in different countries [Inaudible] given the nature of Iraq and its history and culture.
One important point that I would make is: Whenever one approaches a subject as awe-inspiring as laying the foundation stones for somebody's government … it's important that these institutions be well-rooted in Iraq and in their culture and world view. Their chance of success goes up a lot if it is produced by Iraqis with a proper appreciation of who they are, what their history is, and what their experience is. It's not something that people from the outside should attempt to engineer without due respect for the people in the country.
Q: Thank you. Eli Lake, with the New York Sun. In an article in today's Salon, your old law partner, Marc Zell, is quoted as saying that Ahmed Chalabi had betrayed him in a promise to try to secure better relations with Israel and a free Iraq. Do you have any comment on this? I know that it's just hit, and I don't know if you've gotten a chance to see it--
Feith: I know nothing about it.
Q: …a broader question, there have been a lot of stories that said that the administration at this point have basically tried to distance themselves at this point from Ahmed Chalabi in a future transitional government. You have been an ally of his before you joined the administration. Can you comment on some of those reports?
Feith: I know nothing about the first question that you asked.
Iraq has a number of people who have been playing an important role in the Governing Council. Chalabi is one of them. The process by which the Iraqis are ultimately going to pick their leaders is being developed right now. It's going to be an electoral system and the leaders of Iraq will be the people who emerge from that process with support from the Iraqi people.
Q: Mohammed Ali, with Al Jazeera. Sir, you mentioned Abu Ghraib incidents. Is the Pentagon waiting to accept an independent investigation in that and the other allegations from some former detainees from Guantanamo, as well, are saying they were subject to abuse? That will be my question. Thank you.
Feith: I think I've said everything that I want to say on that subject. I know that Secretary Rumsfeld, and I believe General Casey and maybe some others, are going to be speaking to the press today. I'm sure they'll address those questions.
Staff: I'm going to exploit the ownership of the microphone for a second to ask a question, if I might, Doug. Other than the question of WMD in Iraq under Saddam, one of the things that troubled so many was the brutal history of the regime and the record of the Ba'athist Party over so many decades, although flexibility is a virtue, I wonder if you can just give us a little more insight into the decision to reverse the de-Ba'athification process, and more particularly perhaps, to the question of this general, General Saleh, who was picked and then unpicked, I gather, to head the force outside Fallujah. Can you just explain a little bit your thinking on that.
Feith: It's good to have the opportunity to say that we haven't reversed the de-Ba'athification process. I think that's a misconception. As I mentioned in my remarks, the de-Ba'athification policy was crafted with a number of ideas in mind. One of them was the importance of communicating to the Iraqis that the Ba'ath regime is gone and is not coming back. Another important consideration was justice ─ that the people responsible for the regime's crimes would be brought to justice.
But another consideration was clearly that it was important to be fair. It was important to make sure that broad policies don't have unfair effects on people in the country who, although they may have been compelled to be Ba'ath Party members, were not tainted with the crimes of the regime and had renounced the Ba'athist ideology. We didn't want to be in a situation where the country couldn't work together or couldn't come together.
So the de-Ba'athification policy was attempting to strike a proper balance among various considerations. One way that it was set up to strike that balance was to provide for an appeals process that would allow people, who might otherwise be eliminated from government employment, to come in and explain why they should not be excluded.
We have not changed, in essence, the de-Ba'athification policy. The Coalition Provisional Authority has not. What it did, though, is recognize, after a lot of complaints, that it was not being implemented as it should. This appeals process, in particular, was not working as it was intended, and so adjustments were made there.
Now, on the question that you raised about this former Iraqi general. One of the biggest challenges in Iraq today is vetting people. Secretary Rumsfeld has spoken on this publicly a number of times. You do the best you can in vetting, but part of the vetting process, kind of one of the checks on the vetting process, is after you're finished vetting people and you go public with somebody, if you've made a mistake, you hear about it, and that allows you to take corrective action. That is what was done in that case, and it was a mistake.
Q: [Inaudible, reporter from Turkey]. There will be a NATO Summit in Istanbul next month. What kind of a role in Iraq does the United States expect from Turkey and NATO?
Feith: The United States is encouraging NATO to assume more responsibility in the war on terrorism in general in both Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO is playing an important role in Afghanistan, having taken over the International Security Assistance force. NATO played a more limited role in Iraq in assisting the Polish multinational division.
Any contribution that NATO is willing to make and has the resources to effect I think is in our interest. We are working with--we're talking with a number of our NATO allies, and it's going to be undoubtedly an important topic of conversation in the Istanbul Summit. We are talking with them about the best role for NATO to play to support the Coalition's efforts in Iraq and to increase NATO's activities in Afghanistan.
Turkey itself has obviously a very important relationship with Iraq and has all kinds of roles to play. As one of Iraq's important neighbors, one hopes that Turkey will increasingly play a role in the economic reconstruction of Iraq and participate in commercial relations with them. There's obviously a Turkish interest in the effort to create, as I said, a unified Iraq that preserves its territorial integrity and creates a government that can get the active cooperation of all of the major elements of the country, including the Kurds in Iraq, so that the unity of Iraq can be preserved, and therefore, the broader regional stability that Turkey cares so much about can be preserved.
Q: Joe Galloway, Knight-Ridder Newspapers. Our panel, before you arrived, dealt at some length with planning for the war and the postwar or the lack thereof, and I believe your job is being in charge of the Office of Special Plans. So, if there are failures--and clearly there were--would you care to address the actual act of planning, how you conducted it and what went wrong?
Feith: Well, there was a great deal of planning done throughout the U.S. Government. I think that your question reflects a theme that is rather common in a lot of reporting on this subject. It kind of implies that people in Washington were somehow responsible for all of the planning regarding Iraq or postwar Iraq, and I think that's a rather wild oversimplification.
There was a lot of planning done interagency here in Washington at the strategic level, among the White House, the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Justice Department and the Pentagon. There was also, obviously, a lot of operational-level planning done by CENTCOM. It's a very complex subject to evaluate the quality of the planning. Some of it was very good. Some of it was a lot less good.
I think that it's something that is best left to historians to sort out, rather than ask the people, in the middle of everything, to step back and evaluate their own work. I'm perfectly comfortable to say that we live in a democracy; the records will be available to scholars. They'll look them over and decide what went right and what went wrong.
We are in the process of addressing, as a department and as a government, certain things that we think we've learned from the process. For example, the value of having a standing organization that can do the kinds of things that the Postwar Planning Office, which was put together just a few weeks before the war, was intended to do. The United States has done stability operations or peace operations for a number of years in a number of cases: in Haiti, more than once in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and now in Iraq. And yet every time we did it we had to organize a new effort. I think there's a good argument to be made that having that capability and that expertise in an office that functions, in effect, as a standing task force, is probably a smart thing to do and could make those kinds of operations go better in the future.
But that's an example of the kind of things that we're doing currently to try to assess recent experience. But, the ultimate kind of judgment that you're asking for, as I said, I think is better left to historians.
Staff: We can take one last question. The gentleman right back there.
Q: Mr. Feith, I was wondering if you could comment--
Staff: Excuse me. Can you identify yourself?
Q: Clay Swisher, and I work for CNO Resources. I was wondering if you could comment what effect you think Israeli settlement construction and occupation practices in the West Bank and Gaza strip, the effect that that is having on the ability of our troops to convey to the Arab and the Muslim World that the United States stands against oppression and they stand for freedom.
Feith: Well, the specific focus of your question is outside of my lane. But, on the general point that there is a lot of criticism of Israel, it will not surprise you to hear that throughout the Middle East there is a lot of criticism of the U.S. relationship to Israel. Clearly that is one of the conditions that we live with as we work with people throughout the Arab World. It's a constant subject of conversation, and it, as I said, is one of those conditions that we have to deal with.
We have, nevertheless, I think, established with a lot of people in Iraq, despite various differences about policy issues, important relationships of trust. What is important, as I said in my prepared remarks, is that Iraqis want to know our attitude toward them and their country, and if we are really sincere in our desire to leave them to run their own affairs and to help them get into the position where they can provide for their own security, set up their own government, be on a path to independence and to freedom, and to a functioning economy.
And on that, I think we've made progress. We have a lot more to make, and as we make that progress, I think we'll help ourselves on the political track, as well as the security track, in our work in Iraq.
Staff: Doug, thank you very much for a thoughtful presentation, and thank you to the audience.
Feith: Thank you.


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732.987.2266 732.987.2291
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University to Host Moving, Historical Exhibition in April
Lakewood, N.J., Mar. 30, 2010—Georgian Court University will present a multimedia "Holocaust Remembrance Exhibit" April 6–23 in the university's M. Christina Geis Art Gallery. The exhibit, timed to correspond with Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 11, will include children's books, historic and modern photographs, maps, posters, and text panels.
The exhibit will display historical concepts, including anti-Semitism throughout the ages as well as the chronological history of the rise of the Nazi party, and the implementation of laws against Jews and other "undesirables."
"The purpose of this exhibit is to promote awareness, teach tolerance, inspire compassion, and hopefully enlist the viewer to an allegiance of goodwill toward all of humanity," said Kathleen Settles, gallery director and one of the exhibit organizers.
The exhibition will continue with a spotlight on the ghettos of Warsaw, Poland, and Terezín, Czechoslovakia, as well as the concentration camps of Dachau, Germany, and Auschwitz/Birkenau, Poland. It will also feature the liberation of the camps near the end of the war. The exhibition will further pay tribute to several rescuers and the "righteous among nations," and will end with a display about genocides in other lands after World War II.
The exhibit coincides with "Yom HaShoah," or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day set aside to commemorate the lives and heroism of the six million Jewish people who died in the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945.
In addition to Ms. Settles, the exhibit was organized by Lisa A. Festa, Ph.D., an assistant professor of art history and José Gonzalez, lecturer in art. It ran for the first time last April and attracted a constant stream of visitors, including local congregations, public schools, and other groups. The positive feedback from those visitors encouraged the curators to set aside time each April to honor the victims and heroes of the Holocaust in the gallery.
The M. Christina Geis Art Gallery spotlights works of established and up-and-coming artists in diverse media. The gallery is located on the second floor of the Arts and Science Center on Georgian Court's Lakewood campus. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information, call Kathleen Settles at 732.987.2388.
Founded in 1908 and sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, Georgian Court University is a comprehensive university with a strong liberal arts core and a special concern for women. A forward-thinking university that supports diversity and academic excellence, Georgian Court serves over 3,000 students of all faiths and backgrounds in a residential Women's College and a coeducational University College with undergraduate and graduate programs. Georgian Court's main campus is located at 900 Lakewood Avenue, Lakewood, N.J., on the picturesque former George Jay Gould estate, now named a National Historic Landmark. Georgian Court also offers classes at its site at One Woodbridge Center in Woodbridge, at Coastal Communiversity in Wall, and at Cumberland County College in Vineland.
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COLUMBIA CITY — Relay for Life will take the field at Indian Springs Middle School on Saturday for a 24 hour fundraising event for the American Cancer Society.
Each hour will feature special events and theme laps.
Saturday events:
•7 a.m. registration opens and a continental breakfast will be served.
•9 a.m. start with an opening ceremony. The theme is "Purple Hour." Participants are encouraged to wear purple.
•10 a.m. is "Honk for a Cure." Walkers are encouraged to bring horns to honk while making their laps. Hit the Floor Dance Studio will perform. At 10:30 a.m. there will be a Soggy Joggy relay.
•11 a.m. will feature Caricature Artist, Darlene McCartney and Back to Back Water Balloon Dash contest. The theme for the hour is "Crazy Tie."
•Noon is "Wacky Hat" hour. A lunch of hamburger and hotdogs will be served. Sunbeam the Clown will be present.
•1 p.m. will feature a tug of war contest and will be "Bearded Hour." At 1:45 p.m., survivor Kathy Greenwalt will share her story.
•2 p.m. will host the Road to Recovery Race as well as Jail and Bail. The hour is themed, "Clown Hour" and participants are encouraged to dress as a clown.
•3 p.m. is "Juggle Hour." Dilly Bars will be served. From 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. the Mr. Relay Competition will be going on. Men will compete in an evening wear competition to see who can raise the most money.
•4 p.m. is the "Strong Man Hour." The Red Hat Strutters will perform and there will be a watermelon eating contest.
•5 p.m. will feature the traditional Survivor Lap and ceremony. Survivor registration will begin at 5 p.m. with a survivor dinner to follow the lap.
•6 p.m. is the crowning of Mr. Relay, dinner and "Ribbon Hour."
•7 p.m. is "Polka Dot Hour" where participants are encouraged to wear polka dots. At 7:30 p.m. there will be a game of musical chairs.
•8 p.m. will welcome plush animals for the "Animal Hour" as well as a hula hoop contest.
•9 p.m. is the Luminary Ceremony. This will begin at dusk and will include a reading of "in memory" and "in honor of" names.
• 10 p.m. is "Glow Time Hour." Walkers can wear their glow in the dark items. There will be a dance party as well.
•11 p.m. is the time for relayers to wear a favorite feather boa for the "Boa Hour."
•Midnight welcomes the Midnight Mile for runners and walkers. Pizza will be served as well.
Sunday events:
•1 a.m. is "Crazy Socks" hour.
•2 a.m. will bring out the animal in walkers with the theme, "Howl at the Moon Hour."
•3 a.m. is an hour to sugar up with Mountain Dew and m&m's.
•4 a.m. is "P.J. Hour."
•5 a.m. will be themed "Neon Hour." There will be a rooster crowing contest.
•6 a.m. is the hour to walk around the track in reverse. There will also be a morning worship time as well as awards and recognition.
•7 a.m. is themed, "Mismatched Clothes" and breakfast will be served. There will also be Zumba.
• 8 a.m. will feature a closing ceremony. At 8:30 a.m. is the final lap around the track.
The community is invited to come out for any or all of the events planned even if they are not a part of a team.
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on Friday, 20 January 2012.
I am a girl. And as a girl it is my prerogative to love clothes. Therefore as soon as I found out I was having a little girl of my very own my mind turned to visions of what I could dress her in- pretty dresses, gorgeous skirts, fashionable trousers, cute pj's - the list was endless. Even before she was born Mads had a better wardrobe than me, and now she is one it is no exception. Not that I mind at all, as I love enjoy buying her clothes more than I do buying them for myself. I love seeing how cute she looks when she is wearing a nice outfit.
I knew there was another lady not very far away from me who had also had a love of all things baby and all things pretty and that lady is Lucy at Dear Beautiful Boy. Our two little people are fast becoming good friends and we are hoping to marry them off one day. As long as we have raisins at the wedding I think we will be ok!
After much discussion over our shared love of such things and also our shared love of photography, we decided to hatch a plan...and came up with an idea.
What is Pretty.Little.Things I hear you cry? Well it is only our fantabulous new linky. It runs a little like this- Every Friday we will open a linky, one week on my blog and one week on Lucy's. Each week we will decide on a theme which will have something to do with all things pretty- it could be an item of clothing, an accessory or even a sneak peek of your baby's nursery. It might even be something specially for Mummy's. The only rule is that you need to take a photo- it is as simple as that! The linky will close each week on a Wednesday night, and we will deliberate over the photo's and then hand out awards. Yes awards! So you can show off your pretty.little.thing for all to see. Who knows there may even be prizes some weeks too!
So that is it. Simple really. Two friends with two very cute and trendy children, and a shared love of photography and all things pretty, wanting to see other people's very cute and trendy children!
This week we have decided on the theme of 'Our Favourite Baby Outfit.' I instantly knew what photo I was going to pick- I absolutely love this little dress of Mad's. It wasn't expensive, it was actually from TK Maxx but I adore it. I love the fact it is a little shirt dress and I think she looks really cute in it. I don't think there is much that is cuter than a little girl in a dress and tights. Scrummy.
We aren't doing a linky this week but by all means post your photo of your child's favourite outfit and let us know so we can have a look. Next week however the linky will be open and the theme is 'Going Home Outfits.' We can't be the only two Mummy's who spent lots of time thinking about what their little people would be leaving the hospital in.
Come back next week and share your photos so we can see just how lovely your pretty.little.things are.
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Though it still hasn't been "officially" announced, it has been no secret that AT&T plans to carry their own version of the HTC ChaCha. We learned that fact concurrently with the unveiling of the phone at Mobile World Congress in February. A recent FCC filing helped solidify that fact, but a newly leaked image shows the ChaCha sporting its very own AT&T logo. How cute!
There isn't much else to go off of in terms of when to expect the phone. The ChaCha should be landing on carriers around other parts of the world beginning this week. The astute might point to the July 17th date shown on the phone's screen, but that is little more than speculation at this point.
[via PocketNow]
Continue reading:
- 12 weird Android device names
- Bootloader Officially Unlocked for HTC Desire
- HTC Kernel Source Galore Today (Both EVOs, In
- HTC ChaCha Gets Pre-Launch Processor Boost to
TAGS: HTC ChaCha


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By Don Branum U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 9, 2012 The first thing noticeable about Dr. Ron Furstenau is his apparel. One of his ties displays a bevy of chemical symbols. An American flag, a smiley face and periodic table [of elements] pins grace the lapels of his lab coat, along with a three-eyed fish on one of his pockets.
Furstenau, a chemistry instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy here, is an enthusiastic person -- whether he's mentoring students in the academy's chemistry labs or performing instructive magic shows for young students in the local community.
The chemistry whiz said he became interested in science during grade school.
"Even as a little kid, I liked to try to understand why things work the way they do," said Furstenau, who grew up in Norfolk, Neb. "I don't think I knew it was science at the time. I just knew it was fun."
It took him a few more years, though, to discover which area of study interested him the most.
"It was my first science class in ninth grade," he recalled. "It was physical science, but mostly chemistry. Once I got into it in high school, I really liked it."
Furstenau went on to graduate from the Air Force Academy with a bachelor's degree in chemistry before earning a master's degree and doctorate at the University of Nebraska.
Between degrees, he served as a chemist at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and taught here. He came back to the academy after finishing his doctorate and kept teaching even after he retired from active duty in 2006. He's been involved with the academy's chemistry department magic show the entire time.
Furstenau performed a magic show April 21 at Colorado's Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center as part of the park's observance of Earth Day. Children enthusiastically raised their hands every time he called for volunteers.
Those who were picked got to mix potions of all sorts, including one that switched from blue to gold seemingly in response to cheering from the audience.
The kids didn't care that it was a Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction or that it involved malonic acid, hydrogen peroxide and iodine. They just knew it was cool.
As they watched the beaker's liquid cycle through blue, gold and clear states, Furstenau explained the basics: the reaction that turned the solution gold also provided the ingredients needed to turn the solution blue and vice versa.
"I did my first tour here in '84," he added. "I've probably done at least 800 of them over the years."
Furstenau said he and other academy chemistry instructors have performed chemistry magic shows across the state of Colorado, mainly in the Pikes Peak region and the Denver area.
"We'll go to whoever happens to ask," he said. "As a department, we look at getting them interested in science as well as maybe getting them interested in attending the Air Force Academy."
One magic show in particular sticks out in Furstenau's mind more than any other. It was one that he performed for a child who was in the Cadet for a Day program and her family.
"She was recovering from cancer," said Furstenau, who survived prostate cancer in 2007. "There was something about the interaction with her and her family. I don't know exactly what it was, but it's something I'll remember for the rest of my life."
The academy's STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) initiative for young people also offers programs for Girl Scouts, and programs to give middle and high-school teachers hands-on access to the academy's laboratories. They have instruments that measure chemical compounds in almost any way imaginable, from using radio waves and powerful magnetic fields to changing the rotation of an atomic radius, to using x-rays to shear electrons from an atom's outer layers.
"Science is really fun!" Furstenau said. "At some point, someone tells kids science is hard, and that's just not true. Yes, science is work, and it involves a lot of math, but it should always be fun."
His love of chemistry shines in his work, said Air Force Col. Mike Van Valkenburg, the head of the academy's chemistry department.
"I've known Dr. Furstenau since 1991 when I was first assigned here to the department as a captain," Van Valkenburg said. "I've been very fortunate to observe, learn and work alongside this very brilliant educator. He communicates understanding and the 'why' of chemistry superbly to any group of captured listeners. He is no doubt one of the best chemistry educators in the country who can motivate anyone to be interested in the subject and material."


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Songs Critiquing White Privilege
by Dan Weiss | February 23, 2014
Long be the habit of music to channel the voice of the oppressed into triumphant melodies and performances. From Leadbelly's defiant early "Bourgeois Blues" to Bob Dylan's epochal "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," Gil Scott-Heron's perfectly distilled "Whitey on the Moon" and Eminem's twisted, self-lashing "White America," it's no coincidence that the intersection of race and class is a favorite subject of many of music's true geniuses. Kanye West himself might not crow about his own genius had he never written "We Don't Care," a hilarious guide to how his generation survived Reagan.
Some of these songs are the most audacious ever, like Public Enemy's "911 Is a Joke" and Phil Ochs' hippie double-dare "Love Me, I'm a Liberal," while some gain new context when new horrors are introduced to history, like how Warren Zevon's coddled killer in "Excitable Boy" is extra-chilling in the wake of George Zimmerman, who's being groomed as a reality TV celebrity. So much great rap helps define the abuse of power, too, like Jay Z's "99 Problems" and LL Cool J's "Illegal Search." Then there's recent Grammy winner Macklemore, who has long considered the topic -- just see the first song on his first full-length record: "White Privilege."


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FREEGAL Music system Announcement
The Freegal Music Service is a music download service that many Libraries subscribe to that allows their patrons to download some music for free. Our library has been a subscriber to this service since 2011 and during that time has closely monitored its popularity among our patrons.
The library spends approximately $13,000 per year to be a part of the FREEGAL system. Even with substantial promotions, the use of the FREEGAL system has been low. After evaluating the costs of this subscription, the low usage, and the feedback from many of our patrons, we have decided that the money we spend on this service can better benefit our patrons in other ways. Therefore, we will be discontinuing the FREEGAL service effective January 31, 2013.
Even the FREEGAL system will no longer be available; the library is home to a very large and diverse collection of CDs. We are currently planning a number of other programs and acquisitions that help provide a richer and more diverse experience to the patrons of this library.


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Classic Beef Pot Roast with Pistachio Salt from 'The New Midwestern Table'
It may not be as much of a showstopper as a crown roast of pork or an elegant roast goose, but when prepared properly, a pot roast will be far more tender, delicate, and memorable than any of these typical centerpieces. Even better, it can be made in advance and popped in the oven to heat through at whatever hour needed. More


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I accidentally deleted my desktop folder.
So I did. And out of nowhere I have a new desktop icon and a clean slate. But since then, my computer has been really slow. So would it be a good idea to rebuild my desktop, and if so, how?
Restart Finder or log out and back in again.
That simple? Nice.
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I am trying to get the line number from a stack trace in my WP7 app. I have set debug info to full and am running the app in the Debug configuration, but there are no line numbers in stack traces. How can I fix this? I am aware of BugSense, but do not want to use it.
Take the 2-minute tour ×
Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's 100% free.
Don't think this is even possible, as
So don't think there would be any possibility to get a
But if you have a
StackFrame.GetFileLineNumber , which does:


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- Look closely to make sure the numbers line up, if it has an old-style analog odometer.
- Check the service history thoroughly for previous kilometre recordings, and make sure they match the history of the car?
- Look for wear and tear or suspiciously new parts. For instance, worn rubber pedals are easily replaced so it's worth questioning why such items have been replaced.
- A worn driver's seat is more expensive to replace and may be a warning sign of more use than the odometer suggests.
- Excessive stone chips on the bonnet could also indicate a car has done more distance than advertised.
- If the odometer reading looks to good to be true, it's probably false.


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By clarencecarter | REVERSEBLOG: the reverse shot blog August 3, 2005 at 5:05AM
Given that the movies I've seen in the past two weeks (in order: The Island, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Devil's Rejects, The Bad News Bears, Hustle and Flow, The Wedding Crashers, Sky High and Stealth) could all be generally classified under the heading of "studio" releases, this post over at The Backrow Manifesto's had me thinking: why do I do this? Especially when there's stuff of real "worth" playing around town: The Conformist, Saraband, and more.
While I definitely acknowledge the overall slumping of the industry and the toll this is taking on the indies, I don't think cinephiles of any stripe should feel embarrassed by a bit of time spent multiplex hopping, in fact, I think it's necessary. Although the pleasures of sitting down with mindless entertainment and laughing hysterically can be undeniable, watching even the "worst" film can be time well spent.
Many of the people reading this will be, to their circle of acquaintances, "the movie friend"—that person whose taste in film is regarded and opinion is sought after, and who can usually be counted on to crap all over some more mainstream film that's generally well-liked. (I once killed a party by violently stomping Hotel Rwanda.) That interaction is only possible if we're not willing to cede the field; if we stay rarefied, and holy in our cinema-going we don't have any credibility in bashing the mainstream or praising the highbrow outside of a small circle of people who share the same cinematic values. I saw Wedding Crashers for a very simple reason: Because everyone else in America is seeing it, and I wanted to be able to join the discourse. And now when someone asks me what I thought, I can honestly say: "Yeah, I laughed a few times, but don't you think the gay character is a little problematic?" Then I can neatly switch the conversation to something more worthwhile, like say, Linklater's The Bad News Bears, a comedy you don't have to feel bad about enjoying.
The other reason I spend so much time scraping the bottom of the barrel: Maybe optimistically I still believe that you can never really know what you're getting when you buy a ticket for anything. If I told you how much I genuinely enjoyed Sky High you'd probably laugh, but I did. See it if you can. Almost every film playing has some small pleasures, and it can be a treat to spot them. Before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hits train wreck-awful, audiences get some of the best, warmest Burton in years. Or Stealth—abominable as a whole (as expected), but I had to give some credit to Josh Lucas for trying to make a meal out of a role that was little more than an amuse—trying to infuse that piece of crap with some shred of integrity was a sight to behold. And don't even get me started on the "Freebird" sequence in The Devil's Rejects. Love or hate Zombie's film (I think it's pretty great) his closing sequence—now that's cinema.
A slight confession: I did catch Phil Morrison's lovely Junebug at a press screening in and amongst all these other behemoths. But I wonder if I would have appreciated its gentle quiet as much as I did if without all the noise of the larger films ringing in my ears. Buying tickets for small fare is great but the cinephile slogan shouldn't be "support indies," it should be "support movies." As anyone who watches a lot of films should know, big doesn't necessarily mean bad, and just because it came from Sundance doesn't mean it'll necessarily have any more value than anything else.


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Wednesday at 3 on KTOO-FM, Ken Fix hosts.
We'll learn about this year's Public Market, with guest Peter Metcalf;
Christy Ciambor will be here with an update on KTOO's Holiday Auction;
We'll talk with Phoebe Rohrbacher will be here to highlight Sunday's World AIDS Day;
Jim Betts will be here from the Knights Of Columbus;
And we'll talk with Shayna Roher about the International Doula Network.
That, Writers Almanac, Bird Note, music and more Wednesday 3p on A Juneau Afternoon.
Click here to listen


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Enjoy the exciting puzzle-solving adventures in a magic kingdom. The mission of the game is to break the spell of the evil sorcerer who enchanted many objects having turned them into mosaics. When you inlay mosaics with gems the spell cast over the objects is broken. Use your magic skills to disenchant the objects of the kingdom and save its people.
While travelling through the Enchanted Kingdom, you'll pass 18 scenes, each with its own exciting story, and you'll fill in various mosaics, turning them into more than 150 objects of the magic land. Take delight in making gem combinations and working small miracles with the help of your magic skills. With its fabulous setting and absorbing gameplay, tons of gem combinations and various mosaics, Fresco Wizard is a breathtaking adventure you won't forget.
500MHz Pentium or equivalent
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, DirectX 8.0 or better
80 Mb free hard drive space
3D hardware accelerated video card
Over 100 gems of various shapes
Access to three Magic Schools
18 adventure scenes with exciting stories
About 150 enchanted objects
About 450 various mosaics
Cheat codes: _HammerMana, _TeapotMana, _ClearChannel, _PortalSpeed


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Vape Therapist
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Berkshire, UK
Posts: 4,308
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
This game is more like an expansion pack for The Sims 3. Seriously, Sims with cars.
No crossfire / SLI support neither.
35-60 fps on average.
Just have to set it to whatever the console versions run at although the good signs are that they are actively supporting / patching this game.
I'm buying it regardless, mainly as play.com have started packing and I can't cancel the order. lol
Have to get an nVNews club going if it's possible.
I am determined to LIKE this game, I will force myself.
For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,205
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Users on the TDU 2 forum are saying the physics and ffb have taken a step back from TDU 1. I really thought there was no way to mess up a TDU 2. Just improve upon the first. Smoother roads, better hardcore mode and maybe some weather and day/night cycles. What is so hard about that?
Anyway, I'm downloading....My expectations are very low. Keeping my fingers crossed.
PS3 | Xbox 360
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 6,365
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Sounds poo. I'll give it a miss, especially if there's no crossfire support. I wasn't much of a fan of teh original either.
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 2,423
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Yeah, the cut scenes looked awful, lots of them as well.
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,994
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Major bums me out this game turned into what it is. Its a casual gamers world I guess.
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Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
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Posts: 2,103
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
I think this game has a lot of potential, it just needs some more work.
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Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
So I have given this game almost two days of game play about 6 hours or more. I enjoyed the first Test Drive quite a bit and I had high hopes for TDU2. I was in the beta so my hopes had already been crushed. I gave my feedback as did many others and it seems they didn't want to change much at all.
I wanted to go into the game with a clear mind, like I had never played a driving game before. It didn't help. Is it better than the beta, a little. I guess first the good. It's TDU2 and the island is huge. Racing online is pretty much flawless so far. Haven't seen a lot of people but the social aspect of the game isn't as bad as you think. The cars look pretty nice. 2048x1536 4xaa 16af and I'm pretty much the same as JohnDio, 45fps. That's about it the rest is all bad.
The sounds of the cars are just horrible, electric lawn mowers sound better. I would rather have someone behind me making engine and shifting noises than listen to these cars. This game has no bass, zero. Inside or outside of the car they all sound like utter crap. It's so bad it makes me think there is an audio engine issue with the game but I was in the beta and I know there is not. They meant for the game to sound this way. It's bad.
I always use my G25 and I had the game set on hardcore most of the time. FFB works and it feels okay, it doesn't really bother me. What does bother me is the huge dead zone and general lack of the feeling that you're driving a car. Handling is abysmal. I don't know how they did it but they made my wheel drive like a gamepad. Settings are pretty much useless. Turning and breaking feel very off, it's hard to judge turn entry speed. Cars slow down way too fast it's very unrealistic. The physics and turning just feel bad. Worse than TDU1.
I like driving using the in car view. BTW no support for TrackIR this time around either. They've added an annoying look to turn feature that you're unable to turn off. For me it results in a feeling of gliding around inside the car as I try to swerve in and out of traffic and around turns. It completely throws off the feeling of turning the car. I don't know why they even have side or rear view mirrors you can't see any of them and there is no way to adjust seat position but you can turn on your blinkers and be one of those idiots that leave it on.
I haven't done much MP but SP racing thus far has been boring, easy and boring. I don't think I ever selected a difficulty level and there is no setting in the menu. At one point I ended up on a dirt road in a Lotus and I found the car could not go over 60mph and if I shifted to third I would start slowing down. With the car rolling on a paved road 1-3mph first gear, letting the clutch out results in a stall. It's very hard to do a normal start, it's a pain. Going automatic just makes the game even more boring. No ignition button like in TDU1 you just push the gas to start the car.
Graphics are decent at best, mostly very bla there are some areas that look nice but they are too few and far between. Rain and night driving is kind of cool and the wet pavement looks good. I can't say the textures are bad some look pretty good. Roads trees dirt grass rocks all look good. It's just a general lack of color and I would say you can't see more than a few hundred feet up the road at any given time. Seeing textures and trees draw in is very distracting. The actual draw distance is very short and they seem to have setup every road to limit the view as much as possible but you still see trees and buildings being awkwardly drawn in. At one point the game exploded into triangle artifacts.
Is it fun...yes, kind of, not really, no. Do I plan on playing more...yes this thing was $40 bucks and I'm going to pray for patches but I'm afraid there is just too much to fix. Overall I'm being hard on the game but I expected better and feel I'm being honest. Looking around the TDU2 forums I'm not alone, pretty much everyone hates it, some demanding refunds.
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"Don't mind the posts, I've been around longer than most know."
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,205
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
I've just been playing for 2 hours. I've been waiting for a sequel to TDU forever but my initial impressions are stunned and horrified. The FFB feels totally broken. Braking distances are extremely unrealistic and unnatural feeling. Too early to make a final judgement. I just hope things get better.
Edit: 2 more hours. This game does not like 900 degrees on my old DFP. Went to profiler and set the range to 360 deg and sensitivity way up. That helped a whole lot. At least it's playable now.
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Location: Stockholm Sweden
Posts: 2,319
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
This sucks, i've been waiting for such a long time for this game and this is all we get ? Man, they've been posting these 400 developer diary's on how wonderful this game was going to be but to me it sounds like they should have spent that time actually coding this piece of crap instead I just dont get how they could make it worse than tdu1, unforgiveable imo.
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Posts: 1,041
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Definitely wait for some patches. It's not worth buying as it is now.
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Posts: 6,726
Re: Official Test Drive Unlimited 2 thread
Thanks for the review Maxthreat. You basically confirmed everything I thought. All of those issues were present in the beta, I even posted the issue about the car stalling at anything under 15mph cause the clutch just unloads on their forums. Also, the car will probably stall if you still have the car in gear and your speed falls below about 15mph.
I didn't expect much out of them when they only had a beta for like 3 days. Given their poor record at fixing stuff in the first one, they backed that up for the second. It really sucks cause the game could be good but they miss on the important part. I could live with poor audio, no TrackIR support and some of the other cosmetic issues, but if you can't control the car then the main function of the game is broken.
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