text: Collar Bomber: The true story of the strangest heist ever Collar bomb 20 January 11 by Rich Schapiro This article was taken from the February 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.At 2.28pm on August 28, 2003, a middle-aged pizza deliveryman named Brian Wells walked into a PNC Bank in Erie, Pennsylvania. He had a short cane in his right hand and a strange bulge under the collar of his T-shirt. Wells, 46 and balding, passed the teller a note. "Gather employees with access codes to vault and work fast to fill bag with $250,000 [£160,000]," it said. "You have only 15 minutes." Then he lifted his shirt to reveal a heavy, boxlike device dangling from his neck. According to the note, it was a bomb. The teller, who told Wells there was no way to get into the vault at that time, filled a bag with $8,702 in cash and handed it over. Wells walked out, sucking on a Dum Dum lollipop he had grabbed from the counter, hopped into his car and drove off. He didn't get far. Some 15 minutes later, state troopers spotted Wells standing outside his Geo Metro in a nearby car park, surrounded him and tossed him to the ground, cuffing his hands behind his back.Wells told the troopers that while out on a delivery he had been accosted by a group of black men who locked the bomb around his neck at gunpoint and forced him to rob the bank. "It's gonna go off!" he told them in desperation. "I'm not lying." The officers called the bomb squad and took positions behind their cars, guns drawn. Television crews arrived. For 25 minutes Wells remained seated on the pavement, his legs curled beneath him. "Did you call my boss?" Wells asked a trooper at one point, apparently concerned that his employer would think he was shirking his duties. Suddenly, the device started to emit an accelerating beeping noise. Wells fidgeted. It looked like he was trying to scoot backwards, to escape the bomb strapped to his neck. Beep... Beep... Beep. Boom! The device detonated, blasting him violently on to his back and ripping a 12cm gash in his chest. The pizza deliveryman took a few last gasps and died on the pavement. It was 3.18 pm. The bomb squad arrived three minutes later.The police began sorting through a trove of physical evidence. In Wells's car, they discovered the cane, which turned out to be an ingenious homemade gun. The bomb itself was likewise a marvel of DIY construction. It consisted of two parts: a triple-banded metal collar with four keyholes and a three-digit combination lock, and an iron box containing two 15cm pipe bombs loaded with doublebase smokeless powder. The hinged collar locked around Wells's neck like a giant handcuff. Investigators could tell that it had been built using professional tools. The device also contained two Sunbeam kitchen timers and one electronic countdown timer. It had wires running through it that connected to nothing -- decoys to throw off would-be disablers -- and stickers bearing deceptive warnings. The contraption was a puzzle in and of itself.The most perplexing and intriguing pieces of evidence, though, were the handwritten notes that investigators found inside Wells's car. Addressed to the "Bomb Hostage", the notes instructed Wells to rob the bank of $250,000, then follow a set of complex instructions to find various keys and combination codes hidden throughout Erie. It contained drawings, threats and detailed maps. If Wells did as he was told, the instructions promised, he'd wind up with the keys and the combination required to free him from the bomb. Failure or disobedience would result in certain death. "There is only one way you can survive and that is to co-operate completely," the notes read in meticulous lettering that would later stymie handwriting analysis. "This powerful, booby-trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions... ACT NOW, THINK LATER OR YOU WILL DIE!" It seemed that whoever planned the robbery had also constructed a nightmarish scavenger hunt for Wells, in which the prize was his life.In the hours after Wells was killed, the cops tried the hunt themselves. The first note was straightforward enough: "Exit the bank with the money and go to the McDonald's resturaunt [sic]," it read. "Get out of the car and go to the small sign reading DRIVE THRU/OPEN 24 HR in the flower bed. By the sign, there is a rock with a note taped to the bottom. It has your next instructions." Wells had driven there after he left the bank with the bag of cash. He retrieved a two-page note from the flower bed, which directed him up Peach Street to a wooded area, where a container with orange tape held the next set of instructions. Wells was caught before he got to that clue, but the investigators picked up the thread, locating the container with the orange tape. In it, they found a note directing them 3km south to a small road sign, where the next clue would be waiting in a jar in the woods nearby. When they got there, they found the jar, but it was empty. Whoever had set this macabre ordeal in motion, it seemed, had called it off once the cops had appeared -- and had probably been watching them every step of the way.Wells's clothing added another layer of intrigue. He died wearing two T-shirts, the outer one with a Guess clothing logo. Wells wasn't wearing the shirt at work that morning, and his relatives said it wasn't his. It appeared to be a taunt: can you guess who is behind this?That was just one of the questions that perplexed investigators. What, for instance, was the purpose of the scavenger hunt? Why send a hostage hopping around Erie in daylight? Why scatter clues in locations where they might be discovered? How was Wells chosen?The riddles transfixed the city of Erie and drew headlines in newspapers from St Louis to Sydney. It also set in motion a byzantine investigation, with federal agents sniffing out clues and hunting down leads in twisted pursuit of the shadowy criminal who came to be known as the Collar Bomber. For seven years, the FBI was engaged in a scavenger hunt of its own, one that the Collar Bomber seemed to have planned as intricately as the one that had ensnared Wells. The only question was whether the Feds would get any further than Wells had.The hunt began at Mama Mia's Pizza-Ria. That's where Wells was working at 1.30pm on the day of the robbery, when an order came in for two sausage-and-pepperoni pizzas to be delivered to the outskirts of the city. Wells was a loyal employee -- in ten years, the only time he had called in late was when his cat died. Even though he was at the end of his shift, he agreed to deliver the order. He walked out of the shop, pizzas in hand, at about 2pm.The delivery location, reachable only by a dirt road, was a TV transmission-tower site in a wooded area off busy Peach Street. When investigators combed the vicinity, they discovered shoe prints consistent with Wells's footwear and tyre tracks matching the treads on his Geo Metro. But the site offered no clues as to who may have lured him there or what happened once he arrived.The next day, a reporter and a photographer for the Erie Times-News headed to the tower. The dirt road leading there was cordoned off by the authorities, but the journalists spotted a tall, heavy-set man in denim Carhartt overalls pacing in front of a home that sat right next to it. His backyard extended almost to the transmission tower. The man identified himself as Bill Rothstein.Rothstein, 59, was an unmarried handyman and a lifelong resident of the area. He spoke elegantly, like someone who takes great pride in his mastery of the English language. (He was also fluent in French and Hebrew.) Rothstein seemed oblivious to the investigation unfolding beyond his back yard. The journalists, eager to get a view of the scene, asked Rothstein if he could lead them through his yard. He agreed. They headed into the thick brush but still couldn't see much. After spending about 15 minutes at Rothstein's place, they took off. Rothstein turned out to be hiding a dark secret. On September 20, less than a month after the bomb killed Wells, Rothstein called 911. "At 8645 Peach Street, in the garage, there is a frozen body," he told the police, referring to his own address. "It's in the freezer." Read page 2 1234 Read on one page Latest on wired.co.uk


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By Kyle Meenan & First Coast News Staff
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The man convicted of killing a Jacksonville Beach waitress six years ago has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Robert Denney was in court Monday morning. A jury had found him guilty of killing 25-year-old Ragtime restaurant worker Corey Parker in her apartment in 1998. Parker was stabbed 101 times.
Police arrested Denney in November 2000, based on a match between his DNA and a genetic profile found on a small hair uncovered in the dead woman's apartment.
Later, Florida Department of Law Enforcement examiners matched his DNA to a smear of blood from Parker's kitchen. But police said Friday that they sent DNA or fingerprint samples from 38 other people to FBI or FDLE labs before arresting Denney. Denney was the slain woman's neighbor.
Judge Peter Dearing pronounced the sentence Monday morning.
"It is the judgement and the sentence of the court to have you committed to the department of corrections for the balance of your natural life with no possibility of parole."
Processing the DNA evidence was both time consuming, and expensive.
"Each strand of hair costs close to $2,000 and there were numerous strands of hairs tested but that doesn't even count all the other stuff that was done," said Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey.
The Denney camp will appeal both today's sentencing, and the verdict itself.
"The state obviously wanted to pursue the death penalty because we still believe that would have been the appropriate penalty for Robert Denney and for what he did to Corey Parker," said Corey.
"We were precluded by law from seeking the death penalty, so life with no parole is as appropriate as we could have hoped for."
Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey said the Denney case may have been one of the most expensive trials in Duval County history, with the pricetag still being totaled.
"I hope that what it shows to the public is that even though we are using your tax dollars, we are using them wisely. We will fight for our victims no matter what and we will always fight for our victims."
First Coast News

subset: commoncrawl


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LocomotionWritten by on October 16, 2012 Contributors: Wes Allison
CRAZY. "When Nye Frank and I started building the first dual car, everyone told us, 'It won't work, it'll break, it's too heavy, it won't hook up, you guys are nuts, that's impossible,''' John Peters says. "Telling me I can't do something is like waving a red flag. If I get my mind set on something, I usually get it done." Yeah, but it took a while. Persistent breakage during the '60 and '61 seasons did nothing to silence the skeptics. Despite displays of competitive horsepower and endless combinations of chassis configurations and intake systems, the big, heavy Peters & Frank dragster lived up to inline twins' reputation for inconsistency, fragility, and the traction penalty paid for disadvantageous weight distribution compared with side-by-side setups.
"Inline is the easiest way to do it—also the cheapest," John explains. "We were both holding down full-time jobs: Nye at Hughes Aircraft, me at Engle Cams. We changed something every week. We'd come back from a race and cut it in half, make it longer, change this, change that. Back then, 10 or 15 bucks bought enough surplus chrome-moly tubing to build a whole car. Aircraft nuts and bolts were 10 cents a pound. We went from injected Chevys to a front-mount blower, to one blower in front plus one on top, to both on top. We also broke just about everything there was to break, but we had experience, and we worked the problems out."
And how: Beginning with a breakthrough Top Gas win at Bakersfield's '62 U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships and continuing through 1971 with NHRA's final year for Top Gas Eliminator, John Peters and his drivers dominated like no other team. (Nye Frank and Bob Muravez, aka Floyd Lippencott Jr., both departed in 1964 to campaign the twin-engined Pulsator streamliner.) The Train was the first gas car to go 170, 180, 190, and 200 mph, and also to break the 8-, 7-, and 6-second barriers. Dual Chryslers installed for John's final season produced a 6.97 at 211—the quickest and fastest ever. Moreover, in each of its three major mutations, the Freight Train was arguably the best-known dragster on the planet.
The fact that this 45-year-old chassis even exists still surprises folks familiar with John's history and his bitterness about the NHRA forcing such cars into a handicapped-start Competition Eliminator for 1972. Take it from Tom Jobe, a neighbor kid and future Top Fuel star: "John and Nye would always cut up their current car to build the next one. I don't remember them ever selling a car. When Bob Skinner and I were trying to figure out how to build our dragster, their shop—which was at John's dad's house in Venice—was our favorite stop because they were always building or modifying something, and because John would never throw us out for asking too many questions."
"I had decided to cut this one up, too," John reveals. "When I told my wife, she said, 'You get rid of that car, you can just pack your bag and leave with it. You'll have divorce papers tomorrow.' So, I hung it up in the rafters, instead, and sold off everything else. That chassis would still be up there today if Steve Gibbs hadn't started the NHRA Reunions. At the first one [November 1992], he said he'd like to see the Train run the next Winternationals, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our win there. Pomona was less than three months away, but we made it, barely, with a lot of help from old sponsors. Without their parts, it would've cost more to put the car back together and buy an enclosed trailer than we'd spent on everything we owned, including the house. It was worth it, though. Bob [Muravez] made two easy exhibition passes each day, running 8.04 at 196, and we were swarmed by the fans. We still get that kind of reaction at the Bakersfield and Bowling Green reunions, even though the car only cackles now [due to tightened NHRA chassis specs]. When we went back to Indy for the 50th Nationals, several people said, 'We came here just to see you guys.'"
"If they were still running Top Gas cars, we'd probably still be doing it," insists Peters, 73. "With the blocks and heads they've got now, I could build one that would run in the 5s and probably 230, easy." Hmmm, dual-engine slingshots blowing that ol' blackie carbon might be just the ticket for filling some empty seats at national events. We can be sure that all it'd take to find out is for NHRA to (1) bring back the class and (2) tell John Peters that he'd be crazy to try.
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John Peters welded up the final Freight Train after hours at Race Car Specialties, using chrome-moly donated by sponsor and friend Frank Huzsar. Extremely long for its time, its wheelbase ranges from 207 to 209 inches, depending on the caster dialed into the front axle. Always safety conscious, John mounted dual parachutes decades before they were required. Racing weight with Chevrolets was less than 1,800 pounds; with Chryslers it was about 2,100—some 300 to 400 pounds less than other Hemi twins. Longtime sponsor Marvin Rifchin donated two sets of the 12-inch-wide M&H Racemasters in use by Nostalgia Top Fuel cars in 1993, when the Train returned to action. Nye Frank formed the aluminum body panels.Failure-prone Olds ring-and-pinion sets were ultimately replaced by this Halibrand magnesium quick-change sourced from champ cars. The torque tube replaced the Lenco two-speed that sat behind a triple-disc Schiefer clutch at the end of this car's competitive life. Note how the steering linkage is routed through the tight cockpit. The "crotch" belt visible in front of the seat was carried over from the original Train, which likely had the first five-point system installed in a dragster. John asked fledgling manufacturer Bill Simpson to add the fifth belt after watching a close friend, Mickey Brown, die in a low-speed crash after getting upside down at Lions and sliding out from under his shoulder belts.Lenco's Leonard Abbott custom-made the pinion support and side plates. "One reason the car arched up and worked so well was that the entire back part was bolted solid to the front of the rear engine, right through the clutch disc and pilot bearing at the back of the rear engine," John explains. Note the throttle pedal's positioning below instead of above the open-tube axle, which rotates inside round pillar plates and frame-mounted bearings. Of the unconventional setup, Bob Muravez once quipped, "I got used to having my driving shoes shined."Not even John Peters can name all the different sets of fingers that gripped this wood-handled butterfly wheel in various Freight Trains. While Bob Muravez took far more rides than anyone else—between 1,600 and 1,900 quarter-miles, by his calculations—other engineers included Bob Brissette, Craig Breedlove, Mickey Thompson, Leonard Harris, Bill Alexander, Goob Tuller, Tom McEwen, Sam Davis, Billy Scott, Walt Rhodes, Gerry Glenn, and Bob Noice.Unlike solid, gear-style couplers that bind up when a chassis flexes, a chain and sprockets are much more forgiving. The No. 50 chain lines up both No. 1 cylinders at TDC, effectively creating a V16 and simplifying valve adjustment and tuning. "The secret is to make sure all clearances are right and the cams are degreed exactly the same, so one cylinder isn't trying to run differently from another," John explains.Other than using new 350 Bow Tie blocks and heads donated by Chevrolet (instead of reworked 283 or 327 parts), the 355ci, 8.0:1 engines are surprisingly similar to John's late-'60s combination, yet they produce 25 percent more power (800 hp each versus 600 previously). However, almost nothing but the Joe Hunt Vertex magnetos and one injector remains from the old days. Hilborn supplied the fuel pump and prepared the injectors with extra-long throttle shafts, which John connects with U-jointed linkage to prevent binding as the car flexes. Mooneyham 6-71 blowers spun by RCD drives sit atop Edelbrock manifolds. Mondello massaged the iron heads to accept Manley valves, retainers, and springs. The roller cams are still ground by Engle, where John worked from 1960 until 1981, when he and son Brad opened John Peters Racing Engines in Lakeport, California. Inside the Milodon oil pans, Cola cranks swing Venolia rods and flat-top pistons. Bailey Bros. (Vallejo, California) balanced the rotating assemblies.
September 2004: After a 33-year absence, this car returned to Indy to commemorate the 50th NHRA Nationals and was engineered by (L-R) Sam Maus Jr., John Peters, Roy "Goob" Tuller, Ed Heimer, and Sam Maus Sr. Matching uniforms, a first for drag racing, and the locomotive horn blasting from the push car enhanced the popular team's fan appeal in the '60s.


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May 30, 2016
With 28 sports and over 5,000 athletes expected, the games have a huge economic impact on the Meridian area. It's set for June 18-20 and June 24-27.
"We did an economic impact report in 2002 and we found out that Meridian makes over $5.5 million in benefits from the tourists that come into Meridian," said Leah Reed.
Hotel rooms for the first weekend typically fill every local motel and hotel, with some athletes staying as far as 60 miles away.
Bellsouth also chooses its sportsman and sportswoman of the year.
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Divided we stand
Politics | Unable to unite behind a GOP candidate, religious right leaders face a wilderness road to the White House
NEW ORLEANS- Last month at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, several dozen leaders of the "Christian right" met to strategize next steps-but the meeting inevitably included discussion of missteps in the GOP presidential campaign. Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an early supporter of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chided the group for cold-shouldering his candidate until it was too late. Others, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, disagreed. The meeting quickly threatened to dissolve into accusations, rebuttals, and recriminations.
Then, venerable Paul Weyrich-a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Council for National Policy (CNP)-raised his hand to speak. Weyrich is a man whose mortality is plain to see. A freak accident several years ago left him with a spinal injury, which ultimately led to both his legs being amputated in 2005. He now gets around in a motorized wheelchair. He is visibly paler and grayer than he was just a few years ago, a fact not lost on many of his friends in the room, some of whom had fought in the political trenches with him since the 1960s.
The room-which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations-became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."
In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.
Why were the leaders of Christian conservatives divided and ultimately ineffective in the 2008 campaign?
The story may have begun a year ago when Newt Gingrich appeared on Focus on the Family's national radio broadcast on March 16, 2007. During the broadcast, Gingrich confessed past sins and Focus founder and host James Dobson declared, "I cannot under any circumstances support John McCain." Many thought that Gingrich would be Dobson's candidate, but those who had been disappointed by Gingrich's ineffectiveness as speaker of the House, or by his extramarital dalliance, withheld their backing.
That same day Sen. John McCain pulled in a disappointing $150,000 at a luncheon fundraiser across the country at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte. He was polling in single digits, behind Gov. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, even behind former Sen. Fred Thompson, who had not declared his candidacy. At an after-lunch press conference, McCain took a reporter's question about Gingrich's performance on the Focus broadcast with an icy stare: "First of all, let me say that I'm a believer in redemption."
For McCain, political redemption was a year away. Gingrich failed to rally support from those who knew him best, and some conservative leaders turned instead to Romney, who had long courted them. In 2006, Christian public-relations guru and Romney backer Mark DeMoss had his candidate meet with about 15 conservative activists. In a gesture that-like much of Romney's campaign-was both opulent and desperate, Romney sent everyone in attendance an expensive office chair, along with a note that read, "You'll always have a seat at our table."
Despite the largesse, Romney gained only a footstool at the Christian conservative table, whose leadership increasingly was troubled over his flip-flops on gay civil unions and abortion. On Sept. 29, 2007, he spoke at a CNP meeting in Salt Lake City. The next day he met with Dobson, Perkins, and about 40 other leaders. Conservative talk show host Rick Scarborough told WORLD the verdict: Romney as governor of Massachusetts "just a few short years ago . . . fought against everything we're fighting for." He would not win the group's backing.
So, with Gingrich not in the running, and Romney a "no," Thompson's leisurely campaign and Ron Paul's iconoclastic one did not impress many Republicans. Giuliani's pro-abortion stance alienated most. The candidate who continued to draw support from grassroots folks: Huckabee.
"The other candidates come to you," Huckabee told 2,000 Christian conservatives at the Washington, D.C., Value Voters Summit in October 2007. "I come from you."
That line generated one of more than a dozen standing ovations during Huckabee's 20-minute address, and he gained most of their votes in a straw poll of those present.
But Huckabee could not gain traction among the religious right leaders who could have generated the financial backing he needed to run a national campaign. In October, as well, he met with a group of conservative Christian leaders-most drawn from the ranks of the CNP gatherings-who say they were "vetting" the candidates. Most didn't like Huckabee's positions on immigration and tax reform. Others thought him insufficiently ardent in criticizing Islamic extremism and abortion. Members of the group believed that Huckabee was "their guy" from a religious perspective but said he was not quite ready for "prime time."
But no other candidates thrilled the leaders, either, so Huckabee was the one candidate they invited back for what one leader called a "do-over." He did much better the second time, yet the group remained too divided about his winning potential to agree to endorse him. When he won a stunning victory in Iowa, he didn't have the resources to take advantage of that upset in the primaries that immediately followed. McCain beat Romney in New Hampshire, and the Arizona senator soon became the unexpected front-runner.
On Jan. 22, just days after the South Carolina primary, Fred Thompson dropped out of the race. The next day, American Values president Gary Bauer wrote the 100,000 supporters on his email list: "Fred Thompson-sadly, in my view-dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race yesterday. He was the one candidate who understood Reagan conservatism and who appealed to all three segments of the Reagan coalition-social conservatives, economic conservatives and defense conservatives."
Thompson's departure should have helped Huckabee, but Huckabee himself had finished a disappointing second in South Carolina-to McCain. When Giuliani failed to win Florida on Jan. 29, a state in which he had spent much of his time and money, he withdrew-and McCain got most of Giuliani's supporters.
On Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, McCain won nine states to Romney's seven and Huckabee's five. McCain took 601 of the delegates to Romney's 201 and Huckabee's 152. When it was too late for Huckabee, Dobson endorsed him, but by then McCain had the endorsement of inevitability. On March 4, nearly a year after Dobson had said he would not vote for McCain, McCain won the Texas primary and enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination.
Three days later the CNP met again, this time in New Orleans. McCain, trying to stroke conservatives, took the stage with a hand-held microphone. He received applause when he praised Huckabee, when he said, "We've let spending get out of control," when he said, "Radical Islamic extremism is evil. It's evil," and when he said, "As for the rights of the unborn: The noblest words written are the words 'inalienable rights.' That means the right to life."
When asked about his own faith in God, though, McCain launched into the story he has told often about a prison guard in North Vietnam who showed him compassion and once, in the prison yard, drew the sign of the cross in the dirt at McCain's feet, then quickly brushed it away. The story received polite applause. Later Family Research Council head Tony Perkins told WORLD, "He had a golden opportunity to talk about his faith. Instead, he talked about the faith of his guard. It was a great story, but not what we were looking for." Bill Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, was more direct: "It was a disaster. It just proves he has no clue what we're about."
But Phil Burress, who by championing a marriage amendment in Ohio in 2004 became instrumental in winning Ohio-and reelection-for George W. Bush, was among the last to speak before the New Orleans meeting broke up. Burress had been a part of the "vetting process" in Washington where the leaders reviewed and dismissed the GOP candidates early on.
With the election now just over six months away, he told the New Orleans gathering, "McCain wasn't my first choice, and I'm not sure about him now, but we've got a zero chance of getting a conservative Supreme Court justice out of either Clinton or Obama. I don't know whether we've got a 25 percent chance, or a 50 percent chance, or a 100 percent chance with McCain-but it's better than zero, and I'm going to do everything in my power to help get him elected. He's our best shot."


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Suzanne Collins
Birth Name: Suzanne Collins
Born: 08/10/1962
Birth Place: Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Born: 08/10/1962
Birth Place: Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Born in 1962 in Connecticut, Suzanne Collins was the daughter of an Air Force officer who moved the family to live all over the world - from New York City to Brussels, Belgium. A voracious reader from an early age, Collins remained passionate about the arts all through college, where she majored in theater and telecommunications. Collins went on to earn a master's degree in dramatic writing from New York University. In 1991, she began writing on several children's programs for the Nickelodeon network including "Clarissa Explains It All" (1991-94), a family comedy starring Melissa Joan Hart, and "The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo" (1996-99), about a young girl who works at a police station to s... Continue Bio >>
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Vegas Vacation
Release Date: February 14, 1997
Running Time: 95 mins.
MPAA Rating: PG 13
Box Office: $36,429,528.00
Genre: Comedy, Sequel
Nobody plans a vacation better than Clark Griswold. This time out, Clark has finally chosen the perfect destination. He's selected the Promised Land where the Griswolds can enjoy their own special brand of kinship and reach certain vacation nirvana: the new family-entertainment capital of America -- Las Vegas, Nevada. But Clark didn't count on one thing. Despite Vegas' new image as a city with wholesome activities for the whole family to enjoy, its tempting underbelly still lures the unsuspecting with its glitzy, glammy enchantments. And each wide-eyed member of the Griswold gang becomes seduced by the easy enticements of Sin City. Can the Griswolds come back together once they've tasted the...


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Forest takes on Fleming Island in regional semifinal
Published: Friday, February 1, 2013 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 12:48 a.m.
Fleming Island (18-2) at Forest (21-0-2)
Where: Forest High School
When: Tonight, 7
Scouting report: Fresh off its first-ever regional playoff win, the Forest High boys soccer team is looking to keep its momentum rolling tonight. The Wildcats knocked off Orange Park Ridgeview 1-0 on Wednesday to advance to their first ever regional semifinal. The offense for Forest seemed to have plenty of opportunities on Wednesday as it recorded 17 shots, while Ridgeview was only able to get off four shots. In the net, FHS is led by Lex Craggs who recorded three saves on Wednesday. The shutout was the seventh straight for Forest, which hasn't allowed a goal since Jan. 4, and have allowed just four all season. The 'Cats hope that trend continues as defending state champion Fleming Island rolls into town. The Golden Eagles are coming off of a 2-1 victory over Vanguard on Wednesday night. The Fleming Island attack in that game was led by Shane McCartin and Johnathan Majia who each scored a goal for the Golden Eagles. This won't be the first time that Fleming Island and Forest have squared off in regional playoff play, however. Back in 2006, the Golden Eagles knocked off the Wildcats 2-0 in the regional quarterfinals. This, however, is a different Forest squad. One that is looking to stake its claim as the best Forest boys soccer team in school history.
Winner gets: The winner of Navarre and Niceville in the regional final on Tuesday night.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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See the top 20 most helpful scuba gear reviews
Average Customer Review: based on 1 reviews.Rating: Great LIttle Gauge
How large is the screw in? The last one I got was to big for my regulator.
The threaded portion of all regulators manufactured in the last 20 years all use a common thread pattern/size. It should fit any current High Pressure Port. If your regulator is older, there is a possibility it is too large as at one time the HP and LP ports were the same size. This was altered for safety reasons.
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Has anyone documented the process of migrating from Network Edition to the FOSS version?
I have a network edition license which expires in about six months, and might not have the funding to continue the "full" version, and am trying to figure out what the best strategy is for moving from one to the other.
Anyone done this?


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The faithful who turn out every year for the festival of sails, oars and diesel fumes that launches Seattle's boat season know better than to expect good weather.
But when sunshine is superimposed on the city's annual celebration of all things aquatic, as was the case Saturday, even stoic Northwesterners are quick to peel off their insulating layers and bask.
"We brought deck chairs instead of umbrellas," said Van VanBenschoten, who scored a prime viewing spot on the Montlake Cut. In shorts and sunglasses, he watched racing sculls mill around in the water and waited with his friends for the main attraction: An armada of boats, many decked out like floats in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"You see a lot of really fine old boats," said Michael Byrd, who, like VanBenschoten, lives aboard his boat at Shilshole Marina. That Byrd's floating home chugs fossil fuel, while VanBenschoten's is sail-powered, was no impediment to camaraderie.
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"The rag baggers and the stink pots hang out together," VanBenschoten said.
The blue skies were marred by dark smoke from a fire that broke out around 2:15 p.m. in a warehouse at 1443 N. Northlake Way. Firefighters were at first concerned about the possibility of a toxic spill when they found containers of nickel cobalt, a green, acidic material used in metal plating.
Nothing got into the water, but firefighters cordoned off a block-long area to protect people from fumes, said Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore. The cause of the fire was unknown Saturday.
Except for adding to the traffic snarls, the fire didn't affect the maritime festivities.
Seattle's Opening Day can be confusing to newcomers, because there's really no official boating season. Die-hards take to the water year-round, blustery weather be damned.
But since 1920, when the Seattle Yacht Club dedicated its stately clubhouse on Portage Bay, the first Saturday in May has been the agreed-upon time to celebrate the end of winter and the arrival of more congenial cruising conditions.
"It's a rite of spring," said Rick Krochalis, who dodged nasty traffic snarls by biking to the University of Washington campus from his home nearby.
Don Ross drove from his home in Mountlake Terrace behind the wheel of the vessel he also planned to captain in the boat parade: A 1964 lagoon-blue Amphicar. Made in Berlin, the amphibious vehicle has two propellers and a motorized surf board strapped on top and labeled "Don's Life Saver," just in case of disaster.
"I've never had to use it, and I hope I never will," Ross said.
But some years, the water has been so choppy waves broke over the hood and slopped into the driver's lap.
"You can't worry," Ross said. "You just take your chances."
This year, odds favored a smooth ride.
In keeping with the 2013 Opening Day theme of "Hawaiian Magic," Ross's co-pilot, Jerry Sorensen, pumped up an inflatable palm tree that sat atop the car like an oversized hood ornament.
Peter Ricks and his crew picked inflatable pineapples and Aloha shirts to festoon the 52-foot motor yacht Pau Hana, whose name means "done with work" in Hawaiian. But less than two hours before showtime, Ricks was hustling to get everything ready before setting forth to represent the Tyee Yacht Club in the parade.
While he tested the sound system and bow-mounted speakers — the song was "Over the Rainbow"— the party was already under way on the stern. Friends sipped mimosas and predicted more beverages to come.
"We plan to whoop it up," said Ricks' girlfriend, Kathy Morrissey, wearing an airy muumuu and flower leis.
Otto Bauer's costume included a coconut-shell brassiere.
Asked what he called the garment, Bauer replied: "Uncomfortable."
Sandi Doughton at: 206-464-2491 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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As Iowans again jumpstarted America's election season last week, Iraqis remained eager to start their own democratic traditions. But radical groups who oppose regional caucuses-scheduled for springtime in Iraq-are expressing the passions of the mob, not the will of the people
"THE OTHER CAUCUSES" Continued...
SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE newest Christian Missionary Alliance church in Baghdad is standing room only. Nabil Haj, an engineer with the U.S. Army's 30th Medical Brigade, doesn't like to miss it. But to get there, he has to dodge U.S. regulations. They require army personnel to wear body armor and helmets and to travel in convoys outside headquarters in downtown Baghdad.
Mr. Haj, a Lebanese-American from Ohio who speaks fluent Arabic, instead trades out his everyday desert camouflage for street clothes. Waving aside regulations and threats, he waits outside an Army checkpoint near the Republican Palace where a bombing on Jan. 18 killed 31. When a nondescript sedan driven by Iraqi church friends arrives, he slips into the backseat and makes his way across town.
At the church, a converted residence really, Mr. Haj is happy to wedge into a front-row seat in the sanctuary while latecomers jam the hallway and overflow rooms. "These are my people," he says, arms wide for a moment and smiling.
Two rows behind him is Atheer Nasr, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. Mr. Nasr said he was forced to serve in the elite unit, even tracking a downed U.S. pilot south of Baghdad when the war was hot. Now, he says through a broad smile and novice English, he is free not to.
That former enemies can worship together is nothing new in Christendom. What's unique about postwar Iraq is that Iraqis currently have more freedom to come and go at church than the Americans.
Mr. Haj is a rare soldier who makes frequent contact with everyday Iraqis a priority. At Christmastime he organized Iraqi churchgoers for caroling. They sang to American MPs at Baghdad checkpoints. He arranged for U.S. soldiers to adopt Iraqi orphans for a day.
Perhaps, Mr. Haj admits, he gets away with community service because he speaks the language and can pass for a local. For other U.S. soldiers, it's more difficult. Iraqis are worried that security precautions are actually hampering the U.S.-led coalition's democracy-building in Iraq. The more the United States is paralyzed by fear of attack, the more Iraq is in danger of gangster rule by insurgents or bombers, on the one hand, or mob rule, on the other, by radical Shiites. Many fear the United States will leave too soon and leave their country in the wrong hands.
Shiite leaders have mobilized thousands of Muslims to protest plans for the first round of elections, regional caucuses slated for spring in Iraq's 18 provinces. The protests began in Basrah but moved to the capital starting on Jan. 19.
Continuing unrest provoked an unexpected thaw in relations between the Bush administration and the United Nations. U.S. administrator Paul Bremer and Iraqi officials traveled to New York, where they won from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan a pledge to act as intermediary between the clerics and Iraq's present leadership to set a fair timetable for self-rule.
Regional caucuses-not unlike those held in Iowa-have been the starting gate for that plan. Caucuses slated for May are set to choose representatives for a transitional assembly. The temporary government will assume sovereignty over Iraq on June 30, but give way to a permanent assembly after a second round of elections nationwide, which must be held by the end of 2005.
Shiite protesters, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, are demanding that nationwide direct elections for a permanent government be held by June. He and other prominent clerics want nationwide elections early because they would favor Shiites, who form a majority in Iraq but were long suppressed under Saddam.
But the 73-year-old Iranian-born cleric has made other, more serious demands. He also wants elections to be held only in safe areas, a move that would disenfranchise Sunnis living in the terror-torn Sunni triangle. He wants Iraq's fundamental law to stipulate that Iraq is an Islamic state, and that no law will be enacted to contradict Islamic law. Under the present timetable, the fundamental law is to be formulated by Feb. 28.
Christians and other non-Shiites fear that those changes will force them to live in an Islamic republic not unlike Iran, where a clerical elite holds veto power over elected officials.
If the streets of Baghdad seem to favor the ayatollah, Iraq's political leadership does not. Shiites hold 13 seats-a majority-on the Iraqi Governing Council, which approved the transfer-of-power agreement late last year. Their endorsement emerged not as a result of American manipulation so much as a sign of coalition building among council members. Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds united with so-called "secular," or moderate, Shiites. For the leading Muslim representatives, the goal is the same: to withhold political power from the ayatollahs.
The matter "transcends the issue of elections," said Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni member of the council. "It is whether we would allow one man to determine the conditions of our sovereignty."
Mr. Yawer said large parties do not wish an open feud with the influential Mr. Sistani. Neither do they want clerics to have ultimate decision-making authority. Mr. Sistani has one ally on the council, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Other prominent Shiite council members, including Ahmad Chalabi and Mouwafaq al-Rabii, while negotiating with Mr. Sistani, clearly support the caucus-first plan.
Those moderate Shiites have long recognized that Iraq is no Afghanistan, or Iran. While Shiites comprise just over 50 percent of Iraqis, the other half include not only Sunni Muslims but significant populations of Assyrians, Turkomans, and non-Muslim groups. Shiite Muslims taking to the streets or shaking fists at Americans from inside mosques aren't the only ones with a blueprint for the future. Along with the others, Iraq's Christian minority is finding its voice, too.
Iraqis are very open because the Lord has opened a window of opportunity here," Mr. Haj told WORLD. "If they do not go through it now, they may lose it."
Old and new Bible believers are taking to the church in larger and larger numbers since the war. Like their Muslim counterparts, they also believe that decisions about governance in coming months will be vital. Unlike Muslims, they know the freedom they have while U.S. forces control the country may not last forever.
From Basrah to Baghdad to Kirkuk, Mosul, and the Kurdish north, Christians are using the interregnum between U.S. occupation and the election of a permanent Iraqi government to establish churches long suppressed under Saddam Hussein. For church leaders, it's a risky buildup. They are wagering that it's better to act now and receive permission later from what is sure to be a Muslim-dominated government.
The new CMA church is just one example. Iraqis led by pastor Chassan Thomas, with support from Christians in Lebanon, opened the church last June with 60 in attendance. By August it had more than 300 attending its main Sunday evening service; at year's end, more than 500. Nearly every week about two dozen newcomers express an interest in baptism and membership, according to Mr. Thomas.
Mr. Haj, in addition to attending the CMA church, is working with a U.S. Army chaplain and an Iraqi scientist-turned-evangelist named Maher Dakhil to revitalize a defunct Anglican parish church called St. George's. This month Mr. Haj used up leave time in the United States to visit churches, seeking support for these new works.
Other new churches are sprouting as well. Baptists are near launching two. Pentecostals met underground for two years but established a formal church only after the war. Friday morning services number 100; a Sunday evening service draws 120. Assyrian evangelicals once met weekly but now meet every day. Pastor Younan Sheba said the church has 96 new families since the war.
That story is repeated outside Baghdad. Evangelical churches in Kirkuk and Mosul are growing. Further north in Irbil, Dohuk, and Sulaymaniyah, local officials have granted permission for more to be built.
Opening new churches isn't the only outlet for newfound freedom. Christian bookstores will soon open in those cities, too. Satellite programming is bringing about a dozen admittedly cheesy evangelistic stations into many homes. Christian radio broadcasts, hard to come by under Saddam, permeate the airwaves. Returning Iraqis are starting Bible studies and looking for ways to minister in war-damaged communities. The church in Kirkuk is collecting trash, building a women's shelter, and sponsoring mobile dental clinics.
Saddam's regime, in addition to permitting old-line Chaldean, Orthodox, and Armenian churches, licensed the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church to operate one church in Baghdad, and one each in Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basrah. Many converts, particularly Muslims, were afraid to show up, another reason churches are now brimming. Church leaders say Saddam was an equal opportunity oppressor. He persecuted Christians right along with anyone else who fell outside his cadre of Baath Party loyalists. "Saddam was useful for Christians. He did not give freedom or power to the Shiites over anyone," said a Christian who works with Baptist churches in Baghdad.
Under Saddam activities outside traditional once-a-week worship were prohibited, and most church leaders eventually ran afoul of the regime. A year ago six Pentecostals went to prison for holding small group meetings that included Muslim converts. Three Muslim converts also were jailed. All were crowded into a windowless room, 6 feet by 3 feet, with nothing but a hole in the floor. "We inhaled soap to ease the smell," one former prisoner told WORLD.
The Christians were held one month then released, all but a pastor from Eritrea who goes by the name Joseph. He said he wasn't released until U.S. soldiers opened Baghdad's Mukhabarat prison last year on April 4. "We were praying for the Americans to come," Joseph said, "not only to free us but to free our churches."
Even after war and freedom, Christian leaders worry that the United States will now compromise with Islamic radicals. In an interview last November, Mr. Bremer said a draft constitution will "probably" include statements in support of Islam. He also said the constitution could "include some form of Shariah law."
Any form of Shariah would be "the biggest mistake we have ever made," said evangelical pastor Yousif Matty. For many years Mr. Matty pastored the evangelical church in Kirkuk. Baath Party thugs exiled him to Kurdish areas in the north after the Gulf War, where his home and a Christian bookshop were fire-bombed more than once. He has been targeted also by Iranian-backed militants for his work among Muslims. Nonetheless, he returned to Kirkuk last spring.
"Only 3 percent of those living in communist countries were communists. They never had popular support. The same is true with radical Islam. It doesn't have to be popular to take over our nation," he said.
Church leaders say they won't be soothed by a cramped bill of rights guaranteeing freedom of worship only. They want complete freedom of religion, which includes the freedom to evangelize, to publicize religious ideas, and to change one's religion. In most countries of the Arab world, national identity cards carry religious affiliation along with date of birth and other vitals. In all but a few, religious identity cannot be changed officially. For Iraqis to be truly free, a new constitution must omit religious identity restrictions, laws against conversion, and anything else hemming religious expression, Mr. Matty said. Shariah law favors those restrictions.
Mr. Matty points out that Shiites in Iraq should favor religious freedom and pluralistic government. After all, they, along with Sunni Kurds, were the most persecuted religious group under Saddam.
"Ten years from today we will get another Saddam if the law is the same law," said Mr. Matty. "The constitution is the most important item. For Sunnis, for Shiites, for Christians, and also so much for the Americans, that they secure the future [from terrorism] for their boys and girls. You started this fight at a great price. You need to end it with the goals that started it.
"I say to American leaders, Don't betray the trust and sacrifice of those guys, your soldiers. Freedom is worth it, no matter what the price."


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FootballFrom the first Sugar Bowl in 1935 through this year's 79th Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic at the world-famous Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the goal of the event has remained the same - to create the best game possible. Over its storied football history, the Sugar Bowl Classic has hosted many of the best coaches, players, and teams in college football history. Forty-six Hall of Fame coaches have stalked the sidelines of the Sugar Bowl, while 15 Heisman Trophy winners and countless All-Americans have shown their skills in the New Orleans event. Throughout history, Sugar Bowl fans have had the opportunity to experience the brilliance of 23 national championship teams as well as seven match-ups between the top two teams in the nation - true national championship games.
Sugar Bowl History


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Job Requisition: 06
Location: Delta, BC
Category: Other - Other
Updated: about 3 years ago
Minimum 5~!@$#^*()_+=-`{}|[]\:";'?,./ years experience working in an e-Business Suite development environment Proven expertise with Oracle OAF/ADF, PL/SQL, Oracle 9i &10g databases required Experience with Oracle SOA and third-party integration required Specific iRecruitment experience required Post-secondary degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline is mandatory Must be a self-starter and highly organized Excellent interpersonal skills Ability to communicate clearly in written and verbal form Excellent problem solving abilities Client-facing experience in a consultancy role Ability to lead others and to manage multiple projects simultaneously
Responsible for analysis and design of internal systems. Works with programmers to develop modifications.
If application is submitted by mail, it must be postmarked by the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration.< /strong> < /em>
Hand delivered applications must be received by closing date.<
All status candidates and reinstatement eligibiles (current and former government employees) must submit a copy of their SF50 showing career, career-conditional, or reinstatement eligibility.


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Displaying articles 11 - 20
The Google Play Store features a bevy of digital magazine applications, many of which consolidate your magazine subscriptions in one place, and picking the right one can be a daunting task. Zinply, a company based in Sweden, keeps track of all your subscriptions using a sleek, fine-tuned interfac ... Full Article »
Hot on the heels of their successful liquid/physics/puzzler Sprinkle (for Android and iOS), Swedish app developers, Mediocre, recently unleashed Granny Smith on both Android and iOS devices. Granny Smith made it into our weekly Android Games of the Week because it's a fun, fast-paced platformer wi ... Full Article »
Swiftkey is a rapidly growing, successful company that builds apps and technology that learn and make text entry easier, faster and more productive. The SwiftKey 3 keyboard app made it into our best Android Apps of 2011 and is often cited as being among the best input methods available in Google Pla ... Full Article »
AirDroid launched on Android towards the end of November, 2011. This notable app not only found its way into our Apps of the Week, it also appeared in our list of Best Android Apps of 2011. AirDroid lets you access the content and apps on your Android device directly over Wi-Fi from a web browser. ... Full Article »
Magisto - Magical Video Editor, one of our daily app picks a few weeks ago, also made it into our Android Apps of the Week, we liked it so much. It offers a simple and easy way to edit the videos on your Android phone or tablet automatically. It's a clever app which analyzes the footage you've ... Full Article »
The hugely popular Subway Surfers just got its much-anticipated launch on Android after a successful run on iOS. It made our daily picks the other day and took its rightful place among our Android Games of the Week. It's a colorful, highly addictive challenge-based endless runner with an over-the- ... Full Article »
We are big fans of task management app Any.DO. In fact, it was our favorite Android app from any category in 2011. The Any.DO team – which is funded in part by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and based in Israel and San Francisco – does not rest on its laurels. The company this year debu ... Full Article »
TuneIn Radio (and TuneIn Radio Pro) is one of the best ways to listen to over 70,000 different radio stations and millions of on-demand shows from all around the world, whether you want to hear music, current affairs, sports, local stations and much more. It's one of our favorite Android offerings ... Full Article »
Lyft is a cool, new on-demand ride-sharing service from Zimride Inc. While the service is currently only available in San Francisco, it's still a great idea and will hopefully spread to more cities soon. We enjoyed the Lyft Android app and were happy to feature it as one of our daily picks the oth ... Full Article »
MoMinis is an Israel-based publisher of Android games. MoMinis titles are downloaded more than 500,000 times a day and played by more than 25 millions users worldwide. Their latest title, Jelly Jump was one of our daily picks just a few weeks ago, and their catalog of addictive Android games is deep ... Full Article »


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Kate Clifford -Jan 26, 2013
Tammy Boorer, 28, with her husband Nathan. The couple was beginning a holiday with their children when involved in a head-on collision this week that took Tammy's life. Photo: Facebook
The Ipswich mother injured in a horrific traffic crash on the Bruce Highway at Kulangoor this week died last night in hospital.
Friends and family of the woman had been praying for her survival.
Tammy Boorer, 28, remained in the intensive care ward at the Nambour General Hospital.
Her husband Nathan was in a stable condition at the Royal Brisbane Hospital last night after he was airlifted there for emergency surgery.
The couple's two children, a nine-year-old boy and five-year-old girl, survived the crash with minor injuries.
Channel Seven reported last night that Mrs Boorer, who was believed to be 30 weeks pregnant, had lost her baby.
The family had been on their way to Hervey Bay for a camping holiday when they were struck by a car travelling the wrong direction on the dual carriageway near the Nambour-Bli Bli exit on Wednesday night.
The children managed to escape the wreckage before the car was hit for a second time by a truck.


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Please, folks... Quit with all that HYPOTHETICAL type of questions.
OF COURSE I tried multiMAN with DISC and without disc and everything. It works. Try yourself and stop the spam.
No I will never integrate it in multiMAN. Did you actually READ the posts around?! 01.13.00 HAS the patch in it already.


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Computing the Radar Cross Section of a Perfectly Conducting Sphere
Application ID: 10332
A classic benchmark problem in computational electromagnetics is to solve for the radar cross section (RCS) of a sphere in free space illuminated by a plane wave. This model solves for the RCS of a metallic sphere that has a very high conductivity, which can be treated as a material with infinite conductivity. Results are compare to the analytic solution, and agreement is shown.


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WASHINGTON, D.C. (WUSA) --- Neither the White House nor the Office of Speaker of the House John Boehner were providing any details on Monday of the face-to-face meeting Sunday between Boehner and President Obama where they attempted to negotiate a resolution of the impending Fiscal Cliff crisis.
The negotiations have been held behind closed doors, something Americans For Tax Reform would like to see changed.
"We've been saying for quite some time that all of these kinds negotiations, whether they're for small little bills, whether they are for big things like the fiscal cliff, should be done out in the open.
"We're the ones who sent congress to represent us up here in Washington. Taxpayers should know what's going on as the lawmakers debate this kind of policy and I think it would be good for policy makers and for citizens who want to know what's happening in Washington, because it means you have to stand by your policy proposals that you're giving, that you're putting on the table.
"You can't say that you offered something if you've got a million people watching on tv. They'll be able to see if thats true or not, and I think that benefits the country and it benefits policymakers because they know that have to be honest in this deal making," said Mattie Duppler, Director of Budget and Regulatory Policy at Americans For Tax Reform.
"I think you woud see some serious negotiations from these lawmakers. Right now, I think the public is fairly disappointed with how the negotiations have gone.
"There is this idea, and I think there is a concern, that policymakers aren't serious about this problem. They aren't serious about fixing this problem . They're not serious about really finding a solution that actually addresses the concerns that taxpayers have moving towards this fiscal cliff.
"What you see is a lot of posturing. you see the president coming to the table saying he has offered some type of deal when, in reality, all he has done is sent Treasury Secretary Geithner to have a laundry list of things he would like to have without having any kind of Republican input.
"And you see the Republicans coming to the table, Speaker Boehner, saying that he has a plan that would allow for some revenue, that would allow for some spending cuts, that would really be a place to start the negotiations.
"I think taxpayers would like to be able to see those plans, be able to read them for themselves, be able to understand what kind of negotiation is happening between these two parties, rather than trying to hear it as it trickles down from these lawmakers through the press and finally to them," Duppler told 9News Now.
There has been no indication that either side wants to negotiate on television despite the increased public understanding that might come from such an arrangement.


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text: Webexclusive Rowan Shelf Floor Lamp Item #: 126490 $59.99 Qty: Sorry, this item is currently unavailable online. Ship to Home Ship to Store (FREE) Style and function meet in the Rowan Shelf Floor Lamp! Show off your favorite home décor accents on the shelves or enjoy its sleek, modern design and detailed, elegant scroll work on the lamp shade. Floor lamp measures 10.25L x 10.25W x 63H in.; shelf sits 30 in. from the floor Crafted of wood composite Black finish Unique cube design with shelf storage Softback inner lining in cream Shade measures 10.5L x 10.25W x 15H in. Socket accommodates 150 watt bulb Pull chain for convenience; Black plug-in cord Assembly required This item is available at Kirklands.com only, not available in stores. Sorry, this item is currently unavailable online.


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John Dudley Miller, a former nuclear engineering officer in the Navy with a doctorate in social psychology and a long career in journalism, sent this "Your Dot" critique of "Pandora's Promise," the new documentary defending nuclear power, and the more recent videotaped discussion of nuclear energy by the climate scientist and campaigner James E. Hansen [Updated, 12:27 p.m. | Hansen has responded below.]:
When I saw "Pandora's Promise," I didn't believe a word of it. I served as a submarine nuclear engineering officer for my four-year stint in the Navy years ago. I qualified as an Engineering Officer of the Watch (a guy who's in charge of the plant and its other technicians during four-hour shifts) on two different sub reactors. I know the truth about reactors, and the movie replaces it with the demonstrably false Nuclear Dream, a just-so mythical story claiming that nukes are safe, clean and cheap.
Then when I viewed the video interview of climate scientist Dr. James Hansen conducted by the movie's producers, I got mad. Here is an esteemed academic telling us that the next generation of nuclear plants is passively safe, so we should build some. But how does he know? He's not an expert on nuclear power; outside of climate science, he's just another person with an opinion.
Let's start with the movie. It spews out a stream of untruths, for instance, telling us only that Chernobyl killed 56 people. It leaves out that a United Nations World Health Organization agency predicts 16,000 more will die from Chernobyl cancers and that the European Environment Agency estimates 34,000 more. It omits that non-fatal thyroid cancer struck another 6,000, mostly children. Read more…


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The standbys.
For 2015, Sidi's old standbys, the Genius Fit Carbon Shoes, return virtually unchanged from their previous iteration. The predecessors of these shoes have been with us throughout our entire cycling careers and, with the option of replacing all the hardware — from the heel pad to the buckle — the latest bearers of the Genius standard are sure to enjoy the same longevity.
The Genius Fits use Sidi's beloved ratcheting buckle for retention. You're no doubt familiar with its micro-adjustment operation, which lets you vary strap pressure to nail the perfect fit, every time. The Soft Arch Compression Strap evenly spreads the upward stroke pedaling forces across the top of your foot while also alleviating the discomfort of over-tightening. The mid- and forefoot fit is managed by a pair of standard Sidi hook-and-loop straps that feature an additional strip of polymer teeth to ensure secure locking.
The uppers' mesh-ventilated Technomicro material is water-repellent, quick-drying, and breathable as well as abrasion- and mildew-resistant for comfort that lasts throughout your ride. It also resists stretching, so the precise fit of the fastening buckle won't be compromised during long days and hard efforts.
The Millennium 4 Carbon Composite outsole is a nylon matrix shot through with carbon fiber, blending weight, stiffness, and price in a sole that's as ready to race as it is to spin through a charity ride century. It also resists warping due to humidity, heat, and age, so you'll be wearing the these long after you've worn out and replaced the heel pad. If you've ever lost a buckle to a crash, then you'll also be happy to know that all of the shoes' hardware is also replaceable.
- Breathable, durable Technomicro uppers
- Millenium 4 Carbon Composite Soles
- One ratcheting and two hook-and-loop closures
- Replaceable ratcheting buckle and heel pad
- Three-hole road cleat compatible
Tech Specs
View more Men's Road Bike Shoes
Reviews & Community
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
This were an upgrade, mainly got these, due to the carbon sole and the way they looked, they just appeal to me. To be honest I expected them to be more on the comfort side but that was not the case, they felt as comfortable as my SIDI Taurus were. The extra additional strip of polymer teeth to ensure secure locking does work well, I do love the ratcheting buckle, keeps the shoe in place, specially while sprinting, or pushing that climb. Overall, shoes were an upgrade on a few levels, an honorable mention was the extra ventilation made the overall comfort better, only reason I did not gave a 5 star rating was due to the non comfort notable upgrade on the foot bed, from going from a lover rank shoe to these.
As always Sidi makes a great shoe
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
- Fit: True to size
I ordered these for my husband. He loves them, they fit like a glove and true to size. :)


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May 31, 2016
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sesame Workshop says Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash has resigned from "Sesame Street" in the wake of allegations that he had sex with an under-aged youth.
Last week a man accused Clash of having sex with him when he was a teenage boy, a charge Clash denied. A day later, the man recanted his charge. A lawsuit by a second accuser was filed Tuesday, according to an attorney for Cecil Singleton, the accuser.
Sesame Workshop called the controversy surrounding Clash's personal life "a distraction that none of us want" and led to his decision to leave the show.
Clash created the voice and persona for Elmo, who has become one of "Sesame Street's" most popular characters.
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I'm testing the appliance and when I access the admin console via either:
https://<ip-address>:5480 and then click Zimbra Adminstration
All that loads are three tabs: Dashboard, Settings and Advanced Tools. I don't get the left side navigation or anything else.
When I access the user logon http://<ip-address> everything seems to load fine including the left navigation.
Any suggestions are welcome as to why the admin console is acting up.


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13 Steps to Getting Carrie-fied for Halloween
Who says All Hallow's Eve nails have to be all about the requisite pumpkins, witches, and ghosts? We tapped nail artist Miss Pop to conjure up macabre manis with a modern twist inspired by some of our favorite runway looks and pop culture references. Here, learn how to get into the creepy spirit with this cauldron of spellbindingly unique nail designs.
Sure, the striped suit Robin Thicke wore during his shocking "Blurred Lines" number at the VMAs might have shot our favorite miscreant ghost's persona back into public consciousness, but we much prefer the chicer tribute that Emerson paid to Beetlejuice at its spring 2014 show. In honor of the sloppily streaked nail art that Miss Pop created for the runway, she brewed up the same lined design accented by a red cobweb inspired by Lydia's signature cape. Say it now: "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BEETLEJUICE!"
How to Create Supermodel Cheekbones in 3 Easy Steps


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Beyond the welfare state
Effective Compassion | Choosing a different path to stop the downward spiral of government dependence
"Beyond the welfare state" Continued...
Thank you for making WORLD's Saturday Series a well-read part of our website. We've at times presented sermons, and over the next year we'll occasionally print speeches about public policy issues. To get us started, here's one I gave at the Manning Centre's annual Networking Conference in Canada last year.
Four decades ago, when I was 21 and just graduating from college, I decided to bicycle across the United States. I started in Boston and kept going until I reached the city in Oregon where I had a newspaper job lined up. Wanting to go on pretty much a straight line, I bicycled across upstate New York, entered Ontario at Niagara Falls, and kept bicycling to Windsor—but on the way one day I stopped at a War of 1812 battle site. There I read about the American aggression, with the marauding invaders stopped by brave Canadians.
It was my first lesson on how things can look different on the other side of the border. And yet, having read a little bit about trends on your side, we may have more that unites us than divides us. Although Canada has not suffered economically to the extent the United States has, we both have high debt-to-GDP ratios. We both have the need to reduce our national budgets. We both have debates about governmental welfare. That's what I'll address briefly. First, a brief history of U.S. anti-poverty efforts. Second, where we are now south of the border. Third, where we are going.
Let's start with some history. Canada has had its own successes and failures, but in the United States from the 17th century through the 1920s we waged a war on poverty much more successful than recent governmental programs. The warriors were thousands of local, private charitable agencies and religious groups across the country. They did not abolish poverty, but they helped millions out of poverty.
Then, other people, new immigrants, would present new needs, but springs of fresh water always flowed among the poor. Now we have blocks of ice sitting in a perpetual winter of multi-generational welfare dependency—always winter and never Christmas. Those earlier groups helped people out of poverty because the help they offered was challenging, personal, and spiritual. They pushed people to work and gave them partners and mentors to help them find a job and stay in one. They helped these individuals' self-image by showing them that a wonderful God created them with the ability to do great things.
Federal welfare programs in the United States began in a time of great need: the 1930s. Politicians described the Depression as a plague that would run its course, so welfare was supposed to be a temporary measure: The agency in charge was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Bureau of the Budget Director Lewis Douglas warned emphatically that "thousands would settle into government-made jobs" if programs were long-lasting, and the result would be long-term economic collapse.
Franklin Roosevelt himself acknowledged the danger of welfare programs becoming "a habit with the country." In November 1933, he said, "When any man or woman goes on a dole something happens to them mentally, and the quicker they are taken off the dole the better it is for them the rest of their lives." Early in 1935 Roosevelt argued, "We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their self-reliance and courage and determination. …"
Later that year Roosevelt noted, "In this business of relief we are dealing with properly self-respecting Americans to whom a mere dole outrages every instinct of individual independence. Most Americans want to give something for what they get. That something, in this case honest work, is the saving barrier between them and moral disintegration. We propose to build that barrier high."
From the 1940s through the 1980s, officials did not keep that barrier high. They kept lowering it. Instead of emphasizing challenging, personal, and spiritual help, they increasingly emphasized entitlement. In the 1960s they started banning any mention of God. Government organizations enabled people to stay poor instead of challenging them to come out of poverty.
Many U.S. Republican opponents of welfare from the 1960s to the 1980s complained about the cost of welfare but underemphasized that issue of "moral disintegration." When I started researching this issue in the late 1980s, conservatives were still complaining about the overall cost in dollars but not the cost in human lives. They didn't emphasize the problem to the recipients—that welfare encouraged them to give up on work and turn the safety net into a shabby hammock.
In writing about welfare I tried to emphasize the human cost. My kids and I had dogs as pets, so we put food in their bowls and let them lie or run around all day. That was fine for dogs, but for years we treated welfare recipients the same way. That's not fine for people made in God's image and capable of working and achieving and helping others.
We in the United States turned a corner when we started thinking about the cost in human lives. We passed welfare reform in 1996 and started emphasizing getting people into jobs and not treating them like animals. The food stamp participation rate—the percentage of those eligible who enrolled—had jumped from 31 percent in 1976 to 75 percent in 1994, but it fell to 52 percent by the end of the decade. The number of food stamp recipients fell from 28 million to 17 million. We don't know as much as I'd like to know about what happened to some recipients, but a Rockefeller Institute study showed that two-thirds of the nearly 700,000 New Yorkers who left welfare during the late 1990s found jobs, and only one in five went back on welfare.
By 2000 the results were clear. For example, the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted changes in Ohio: "Many of the 111,000 families leaving welfare are doing so because family members have found work. … A survey conducted for the state found that a year after leaving welfare, 66 percent of the people were employed, averaging 38 hours a week at $8.65 an hour." Those wages kept going up as former welfare recipients got better jobs and joined the middle class.
In the year 2000 Bill Clinton himself bragged in a speech to the Independent Insurance Agents of America:
"If I had said … we'll cut the welfare rolls in half, you wouldn't have believed that. … We know now, because of the success our country has had, that if we work together and we set common goals we can achieve them."
The problem, though, is that the underlying mentality of many government officials had not changed. Starting in 2001 they began to use every opportunity they had to get more people back onto welfare. When the economy turned sour in 2008, that drive continued. For example, the most-used program, food stamps—now called Supplemental Nutrition Aid, or SNAP—had 17 million people enrolled in 2001. Last year that number was up to 46 million, one out of every seven Americans. Much of the growth was before 2008, when economic times were still good.
This brings us to part two, the present. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not arguing against food stamps in some circumstances. I spoke recently with a woman who lives in Houston, Jean Solis. Seven years ago she was 48 and had a 10-year-old daughter. She lived in a battered women's shelter. Eventually she entered a training course at The WorkFaith Connection, a Christian program in Houston that prepares motivated people to get jobs and persevere in them. [The WorkFaith Connection won the 2012 Hope Award for Effective Compassion.] Four years ago the only job she found right away was in a distant part of the city. With no car, it took three hours by bus each way to get there and back. She worked four hours per day.
That was when Solis reluctantly joined the millions on welfare. She said, "I needed food stamps to feed my daughter." She worried about her daughter's perceptions: "What are you teaching your children when you don't stand up for yourself?" When Solis finally garnered a full-time position she kissed food stamps goodbye: "I stopped on April 1, 2008. That was a good day for me."
For Solis, welfare worked the way it is supposed to work: Temporary help that saved children from destitution and gave a work-seeking parent time to get on her feet. But I also talked recently in Houston with a man, Scott Wesley. At age 20, while heavily using cocaine and alcohol, he impregnated his girlfriend. Over the subsequent 12 years they had four children and lived off numerous welfare programs, including food stamps. He felt no pressure to work: "I knew the rent would be paid and the children wouldn't go hungry."
Wesley and his girlfriend never married, in part because that would have reduced their welfare income. He stole goods that they wanted and traded food stamps for drugs, a common tendency. "When the police raided drug dealers' houses they'd find caches of food stamps," he told me. Later Wesley started manufacturing and selling meth. He eventually went to prison. There he fell upward, because God changed his thinking there. When Wesley came out three years later he found a job and has been employed for four years now. He criticizes use of food stamps by those capable of working: "They allow you to be irresponsible."
It's hard to know how many of the 46 million Americans now enrolled in SNAP are, like Solis, using them for temporary help, and how many like Wesley are using them as an aid to irresponsibility. But it looks like that second group, the Wesleys, is increasing rapidly, because the Obama administration is trying to enroll more and more people in SNAP.
Now, states compete to increase the number of residents on food stamps, with journalists lauding the "winners." SNAP advocates work to break down resistance from the elderly and other resistant populations, including the Amish. Poverty advocates—food bank employees in San Antonio and San Diego, Americorps volunteers in New Jersey, students at California State University and other institutions—raced to sign up food stamp users, interpreting guidelines as broadly as possible.
Other organizations have jumped in with high-tech applications. A Business Wire article in 2010 described how "The Greater Chicago Food Depository equipped food stamp outreach coordinators with Sprint 4G-powered laptops. They crisscrossed Cook County, going from food pantries to city agencies to churches to community centers to … speed up the sign-up process."
The easy availability of welfare is costing taxpayers lots of money, but that's not the real problem. The problem is that welfare sucks in some and creates a dependent attitude with long-range detriment to them and their children. Given budget pressures, we are likely to end up with watery soup, with some desperately needy families not getting enough to provide good nutrition to children.
Even Americans on the political left recognize that welfare in the United States is not fulfilling its initial mission of concentrating on those most in need. I'll quote from our leading liberal newspaper, The New York Times:
"The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits. A secondary mission has gradually become primary: maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement. The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54 percent in 1979 to 36 percent in 2007, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis published last year."
When the middle class starts relying on welfare, a society reaches a tipping point. In 1867 the key lyric of a popular song was, "He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease, / That daring young man on the flying trapeze." Now, officials croon, "Flop into the safety net. You're entitled to it." Now, we start indoctrinating children while they are still in elementary school. Here's a tipping point: The U.S. Department of Education recently reported that the proportion of U.S. fourth graders enrolled in the free or subsidized school lunch program has climbed from 49 percent in 2009 to 52 percent this year.
Free lunches in school were originally for the poor, and it made sense: How can kids learn when their stomachs are rumbling? But the 21 million children now enrolled in the lunch program come from households with incomes (for four people) up to $41,348. Many urban schools also offer free breakfasts, and some are adding free dinner programs and weekend programs. In Las Vegas, a huge increase in the number of students to be fed "forced the Clark County district to add an extra shift at the football field-size central kitchen."
In 20th century socialist writing (for example, August Bebel's Women Under Socialism) and dystopian novels (Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), central kitchens had a central role in breaking down family bonds. That's where we are now. Some children need that central kitchen food, but other parents who once prepared bag lunches for their children, or gave them money for school lunches, now rely on government.
Here's a more extreme indication of where we are in the United States: Let me tell you briefly about SSI, Supplemental Security Income. Americans can get an additional $700 per month if the Social Security Administration deems them unable to hold a job now or at some point in the future. Initially, the program made sense as a way to help those physically disabled. But then it started expanding.
One expansion came when the program started giving money to those who had disabled themselves by heavy drinking or drug use. A friend of mine who runs a homeless shelter in Denver, Bob Coté, talks about the alcoholics who get their monthly government checks, go on a binge, and freeze to death during the winter on Denver sidewalks. [Coté died in late September.]
Another expansion came in 1972 when Congress made disabled children eligible. The goal was to help poor parents who lost wages by taking time off from work to care for children with muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy. Politicians spoke of families having additional expenses such as wheelchairs or taxi rides to hospitals.
Fair enough—but psychologists asked, why not us? They argued that depression can be as disabling as a bad physical ailment. True enough, but while tests reveal physical cancers, psychological ones are often judgment calls—which means that some money-seekers can game the system when they want the money that a diagnosis can generate.
Hundreds of thousands have learned how to do just that. When Washington decreed that at least 10 percent of preschoolers in Head Start programs needed to be disabled, that also created an incentive to have more children so classified. Two Massachusetts parents are now in jail for overdosing their 4-year-old, Rebecca Riley, with a drug taken for treatment of bipolar disorders. The parents and two older children were receiving $2,800 per month for suffering from "mood swings" and attention deficit disorder, and they wanted $700 more for Rebecca.
That's an extreme case, but 1 million children are now on SSI. Even the liberal Boston Globe said the government has gone too far. Americans used to have a "can do" attitude, but welfare creates a slippery slope, and it's easy to slide from "can do" to "cannot." That's where we are in the United States now.
Let's turn to the future: Given current trends, Washington University professor Mark Rank projects that half of U.S. children are or will be in a household that uses food stamps at some point during their childhood. He also forecast that more than 90 percent of children with single parents will spend time in a household receiving food stamps.
How do we change that? Our first challenge is to try to prevent a welfare society, where most people are dependent on government for a dole. Our second challenge is not to accept excuses, such as people saying, "No way I can get a job in today's economy." That's just not true.
At The WorkFaith Connection in Houston I saw a room with photos of the more than 1,100 men and women who have graduated from job readiness workshops over the past four years. Many or most of those people are felons, who are statistically the least likely to be hired. But WorkFaith does some training, helps people in adjusting their attitudes, and finds that 78 percent of their graduates get a job, and 53 percent continue in that job for at least a year.
If felons can do it, anyone can. What I saw at WorkFaith reminds me of what a formerly left-wing counselor at an anti-addiction program told me 15 years ago: He had believed that the poor are trapped behind brick walls, but after seven years he had learned that the walls are paper and they can punch right through. So what if a person has messed up? In the movie Blackhawk Down a sergeant tries to turn down an assignment by saying he's been shot. His colonel replies, "Everybody's shot. Get in and drive."
Yes, some are physically or mentally unable to punch, or drive. Others need temporary, emergency help—but 46 million Americans, and more each year? The problem with that enormity is not primarily the cost in dollars but in lives. It's wrong to tell millions of poor people that their situation is hopeless and that they should settle into a life of dependency. They and all of us are created in God's image and capable of doing great things.
Now, U.S. politics is divided. The left emphasizes government as the way to create change we can believe in. The right emphasizes the individual. I'm on the right, but I also see that if those are the only two choices, lots of Americans will continue to embrace big government. [Former] U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is often quoted as saying, "Government is simply the name we give the things we choose together." As long as that's the only way to do things together, a lot of people vote for more government, especially if they think they will prosper from it.
Moreover, as long as we think in terms of helping others by turning over money rather than turning over some of our time, we won't get very far. For a couple of years I was flying around a lot to promote real welfare reform and accumulated enough frequent flyer miles to get free upgrades to first class fairly often. If I got into a conversation with the person next to me and he complained about taxes, I would ask: "What if you could reduce your tax bill but instead you'd spend a couple of hours each week on the other side of the tracks, helping a poor child learn to read or an ex-prisoner to stay out of trouble that would send him back behind bars?" Just about everyone preferred to pay taxes rather than give what is truly limited, time.
Going beyond the welfare state requires us, individually and all together, to choose a different path. We need what's called civil society—non-governmental institutions where people can work together to help their communities and cities flourish. My magazine, WORLD, is having for the seventh [now ninth] year in a row a contest to find some of the most effective compassionate ministries in the country. We get nominations from our readers, then investigate them, then send reporters to them to investigate more and tell their stories.
These are phenomenal groups that help children, homeless adults, ex-prisoners, ex-hookers, but not ex-human-beings—even in depravity, we are made in God's image. The problem is that the state, with its power to mandate and to tax, tends to crowd out its civil society competition. Every tax dollar the government takes is one dollar that cannot go to charities and churches. Every person who has to work a second job to get money for his family because taxes are so high is one fewer potential volunteer: He really does not have the time. Every mother who would rather stay at home with her children and volunteer part time, but instead needs to go out to work, is one less pair of helping hands.
So we need to shrink government so people have more time and money to contribute, but that won't happen until we shrink government. Right now, government taxes more, people have less time and money, government responds to needs or creates new ones, people have less time and money. … What can break that downward spiral?
Our 19th century predecessors learned from reading the Bible. I've learned from that as well. In Chapter 5 of the Gospel according to John, Christ talks directly to a man who had been an invalid for 38 years and was used to spending his days by the pool at Bethesda. Jesus asks him, "Do you want to get well?" The man responded, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred."
Jesus loved the man by giving him not what he expected, but what would radically change his life: "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." He told the invalid to become a responsible member of society.
The biblical emphasis is on giving the needy opportunities to select real change, not collect spare change. In Chapter 3 of Acts, a beggar in the temple wants alms, but Peter tells him "silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give to you." Peter shows his love by giving him the message of salvation, in the way that he might offer living water to a man dying of thirst. To meet a person in the desert, far from any water supplies, and offer him not a full canteen but a $1,000 bill is an act of hatred, not love. He would die of thirst. So do others.
Public policy is important. Political change is crucial. But the kind of policy and change that works is tied up in five words, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The rest is commentary.


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INDIANAPOLIS - Butler led 2-0, and had a pair of match points in the third set, but couldn't sustain the momentum, falling to Wright State 26-24, 25-19, 25-27, 18-25, 9-15 on senior night at Hinkle Fieldhouse.The loss drops Butler to 18-10 overall and 8-8 in Horizon League action.
Wright State (15-14, 10-5 HL) took an early lead in the initial stanza, pulling ahead 18-12 midway through the set. The Bulldogs fought back, chipping away at the Raiders' lead as a kill by Porshia Allen tied the set at 23. Another kill by Allen gave Wright State the 24-23 edge, but Shaunda Sandifer's kill would knot things back at 24. Allen then took it upon herself to put the set away, recording back-to-back kills, and giving the Bulldogs the 26-24 win.
Butler used the momentum from the first set to jump out to a 9-2 lead in the next set. Wright State then fought back to tie it at 10, before the Bulldogs went on a 7-0 run to put the set out of reach.
The third set was a battle throughout, with neither team leading by more than three points. With Butler taking a 24-22 lead late in the set, it looked as though a sweep over the Raiders was imminent. But, a kill by WSU's Jessica Woods followed by a Butler attacking error tied the game at 24. Lexi Leonhard gave the Raiders a 25-24 lead with her kill off the block, but the Raiders couldn't capitalize, with a service error on the ensuing point, tying the game at 25. Wright State then pulled out the third set win with kills from Michelle Hammond and Leonhard.
The Raiders took advantage of the change in momentum in the fourth set to pull out to a 16-11 and never looked back, holding Butler to a .054 clip.
With the score tied 3-3 in the fifth frame, kills by Leonhard, Hammon and Sandifer pushed the Raiders out to an early 6-3 lead. The Bulldogs pulled back to within 7-6 off of a kill by Allen, but would get no closer throughout the remainder of the match as Wright State captured the 15-9 win.
"It was a well-fought battle between the two teams," said head coach Sharon Clark. "Wright State did what they had to do, and we didn't finish it at crucial points in the match. On paper, it was very even between both of our teams, but you have to give them (Wright State) credit for shutting down our hitters at the end and pulling out those critical points."
Senior Dana Daprile, who was one of three seniors honored prior to the match, led the Bulldogs with 47 assists and 17 digs. Porshia Allen led Butler's offense with 20 kills, while teammates Jessica Wolfe and Kelsey Labrum added 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Katie Daprile led a balanced defensive effort with 19 digs. Fellow seniors Chloe Blasingame and Nina Inic were also recognized in their final match at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
The Raiders, which held Butler to a .187 hitting percentage on the match, were led by Leonhard's 23 kills and Leilani Tafuna's 20 digs. Hammond posted a match-high 58 assists on the match.
The Bulldogs will return to action on November 20 in the Horizon League Tournament, which is hosted by Cleveland State University.