text:
Spring is the weirdest time for beers.
Don't believe me, look at Sam Adams. They've had three different spring beers in the last three years.
I don't know about anyone else, but when its still 15 degrees outside I want something dark like an imperial stout, or brown ale. Anything that is dark, and robust on a cold night in the winter is ideal. Yet, I see these white ales, and bocks in the middle of winter. Those beers are perfect for early March to April, but January 1?�Seriously?
People still want to drink the Winter beers in winter. There has to be a more sane way to sell us beer that is still perfect for winter, and early spring. Maybe a mixed six pack, or mixed twelve pack that would be a winter/spring collection. I know we're all looking forward to spring, but can't we hang on to the winter beers until at least February?


text:
Mostly Cloudy ~
High: 51°F ~ Low: 44°F
Monday, Jan. 23, 2017
Christmas came early for Cardinals fansPosted Saturday, December 24, 2011, at 7:57 AM
By COREY NOLES
If Cardinals fans wake up Christmas morning and don't find presents under their tree, they shouldn't be disappointed. Fans need to remember that their family got together a little early this year for a gift exchange.
While I know some fans will feel like all they got was a $254 million lump of coal, there is a lot to be thankful for this year.
Here are ten reasons.
1. The 2011 World Series - OK, hopefully you haven't forgotten this one yet. For those of you who forgot, the Cardinals won the last game they played in 2011. In the postseason that only happens to one team.
2. Wainwright pt. 1- When pitchers and catchers report in February, a familiar and very welcome face will be present: Adam Wainwright. The presence that he is capable of bringing, in addition to wins, will be one of several things that will help the Cardinals survive in the post-AP era. Remember how bad we thought it would be without Wain-o? Well, imagine what could happen with him.
3. Beltran - While not the agile fielder that he once was, the addition of Carlos Beltran to the Cardinals roster is huge. The additional offense he will bring as well as the added threat to the lineup will help to protect guys like Holliday and Berkman. Beltran is coming off of a good season and I don't see any reason not to expect another from him. I question his CF production, but two years off of surgery I hope we're presently surprised at his mobility.
4. Berkman - The Cardinals re-upped the Big Puma. This guy came to the Cardinals with a lot of fans and media personnel doubting his worth, but he wasted absolutely no time whatsoever smashing a baseball right through their expectations. Berkman's stance as a clubhouse leader, which really happened as soon as he walked in the door, is good for the team. He's a positive role-model for the younger players and a skilled veteran with lots of knowledge to share.
5. Wainwright pt. 2 - Following AP's departure, the Cardinals should have money available to make a stronger push at re-signing ace starter Adam Wainwright. There's not a lot to say about this, but it is definitely something to be thankful for.
6. Squirrels - Whether you believe in the mystical role played by squirrels in the Cardinals postseason run or not, you at least have to appreciate the humor they brought to the game. Watching that squirrel bolt past Schumaker sent me to tears I laughed so hard. Whether it's a good luck omen or not, the fact is, I still had to spend $48 on four squirrels, without so much as a Cardinals logo, for my kids at the World Series. If nothing else, squirrel-gate gave us a fun memory.
7. Distractions - While we do have to be concerned with Yadier Molina's pending free agency, it won't be near the distraction that we had from Albert. I'm glad to see the biggest non-distraction in history finally over with.
8. Shorter offseason - Thanks to playing so deep in October, our "waiting for baseball" season will be much shorter. This means we won't have to spend quite as long pretending we care about other sports.
9. Home opener against the Cubs - When the Cardinals play their home opener in 2012, it will be against the Chicago Cubs - as if opening day tickets weren't already expensive enough. The only thing better than that first Philly cheese steak of the year would be to pound the baby bears into oblivion. I might even celebrate that with a second Philly. I'm always fishing for an excuse to have a second Philly.
10. Fookie's return - The return of Rafael Furcal at shortstop marks the first time in what feels like an eternity since the team started the season with a highly-rated defensive shortstop. He's no slouch with the bat either as we learned last season. While I think they certainly overpaid for him, I don't think there was a choice. I certainly didn't want Tyler Greene as our everyday starting shortstop. His day may well come, but not yet.
I'd like to thank everyone who has faithfully read my column. I wish each and every one of you a wonderful Christmas season. Thanks for reading - Corey.
Showing comments in chronological order
[Show most recent comments first]
I might be in the minority, but losing Molina to free agency for a better hitting catcher wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion.
I've been waiting on this for years.
-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Fri, Dec 23, 2011, at 10:34 PM
Should the Cards trade Molina at the deadline if they are certain he is headed to the Angels in the offseason?
-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Fri, Dec 23, 2011, at 10:36 PM
Corey NolesInteresting point, Dustin. The key here would be if they are certain. If he is clearly upset about the Albert deal, etc., then that's a possibility. My guess us that they are already talking now in an effort to either re-up him or figure out his intentions. If his intentions are to leave and he makes that clear, they wouldn't have a choice but to trade. However, if they think they have a hope at keeping him, they'll hang on. Any trade would mean that he was upset enough there was no doubt as to his plans.
Personally, I would hate to see him go because defensively, he almost irreplaceable. Offensively, he led the team in average this year, but I'm not convinced that will be a trend yet. At 29, he likely has a few good years left in him, but catchers don't play til they're 40 like some pitchers, etc. I would try to lock him up for about four seasons, but I wouldn't be comfortable going any longer. Make him a good deal, if that doesn't work, shop him around a little and see what you come up with. Of course, I haven't done any research so I have no idea which catchers may or may not be available. I'll look into that. Might make an interesting column next week.
I think we still need a "true" lead-off man, as well.
Losing Molina would be a disaster. None better and he's starting to come into his own offensively.
-- Posted by deadred on Fri, Dec 23, 2011, at 11:41 PM
interesting point deadred
Glad you spoke out!
-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Sat, Dec 24, 2011, at 12:40 AM
Molina is increasing his production offensively each season and he is the Cardinals rock behind the plate. He is the best catcher in the game. He is whats going to make the team click and come together next season. If the Cardinals lose him, it doesnt matter how many star hitters they have in the lineup. Without Molina the Cardinals are pretenders and not contenders.
-- Posted by baseballfan2010 on Sat, Dec 24, 2011, at 9:05 AM
Corey NolesI'm not in any way arguing his value, but I won't go so far as to call them "pretenders" without Yadi. Defensively, he's irreplaceable.That speaks for itself. Offensively, he had a great year. In looking at his statistics over the course of his career, I'm anxious to see what this year has in store for him. Out of 8 seasons he has had 3 very impressive offensive years, but the others have been so so. I agree that Yadi is the rock, but his consistency is most vital behind the plate. The stuff not measured in statistics is his biggest value. The knowledge of the game and the way he knows how to "baby" a pitcher are invaluable traits that don't come from picking up just anyone off the market. Personally, I hope he stays, but my gut tells me not to be too attached. I think he'll be a Cardinal all season, because we would never trade him if we are in the running for a pennant, but as we know all too well, anything can happen in the free agent market and Yadi will draw a LOT of interest. Bernie Miklasz did a fantastic column on this situation that really laid it all out there. Everyone should give it a read. Bernie really lays it all out there. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
Better hitting catcher? Molina hit .305 with 14 homers and 65 RBI...I'm really not sure how much better you can get as a catcher. Maybe more power numbers but what you're going to get in power you're not going to get in defense.
-- Posted by 7plus1 on Mon, Dec 26, 2011, at 12:21 PM
I just read Corey's post and maybe you're right. He is getting pretty old so who knows how many years he has left, much less quality years like this one. Maybe I should have read everything before I said something!
-- Posted by 7plus1 on Mon, Dec 26, 2011, at 12:24 PM
Corey NolesI really didn't mean to come across like I was knocking Molina's production in my earlier post, but I do feel like sometimes in baseball you have to be realistic. Thanks for reading!
I think one of the Cardinals ownership stances on free agent and potential free agents applies here. John Mozeliak had stated in the past that they will not pay players for production in the past, they are going to pay for what they think the player will do in the future. I think that this applied to Albert as well as it will to Molina. At 30 years old this season, if he becomes a free agent, there will be a market for Molina. However, I do believe that some one out there will drastically overpay for him. I think that the Cards should extend his contract, but only for 3-4 years. He has already had knee issues in the past few seasons and those will only get worse the next few seasons.
-- Posted by redbirdfan74 on Mon, Dec 26, 2011, at 7:49 PM
Corey NolesYeah and knee issues with catchers usually signal the beginning of the end. They'll play through it for awhile, but eventually it gets the best of them. Physically speaking, it's likely the most taxing position on the field. Knees, hips, back, ankles...all of those things, once they start causing problems for a catcher, almost never get dramatically better in the long term.
Respond to this blog
Posting a comment requires free registration:
Balls & Strikes
- Archives
- Blog RSS feed
- Comments RSS feed
- Send email to Corey Noles
- Login
Corey Noles, staff writer for The Daily Statesman and Editor of The North Stoddard Countian, is the author of a regular baseball/St. Louis Cardinals column and also uses his blog to sound off on various happenings in sports. He also operates a weekly baseball mailbag column.
Hot topicsYouth will have to show maturity for Cardinals to weather Wacha/Garcia loss
(28 ~ 5:57 AM, Aug 14)
Wainwright to make his Saturday start
Holliday's 1,000th RBI is the sign of a career of consistency
MLB needs to drop the circus, do instant replay the right way
Oscar Taveras may be heading to St. Louis, but here are 5 things he is not...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This website serves as a repository for information about South Carolina plantations and the people who lived and worked on them. It includes data for more than 2,000 SC plantations.
We define a plantation as a large farm on which most of the work was done by slaves. Thus all the plantations we catalog were established before the Civil War.
SouthCarolinaPlantations.com began with a box of index card notes written by Mrs. Johnie Rivers of Charleston while she was a volunteer for the South Carolina Historical Society.
This website was developed and is maintained by SCIWAY, the largest directory of South Carolina information on the Internet. It is funded by our sister company, Hotel Guides.
Help Us Grow ...
SouthCarolinaPlantations.com exists thanks to the people of our state, who generously contribute their historical knowledge and expertise. Please feel free to add pictures or information to this guide. If you are adding information, please include your source(s) so we can provide documentation.
We Appreciate Corrections, No Matter How Small ...
Piecing together South Carolina's distant past can be an arduous task, and we need your help! SouthCarolinaPlantations.com is a work in progress. If you find an error, please let us know.
More South Carolina Resources
Can't find everything that you need online? SCIWAY has an extensive guide to South Carolina Libraries if your plantations research requires in-depth study.


text:
Third public forum held for schools
Continued growth in the Minot school district will mean some difficult choices ahead for district residents, school board president Jim Rostad said Monday.
During the third public forum held this spring, consultant DLR group laid out six possible options that would help address the explosive growth that is expected to continue in the district. Most would call for voters to approve a bond issue in late fall.
The first, and most expensive, proposal would cost a combined $145.5 million. It would pay for construction of two new K-5 elementary schools, both with the capacity for 600 students; converting Minot High School-Central Campus into a fourth middle school, building a second high school and renovating Magic City Campus and having two 9-12 high schools, both with the capacity for 1,400 students. The consultant estimated that this would cost the owner of a $200,000 home in the district an additional $535 in property taxes each year for 20 years and would raise the mill levy by 59.64 mills. Supt. Mark Vollmer pointed out that this amount would be roughly the amount of the tax break given to property owners by the Legislature during the 2013 session and would mean that next year's tax bill would look about the same as this year's for a Minot voter. "It would be taking the decrease the Legislature is offering and reinvesting it back into the district," said Vollmer.
The second option would cost $125.5 million. Again, it would call for construction of two new elementary schools and converting Central Campus into a fourth middle school and having two new 9-12 high schools and construction of a new high school, but it would leave out renovating Magic City Campus to accommodate more students. It would raise the tax bill for the owner of a $200,000 home by $462 per year and raise the mill levy by 51.5 mills.
The third option would cost $42 million. It would involve just building two new elementary schools and making no changes at the middle school or high school levels. It would raise the tax bill for the owner of a $200,000 home by $155 per year and raise the mill levy by 17.28 mills.
The fourth option would cost $33 million. It would involve construction of one new elementary school, utilizing portable classrooms at the current elementaries, and building additions as needed at existing elementaries. Nothing would be done to the middle school or high schools. It would raise the tax bill for the owner of a $200,000 home by $122 per year and increase the mill levy by 13.6 mills.
The fifth option would simply address "deferred maintenance" at existing schools, without building any new schools or additions or doing anything to address the growth in the district. It would cost a combined $63.5 million. It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an additional $235 per year in taxes and would raise the mill levy by 26.2 mills.
The last option presented was to do nothing.
The estimates did not take into account the likelihood that more people moving into the district will add property to the tax rolls, thus spreading the tax burden and lowering the tax bill for property owners, said business manager Scott Moum.
Construction costs in the area are continuing to rise at the rate of 6 to 10 percent each year, according to the consulting firm. Normal growth is about 2 to 3 percent per year. Waiting to build needed schools will likely result in a more expensive project.
Growth in the school district has been explosive, with as many as 1,000 more students expected to attend by the 2016-2017 school year, according to Robert Schwarz, demographer and principal planner for RSP, a firm based in Overland, Park, Kansas. That would put total district enrollment at more than 8,000 students. He said continued growth at that rate is projected to continue for the next decade. Vollmer said this year's kindergarten class was at 743 students, while this year's graduating senior class was at 453. The numbers of students in grades K-2 this year will exceed the current capacity of the middle schools in another five years.
Rostad urged voters to call and give the board feedback. The board will be making a decision about how to proceed based on input from the public and the report submitted by the consulting firm.


text:
Political Animals star James Wolk has joined the cast of the CBS pilot The Crazy Ones, a workplace comedy starring Robin Williams, TVGuide.com has confirmed.
The Crazy Ones, from David E. Kelley, is a single-camera, half-hour workplace comedy about a father (Williams) and daughter team in the world of advertising. Wolk will play Zach Cropped, a confident and charming copywriter at the ad agency.
Get the latest pilot scoop here
Kelley will write the pilot and executive-produce with Dean Lorey, Bill D'Elia, John Montgomery and Mark Teitelbaum.
Wolk's credits also include Fox's short-lived Lonestar, Happy Endings and Shameless.
View original Pilot Season: James Wolk to Co-Star in CBS' The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams at TVGuide.com
Related Articles on TVGuide.com
- Get the latest pilot scoop here
Other Links From TVGuide.com
- Robin Williams
- David E. Kelley
- Happy Endings
- Lone Star
- James Wolk
- Shameless
- Political Animals
Page 2 of 2 -
Comments are currently unavailable on this article
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Drak Brown Urban Wave wih a Center Part
This medium length hairstyle is curly and falls nicely onto the shoulders. Having this hair length, gives a woman many choices of how she may want her hair styled. For this look, this young lady has her hair down.The hair is cut to a medium length.A dark brown hair colouring with reddish highlights looks rich.
Company: All-Nutrient Haircolor Salon: The All-Nutrient Haircolor Design Team, Manchester, NH Hairstyles, Haircolor & Makeup: The-All-Nutrient Haircolor Design Team Photographer: Tom Carson


text:
Topic: current_user on Active Model Serializer
I need to access the current user in a serializer. I read this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1166 erializers . Did the same but with no luck.
Any suggestions?
This is an archive from Rails Forum. Check out the new community here!
A forum for Ruby on Rails users
Rails Forum - Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum » Other Rails Programming » current_user on Active Model Serializer
Pages 1
I need to access the current user in a serializer. I read this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1166 erializers . Did the same but with no luck.
Any suggestions?
I'm pretty sure you'll find the answer in this railscast http://railscasts.com/episodes/409-acti erializers
actually i did follow that cast, but i have a few diferences, im using cache, and i cache all the json generated. Thous, my code is like this.
module Cacheable
extend ActiveSupport::Concern
def to_json
Rails.cache.fetch self.cache_key do
module ClassMethods
# Cache key for tables
def cache_key
ActiveSupport::Cache.expand_cache_key "#{scoped.maximum(:updated_at).try(:to_i)}-#{scoped.count}"
i have seen in a place that this was used when declaring explisitely the active_model_serializer.
self.active_model_serializer.new(self, :serialization_scope = > current_user).to_json
but did not quite work either.
Im using Devise, and my ApplicationController stats like this. In the cast Ryan uses a stub and a helper method, suposingly the current_user is accesible in any controller (because of a custom helper that Devise provides). I dont quite get what i am missing.
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_filter :set_locale
before_filter :authenticate_user!
Pages 1
Hosting provided by aTech Media


text:
Seibertron.com - The Ultimate Transformers Fansite
Rated X wrote:Right now the best option is to buy 4 alpha bravos.
Moonpedia wrote:Dark of the Moon - Another name given to the new moon.
Cliffjumper Prime wrote:it's almost as bad as the spider-man broadway show "Spider-man: Turn out the Dark"
Blurrz wrote:Down_Shift is a god...
Return to Transformers Live Action Film Forum
Registered users: -Kanrabat-, Autobot N, Bing [Bot], Exabot [Bot], GalvatronG1, Google [Bot], Google Adsense [Bot], Microraptor, MSNbot Media, nycPrime, RodimusConvoy13, william-james88, Yahoo [Bot]


text:
By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published February 6, 2007
When Ersula Knox Odom studied theater at Eckerd College more than 30 years ago, she dreamed of opening a cultural center back home in Springfield, Ga.
But real life intervened - marriage, family and a career in corporate America.
Lately though, Odom, 52, has dusted off those decades-old theater lessons for her one-woman portrayal of educator Mary McLeod Bethune, one of the giants of African-American history. Odom will be at Pasco- Hernando Community College's Dade City campus at 7 p.m. Thursday as part of the school's Black History Month Celebration.
How she got here is a story of family, history and memory.
Each family needs at least one person to preserve its stories -its births and deaths, departures and homecomings. Without that person, the family story is usually lost on the trash heap of history. That happens for too many families, especially African-American ones, which often are splintered by generations of slavery and migration.
Odom inherited the gift of family stories from her maternal grandmother, Sula Stephens, with whom she grew up in Springfield. Sula, after whom Ersula was named, was born in 1896. The youngest of seven siblings, she lived into her 90s. She regaled young Ersula with the stories of growing up in the South, picking cotton, shaking pecan trees.
Even after Odom went away to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, her fascination with those stories never waned. Whenever she went home for holidays, she would pester her grandmother to hear them again. She even got a tape recorder to capture her grandmother's voice.
By the time she had graduated from college, the house had been destroyed by fire. The only keepsakes were the ones she had stored in trunks and boxes.
All of the family history remained untouched until 2001, when, as she was preparing for her 25th college reunion, Odom went looking into the old boxes and trunks. She found the old pictures, journals and scrapbooks, and the audio tape of the conversations with Sula.
Those stories on the audio tape became a CD in 2004 with her grandmother talking, laughing and singing. A book, At Sula's Feet, came a year later. That book, written in poetic verse she calls life lyrics, is grounded not in one place but in memory.
About the time she discovered her literary voice, a friend strongly encouraged the mother of two daughters to lend her long forgotten theatrical voice to portray McLeod Bethune, presidential confidante and founder of Bethune-Cookman College. Now Odom is in her first season as a Florida Humanities Council Road Scholar. She makes presentations to groups and organizations as she recaptures McLeod Bethune's indomitable spirit.
On stage, Odom dresses like the famous educator as she talks to a tour group on the campus of Bethune Cookman College on the day of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Brown vs Board of Education decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools. She shares her thoughts about the struggle that preceded the decision and her own contributions to the civil rights struggle.
For Odom, playing the role has been a transforming experience.
"I am personally being motivated by her life, how much she was able to accomplish," Odom said. "She did so much."
Mary McLeod Bethune certainly made history. Odom tries to keep that history alive.
Black history
If you go
What: Ersula Knox Odom speaking about Mary McLeod Bethune, PHCC's Black History Month Celebration
Where: PST Auditorium Room E-130, 36727 Blanton Road, Dade City
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Cost: Free
Call: (352) 518-1235
[Last modified February 6, 2007, 05:55:48]
© 2011 · All Rights Reserved · Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South · St. Petersburg, FL 33701 · 727-893-8111
Contact Us | Join Us | Advertise with Us | Subscribe to the Times
Privacy Policy | Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright


text:
Accessible Parking
Handicapped accessible parking is available.
Children's Play Area
Tufts Floating Hospital sponsors South Shore Plaza's Children's Play Area right in the Food Court on the Upper Level next to Lord & Taylor. Bring your children to the play area to burn some energy and relax on the soft couches located on the exterior of the Play Area.
Complimentary Coat & Package Check
Complimentary coat & package check is available at Simon Guest Services® Simply bring your coat, bag or package by and a guest service representative will gladly receive and store your item(s) while you shop or dine. This free service is available during mall hours.
Enhanced Cellular Connectivity
This property features enhanced cellular connectivity that improves the signal strength and brings the cell phone tower inside of the mall.
EV (Electric Vehicle) Charging Stations
EV charging station, electric recharging point, charging point and EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) are an important part of supporting plug-in electric vehicles, including all-electric cars, neighborhood electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
Fax & Copies
Have copies made or send a fax! Black and White copies are $.50 per copy and Color copies are $1.00 per copy. Faxing services cost $3 for the first page and $1 for each additional page. All fees benefit the Simon Youth Foundation. These services are available at the Mall Management Office located down the stairwell next to CVS. Office hours are from 8:30am to 5:00pm Monday - Friday.

Foreign Currency Online Ordering with Travelex
Order your travel money online for convenient home delivery. Did you know that some Simon center locations also include retail Travelex stores for your convenience. Travelex is the world's largest retail foreign currency exchange specialist, with over 1000 stores around the world. We can provide you with over 75 foreign currencies as well as a Cash Passport that can be pre-loaded with either Pounds or Euros and includes chip & PIN technology, a must when traveling in Europe. To get started, visit Travelex now.
Lost and Found
Lost and Found is located at the Simon Guest Services Desk located on Level 1 outside Victoria's Secret; access is available during mall hours.
Mall Walking
The South Shore Plaza is a great place for those seeking a quiet, relaxing morning walk with our entrances opening at 7 a.m. A full three hours before our stores open! Plenty of time to exercise, socialize, and enjoy the morning. We ask that you please walk on Level 2 only for safety reasons while the mall is being cleaned prior to open.
Mobile Device Charging Stations
You can charge your phone while you are shopping. Conveniently located Device Charging Stations allow visitors to charge their phones, tablets, and other communication devices while enjoying the mall. The Charging Station features comfortable seating - and is the perfect spot to rest and recharge!
Parking is plentiful at South Shore Plaza with spaces surrounding each of the ten separate entrances. All parking at the South Shore Plaza is free. Also, our mall security has units patrolling the lots at all times to enhance your shopping experience.

 Accessible Parking
 Handicap accessible parking is located near all main mall entrances including the north and south parking garages. At each of the main entrances, there are clearly marked doors that are push-button accessible. For more information, please stop by Simon Guest Services located on Level 1 outside Victoria's Secret.
Public Transportation
South Shore Plaza does not have a cab stand; however, local taxis stop at Entrance #1 in between The Cheesecake Factory and Joe's Bar and Grill. Simon Guest Services Associates are happy to assist you in calling for taxi pick-up. Contact them at (781) 843-8201.

South Shore Plaza is included as a stop on the following MBTA bus routes:

Number 236 - Quincy Center Station & Braintree Station

Number 238 - Quincy Center Station, Quincy Adams Station, Crawford Square & Holbrook/Randolph Commuter Rail Station.

South Shore Plaza Bus Stop Location
 Our enclosed bus stop is located across the street from Japanese Tokyo Steakhouse next to the South Parking Garage. From inside the mall, please exit out of Entrance #2 (located next to Legal Seafood and Bank of America) and take a right down the sidewalk. The bus stop will be on your immediate left.

Both buses provide access to the T Red Line. Bus schedules can be obtained at Simon Guest Services. For more information on these bus routes and public transportation to the Plaza:

 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
 Customer Service/Travel Info - 617.222.3200
 Toll Free - 800.392.6100
 Hearing Impaired (TTY) - 617.22.5146
 Web Site - www.mbta.com

 Schedules subject to change.

Shopper Assistance
Family Restrooms and Nursing Lounge
 South Shore Plaza offers Family Restrooms in two locations in the mall (on the Upper Level Food Court Restrooms and on the Lower Level in between Forever 21 and Vera Bradley). The Women's Restroom in between Forever 21 and Vera Bradley also includes a Nursing Lounge.

 Foreign Currency Exchange
 Travelex (Located on the Lower Level in front of Lord & Taylor) provides a foreign currency exchange services. Call them at (781) 849-0024 for more details.

Shopping Bags
Shopping Bags are available for purchase at Simon Guest Services, located on Level 1 outside Victoria's Secret. The cost for the bag is a nominal fee of $1.00, all of which will be dontated to the Simon Youth Foundation.
Simon Giftcard®
Give the gift of shopping with a Simon Giftcard, available at Simon Guest Services® in denominations ranging from $20 to $500. There are no fees after purchase and the funds do not expire. The Simon Giftcard can be used anywhere Visa or American Express are accepted. See cardholder agreement for complete terms and conditions.
Simon Guest Services
Our Guest Services staff is available to help make your shopping experience easy and enjoyable.
Simon Kidgits Club
The Simon Kidgits® Club is here! Sign your child up for free today either online at kidgits.simon.com or in-center at the Simon Guest Services booth or the Simon Management Office. Simon Kidgits Club members receive access to exclusive events, in-center prizes, store discounts and fun birthday emails. So join the club, and join the fun now.
Simon Mobile App
The Simon Mobile App can help you find your favorite stores, dining and entertainment options at the Simon shopping center nearest you. You'll also be able to check out the latest deals, news and events available at your favorite center right from your smartphone or tablet. And there are many more features designed to enhance your shopping experience including mall maps, gift card balance check and more. Download the free app from your favorite app store.
All Simon Malls, Mills and Premium Outlets in the U.S. have achieved the national 'StormReady' designation by the National Weather Service. This designation recognizes Simon centers' preparedness to handle all types of severe and potentially life-threatening weather situations.
Stroller rental is available in front of RadioShack and Miltons on the Lower Level, next to Sears on the Lower Level and in next to Gap on the Upper Level. Stroller rental costs $5-7 (including the 25-cent deposit, which is refunded upon return of the stroller). Accepts Credit and Debit Cards.
SYF Coin Wishing Wells
Simon Youth Foundation donation wells can be found on the 1st level across from J. Crew and the 2nd level across from Lady Foot Locker.
Wheelchairs (Complimentary)
Please visit Guest Services for more information.
Wireless (Wi-Fi) Internet
We offer free wireless internet to our shoppers at this Simon mall. Any shopper with a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, tablet or smartphone can easily log onto the Wi-Fi network. All shoppers have to do is open their web browser or select "Simon WiFi" (the SSID name) from their available list of wireless networks to get to the Simon Malls Wi-Fi landing page. All shoppers that choose to use the Wi-Fi network at this mall must agree to Simon Wi-Fi Terms & Conditions of Use prior to using this free service. If there are any issues or questions, shoppers and tenants should contact the Wi-Fi network technical support hotline at (888) 726-5930 for assistance.
Then Get Our Can't Miss Style Reports, Retailer
Offers and Event News Before Everyone Else.


text:
Diamond Watches
Watch Accessories
Mens Diamond Jewelry
Women's Diamond Jewelry
Diamond Children's Jewelry
Gold Diamond Earrings
Gold Diamond Pendants
Diamond Wedding Bands
Diamond Eternity Bands
Diamond Engagement Rings
Three Stone Diamond Rings
Loose Diamonds
Designer Sunglasses
Designer Jewelry
Black Diamond Jewelry
Disco Ball Bracelets
Plain Silver Rings
Diamond Hip Hop Jewelry
Unique Diamond Jewelry
Rose Gold Jewelry
Jewelry Gift Ideas
Diamond Evil Eye Jewelry
Diamond Scarab Jewelry
Rubber & Gold Bracelets
Fancy Color Diamonds Jewelry Yellow Blue Black
Luxury Wrist Watches
Retail Price:
Our Price:
We guarantee you won't find it for less!
ItsHot.com guarantees that our prices are the lowest you'll find anywhere online. Our company is an actual manufacturer of the most jewelry items we sell. We offer you factory-direct prices but we also regularly shop the competition to ensure that our prices are the lowest in the industry. Even if a comparative item is found at a closeout price we adjust our prices accordingly if our advertised price is not as low as competitors. You'll know you're receiving the best deals available on thousands of quality products. And if you happen to find a better online price out there, and meet the qualifications listed below, we'll give you the difference plus 10% of the difference.
To satisfy the Best Price Guarantee credit:
Diamond Crosses 14K Mens Diamond Cross Pendant 2.35ct
Diamond Crosses 14K Mens Diamond Cross Pendant 2.31ct
Mens 14K Gold Round Diamond Cross Pendant 2.19ct
Diamond Crosses 14K Mens Diamond Cross Pendant 1.56ct
Ladies Diamond Crosses 14K Diamond Cross Pendant 1.36ct
Ladies 14K Gold Designer Diamond Cross Pendant 1.29ct
Ladies 14K Gold Designer Diamond Cross Pendant 1 ct
Diamond Cross Pendants 14K Gold Diamond Cross 0.57ct
Ladies 14K Gold Designer Diamond Cross Pendant 0.64ct
Diamond Cross Pendants 14K Gold Diamond Cross 0.6 ctw
14K Gold Round Pave Diamond Cross Pendant 0.5ct
Ladies Small 14K Gold Diamond Cross Pendant 0.59ct
Diamond Crosses 14K Small Diamond Cross Necklace .30ct
Diamond Cross Pendants 10K or 14K Gold Diamond Cross 0.29ct
Diamond Cross Pendants 14K Gold Diamond Cross 0.29ct
You have no items to compare.
Retail Price: $5,536.00
Our Price: $2,195.00
Retail Price: $6,196.00
Our Price: $1,845.00
Retail Price: $5,052.00
Our Price: $1,515.00
Retail Price: $4,195.00
Our Price: $1,199.00
Retail Price: $2,599.00
Our Price: $749.00


text:
Artist Collection: (34 of 50)< Previous | Next >
- + MOUSE OVER image to zoom in
- + CLICK to enlarge
orangeby maria mann
- Medium
- Traditional
- Artist Notes
- A play of colors that oppose but meet each other with grace.
- Contact Artist Send Artist an Email
More about maria mann
- Location
- paris, france
- Artist Biography
- I am an American living in Paris, have traveled many countries and retained a treasure of memories, enhanced by glorious city. I believe there is an absolute link between the abstracts and landscapes. My obsession with the sky and all things beyond have me constantly traveling between these two ...


text:
I figured I'd start a thread to talk about Michelin Star restaurants we've all visited.
I'm going to Gordon Ramsay at Claridges (London, UK) on Monday for Lunch and then I've got a table booked at a local Michelin starred restaurant called L'ortolan in June this year.
I was just curious as to what other peoples experiences at MSR (Michelin Star Restaurants) have been like.... I'm also going to Vegas at the end of the month and was planning on visiting a MSR when I'm there.


text:
We just saw a possible fight of the year in boxing last Saturday. Bradley/Peterson has that potential in someone's eyes this weekend.
If you want a canidate in the mma world, you have it on Saturday.
I expect BJ Penn vs Diego Sanchez to be unreal. 2 awesome aggresive dominating fighters going toe to toe for the 155 pound title. Both guys lack any serious flaws and look to hurt their opponents. It has the makings of a classic.
I love this card:
Champ B.J. Penn vs. Diego Sanchez (for lightweight title)
Cheick Kongo vs. Frank Mir
Jon Fitch vs. Mike Pierce
Kenny Florian vs. Clay Guida
Paul Buentello vs. Stefan Struve
Alan Belcher vs. Wilson Gouveia
Shane Nelson vs. Matt Wiman
Ricardo Funch vs. Johny Hendricks
Lucio Linhares vs. Rousimar Palhares
Edgar Garcia vs. DaMarques Johnson
Kevin Burns vs. T.J. Grant


text:
RapStix Lacrosse is looking to add participants to its Regional Vendor Program. This is a great opportunity to get your piece of a lucrative weekend business dealing with the fastest growing sport in the country and Continue Reading
Following the success of RapStix Lacrosse and Hockey RapStix Golf is here. With the same simple application, durability, customization options and removal with no sticky residue as other products RapStix Golf wraps Continue Reading
LPG is unveiling the new promo video for Rapstix, the custom lacrosse stick wrapping. There are limitless designs to choose from and you can even design your own. Simple Stick-N-Wrap application, coated, durable, no Continue Reading
Drink and Be Happy! RapStix is tapped to create custom shaft graphics for Major League Lacrosse's Charlotte Hounds, Bealer Wholesale and Bud Light. The "Good Sport" program is designed to recognize, reward and Continue Reading
We met a lot of old friends as well as making new ones as we made our way to nearly every vendor. In the third installment of gear photos from the US Lacrosse Convention we present equipment from Gait, Defender and Continue Reading
Rapstix has now made it even more easy to customize your shaft with their new custom application. Once you click on the custom tab you are presented with a pre loaded design, each one is broken into 4 graphic Continue Reading
After establishing itself as the original line of shaft graphic in 2008 and building tremendous brand awareness and loyalty RapStix is proud to announce product is now available at The Sports Authority's top 74 Continue Reading
RapStix, manufacturer of stock and custom design shaft graphic wraps, that easily apply to any stick, has become the "official shaft graphic of the NLL". National Lacrosse League is North America's professional Continue Reading


text:
Skip to comments.The Death Spiral Begins
Posted on 10/08/2013 1:14:11 AM PDT by sheikdetailfeather
As a retired computer systems manager, I am always fascinated by large, complex software systems that fail -- such as the Federal ObamaCare "insurance exchange" currently being rolled out at HealthCare.gov.
This software monstrosity is now in its second week, and most people trying to use it still can't get into the system, or else they can't create an account on it, or their account information is lost. I, and you, can follow this unfolding disaster at any time in the comments section on HealthCare.gov's own Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov. (You do not need a Facebook account to view this page.)
Here are a few recent comments I saw recently (on Monday evening, October 7):
Alicia Pasz: I waited but still CANNOT login. My security questions to create a new password are NOT MINE. If I cannot get SOMEBODY to clear this problem how am I going to login? I enrolled over the phone BUT I want to see what is going on with my account/app. I NEED HELP, I cannot create another account because I am already in the system. IS ANYBODY READING THIS REQUEST FOR HELP? (Nick's answer: No.)
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Hey, at least there'll be lots of jobs for IT techs to try to get the thing working.
If anybody in the private sector had started a company doing this they would be in cuffs. Zerocare is deathwatchCare.
I have programmed large complex software systems.
This one is designed to fail, by government swindlers. Seen that one before.
Depends. I've seen something very similar happen in Europe, back in the late eighties. A private entity can bleed the state dry, because the bureaucrats *will* cover their ass and eat a chunk of the cake.
They don't actually want to cover anyone. They just want the money.
It's the thought that counts... Obama said it was good and his drones should believe, no matter what the reality.
That exactly what I have been saying. Question: how much if that tax income will actually be going to the healthcare industry? Want to bet it will be going to pay for more special interest groups, crony capitalism and other ways to make the world better for us slaves? All the while sucking the life out of the healthcare industry. This was never more than a way for the federal government to get it dirty paws on som of the trillions spent in the health care industry each year. It is sad how many people fell for this bullshit.
There was a report that stated that the folks hired to do the job, are now told to shut up!
Since this whole thing was designed by elected and non-elected, out-of-touch bureaucrats, committed on nothing less than the slavery of America, this 'chicken' is now coming home to roost.
Since the first reports of this monstrosity were being transmitted, I have sworn to NOT partake of it, and shall still NOT partake of it.
"A computer system designed to eat itself", one report stated.
Wow! Thanks for the link. I was just reading the comments on the healthcare.fu facebook site and people are livid!
1) The SW for obamacare has serious problems.
2) The budget should be passed without funding for obamacare.
Seems to me that these are inextricably linked:
Obamacare is a disaster, it cannot work, people cannot even sign up. We need to abandon that ship. Give it up. No funding, let's just pass a budget and fund the government for everything except this complete and utter boondoggle.
By emphasizing the computer problems, we justify the budget stance. Same coin: two sides.
"I would rather piss needles from the clap for ten years before I would sign up for this hot garbage."
"Mr. Obama, tear down this website!"
Roger Filips I got notice that my blue cross was being canceled. The cheapest Obamacare replacement is $160 per month more and my total risk increases from $5000 to $12,500. The good news is that my menopausal wife and I now have maternity, pediatric dental and vision! Thanks a lot.
248 · October 4 at 10:58am
You are right. I think it would work too based upon the livid comments on facebook.
"Obamacare is a lifetime of ransom payments I can't make."
Sounds to me like a fun button to click ... over and over and over ...
I could read comments there for hours. LOL!
Go for it. hehehehe!
According to Obama and Reid, both Google and Apple had product roll-outs just like this.
I think if Apple and Google weren't so afraid of crossing the Chiago thug they would call them out on that.
I'm very skilled and highly-regarded in my field. I also possess (the lowest level) government clearance. I would be HAPPY to help them unravel it.
....uh, but because it goes against my ideological ethos, I will need to charge five times normal rate. One portion will go to the Tea Party, one portion to Ted Cruz's campaign, one portion to the NRA, and one portion to various (genuine) charities.
Set up the interview.
Talked to a patient yesterday in paying cash for a minor service. She told me over and over she has no money, please do not refer her for an x-ray, blah, blah, blah. I asked her if she had checked out the ACA. She replied that she didn't think she could afford the premiums.
Ok, bozos, so NOW WHAT??? Another friend elsewhere suggested she sign up for Medicaid. Guess we're now going to have a cornucopia of "free chit" that everyone can try to sign up for, yet that will pay out nothing. What a country.
However, since the instructions are not clear on how to do all this, you COULD enroll all your immediate family, each with a new application, and maybe all your extended family needs your help too. Perhaps you might need to enter 10-20 legitimate applications. :)
It's a wonder they even launched a facebook site with all the comments out in the open.
Some of the "propaganda" pics are also quite humorous.
I know! These comments people are leaving show how outraged people are. I am amazed they are leaving them up there.
Get in line behind me. I'm already waiting for the contracts to start appearing. I've held a 5c/Interim 6c clearance for work I did with the Dept of Ed, and I specialize in Information Assurance, which ties nicely into the problems that McAfee pointed out the other day. Between this mess, the general "electronic medical records" mandate, the scare that this admin has put into companies who store info or apps in "the cloud", and Google's claim that they basically own anything anyone puts into their system, there ought to be a LOT of security remediation work coming down the pike in the next couple of years.
Assuming the whole thing doesn't come crashing down around our ears, that is.
Well, they've stopped making new posts a few days ago. They were making a new propaganda post about how great Obamacare is, but their last post was on Sunday.
I guess even the Healthcare.gov employees can't defend their disaster.
A Mr Stephen Harris:
I am really concerned that hackers will break into the Health care web site... and fix it!
You'll actually have to get in line behind me.... My clearance is current and I am Security Steward for two web apps already (among other roles) ... :)
I've been following the HealthCare.gov page on Facebook right from the ObamaCare get-go last Tuesday. The comments have been nearly universally negative right from the start.
Likewise on Twitter.
I think the Obamacrats are overlooking or underestimating the power of Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the Social Networks to undermine the "good work" being done by the MSM to provide a positive picture of Obamacare to the American public. I think the power of the MSM is, at least in this case, being eroded dramatically by these networks.
The main reason why this is happening: These networks, particularly Facebook and Twitter, are dominated by the young (and often foolish Dem supporting) young people who are the targeted victims of the Obamcare Scam. Fortunately they are seeing through the plan to take their money, provide expensive health insurance they don't need in order to subdized those who are poor and those who are big users of hearthcare, typically the senior members of our society.
Exactly right! It is ransom. Sibelius said that if young people don't want to buy Obamacare, they can just pay the penalty. That is extortion, plain and simple! Chicago Care in action!
" ... omg - this is so funny - as I was writing this, I purposely did not capitalize "Obama", because I do not respect him, and this website automatically capitalizes his name. What incredible narcissism. Type in any other name, and it allows you to not capitalize it. But not little prince Obama's name. lol"
Perhaps like FR, folks like to press over and over if they don't think it worked the first time. Here we get double posts, there they get....*g*
Cal Page- "I was affiliated with this project pretty closely for a while. A large part of the issue is born from statute and having to put together a complete jigsaw puzzle of a law by a date that was likely entirely motivated by politics. Another issue was inefficient government processes, and way too many people touching way too much. Yet another issue was that I did not meet one convincing or real programmer (forget about a programmer with a health IT/policy background). All I saw were a bunch of hack suits who carried the latest IT proj. management manuals - not impressed at all. These hacks ultimately became the managers of IT contracts. They know nothing about what the policy means, therefore they know nothing about what the business requirements accomplish. Therefore they have no grand vision of how to tie together the technical architecture on a macro level, other than what can be presented in nice PP presentations or Microsoft Project reports. Therefore, they could never provide any real oversight of the development and installation across multiple agencies (who have their own suits, IT managers, and contractors). So by the time everyone realized the real scope of the project in terms of operability with sooo many stakeholders, there was little money, little time, and little resources. I mean, I really could go on, but you all have essentially confirmed what I suspected/expected. It's not surprising that the homepage is poop, as I'm sure some details were overlooked. I do think that there are larger issues yet to be unraveled, and I don't know if there is the bandwidth and expertise to address a spread of wildfires. IT project management is a joke." 3 · October 6 at 4:35am
If you don't get a response from the website, it's clear the information didn't transmit. I would recommend pressing submit again until you get a confirmation. Some people are too impatient and press 'submit' way too often! UH OH!!!!
Even if (when) the whole BS roll-out succeeds as planned... can you imagine going to a hospital or seeing a doctor for treatment ans wondering IF he has the correct information about you and your condition?
How about going in for treatment/surgery, etc. for ONE thing and then coming out with a body part removed or worse, which was never needed or intended???
You're right! I think that should be put in the comments section on facebook along with the other comments.
"...follow this unfolding disaster at any time in the comments section on HealthCare.gov's own Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov. (You do not need a Facebook account to view this page.)"
You don't need an account to view the page, but it wanted me to login or sign up to actually make a comment.
So, my government is soliciting comments through a private entity of questionable reputation in regard to privacy, and I've got to sign up with that private entity in order to respond to the solicitation.
Part of the reason for a lack of understanding of the business requirements was the administration hiding the details of how things were to work so as to shield the program from political criticism. It's hard to criticize a program if you don't know the details of how it works. Likewise, if you don't know the details of how it works, it's hard to fix it or otherwise make it work properly.
Oh I know...I'm just giving them...ehh you can finish that thought I'm sure, if you remember the previous bits of the conbo.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


text:
In case of emergency, please call us immediately at 303-922-1127. If it is after hours or a holiday please call the closest emergency facility to you.
VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital at 303-366-2639, their address is
9770 E. Alameda Ave Denver, CO 80247
ACCESS (Animal Critical Care and Emergency Services) at 303-239-1200, their address
is 1597 Wadsworth Blvd Lakewood, CO 80215
Central Veterinary Emergency Service at 303-874-7387, their address is
3550 S. Jason St Englewood, CO 80110
As part of the VCA family, we have over 83 specialty hospitals across the US and Canada which provide referral specialty care, so there may be one near you. Enter ZIP to find VCA specialty care hospitals near you.


text:
What was SG Warburg's secret sauce?
Ten years on from its name being consigned to the history books, the storied City firm still has plenty to teach modern bankers. What made it great and why was that ultimately not enough?
Simon Warshaw graduated from university in 1986, the year of the Big Bang – a sudden process of deregulation that was to change the face of the financial industry. He had interviews at about 20 firms.
Among the last was SG Warburg, the British merchant bank then at the height of its powers. Something clicked. "I came out of those offices on King William Street absolutely convinced it was where I wanted to work," said Warshaw.
He had offers elsewhere and Warburg paid comfortably less than any other bank. "But there was just something about the firm that really appealed to me. I felt like I was carrying a special business card when I worked there."
This year marks a decade since the name Warburg last graced a business card or the side of an office building. It was bought by Swiss Bank Corporation less than a decade after Big Bang, going on to become part of various inelegant monikers – SBC Warburg, SBC-Warburg Dillon Read, Warburg Dillon Read and UBS Warburg – before finally being dropped by UBS in 2003.
But the mystique of the firm still endures and its influence lives on in the careers of those who passed through its doors and have gone on to attain senior positions throughout the financial industry and beyond.
What was it that made Warburg so great and enabled it to attract such talent? And why was the leading British investment bank unable to adapt to deregulation, globalisation and the drive towards a universal bank model?
Now that those defining trends of the past 30 years appear to have passed their apogees, the answers to such questions are becoming increasingly important for those attempting to divine the future of the investment banking industry.
Puritanical ethos
Mark Nicholls, who is now chairman of Rathbone Brothers, joined Warburg (or, as the firm fastidiously insisted, S.G. Warburg & Co. Ltd.) in 1976 when the merchant bank was still operating out of cramped offices on Gresham Street: "There were no signs of excess: the building was shabby, there was lino on the floor, the lifts were slow. And you worked bloody hard. They always said that if you hadn't met a girl before you joined you were unlikely to get married until you left."
The firm famously had two lunch sittings, partly because of limited space and partly to keep up with client demand, but alcohol was served at neither. In contrast, some rival merchant banks employed butlers, one of whose main tasks was to deal discreetly with inebriated clients. In 1984, Warburg moved to plusher offices on King William Street but it retained its slightly monastic feel.
"The culture at Warburg was one of almost puritanical diligence and attention to detail," said Philip Yates, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners who started his career at Warburg and rose to become head of UK M&A and corporate finance. "You couldn't send out a letter, let alone a financial model, to a client without an officer checking and countersigning the contents, no matter how senior you were. The first-person plural, rather than the first-person singular was venerated – everything was about teamwork." The tone was set at the top. James Leigh-Pemberton said that when he joined Warburg in 1979, Siegmund Warburg, who died in 1982, was still an active presence, coming in to the office every day and walking the corridors each evening. The ethos trickled down through an unusual approach to recruitment. Piers von Simson, who joined Warburg in 1971 and became a director on its main board, said: "Other firms were hiring almost exclusively from Eton and the household cavalry. Neither was much of a qualification for Warburg."
Edward Chandler, who joined the bank in 1980, said: "There was a view that you needed to be more than just technically competent to work there. You needed to demonstrate personality, curiosity about the world around you and the ability to innovate and shape events."
'Merchant adventurers'
New recruits were expected to be widely read. Many were exceptional in fields that had no relevance to banking. There were, for example, an unusually high number of outstanding pianists. Leigh-Pemberton, who is now UK chief executive of Credit Suisse, said: "There was a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities and a culture of meritocracy. Sir Siegmund Warburg focussed not only on qualifications but also on the qualities that new hires would bring to the firm."
The firm's cosmopolitan and international outlook stemmed in part from the backgrounds of its founders: Siegmund Warburg and Henry Grunfeld were German Jews who had fled the rise of Hitler in the 1930s and settled in the UK, building their firm of "merchant adventurers", in the words of the former, from scratch in 1946. And it was personified by the likes of Herman van der Wyck, the Dutch baron who managed Warburg's lucrative relationship with Indonesia.
"It was the most international of the UK-based merchant banks and that gave it an edge when the financial markets started to globalise," said Chandler, who is now chairman of corporate finance at Deutsche Bank. The best evidence of this was Warburg's almost single-handed invention of the Eurobond market, leading the issue of a £15m loan for the Italian roadbuilder Autostrade Italiane in 1963. It was also less clubby than other merchant banks; less part of the establishment. It played a key part in the first ever hostile takeover of a public company in the UK, advising its clients Reynolds Metals and Tube Investments on the purchase of British Aluminium in 1959. Some City figures took years to forgive Warburg for a transaction that Harold MacMillan, then UK Prime Minister, described as "rather a 'Gentlemen v. Players' affair".
Robin Budenberg, who joined Warburg in 1984 and is the chairman of UK Financial Investments, said: "It was more professional and harder-nosed than the competition at a time when that had yet to come into vogue. It was not a warm and cuddly place at all. It was a robust environment in which you had to establish your credibility."
Despite being populated by "big beasts", in the words of one former employee, the structure was very flat. Tim Waddell, the joint head of UK investment banking at UBS who joined Warburg in 1985, remembers being asked by a junior how one was supposed to know who the directors were.
Communication and client focus
A collegiate culture was underpinned by a high level of communication. All meetings were summarised in note form and circulated to relevant parties within 24 hours. Von Simson said: "Everything was diligently and elegantly recorded. The internal flow of information meant that you always felt well informed and that fostered loyalty." The management mailing list, summarising all of the non-price-sensitive information the bank received, was also circulated each day.
One former banker at Warburg said: "The morning meetings were very important. The culture was that if you surfaced something at that meeting you could count on the backing of the firm. If you kept something to yourself, you couldn't."
The firm's focus on correct grammar, punctuation and spelling bordered on the fanatical. In a 2010 article in the Financial Times, historian Niall Ferguson recounted the story of Siegmund Warburg phoning the home of Peter Stormonth Darling, who went on to become chairman of Mercury Asset Management, to discuss a misplaced comma in a note the more junior banker had written. It was Christmas day.
Grown men still visibly quake when recollecting the upbraiding delivered after the firm had released some rare marketing material describing Warburg as a "leading firm of international bakers". "You would be corrected relentlessly," said one former Warburger. "It was essentially an apprentice business. You either raised your game consistently or you left."
The number one lesson was that the clients' interests were paramount. "The client trusted you to give advice that they might not like to hear – that they couldn't do a rights issue or that they had to cut their dividend," said Nicholls. "And you would always – always – advise against a deal if you felt it was not in the interests of the shareholders."
One ex-Warburger said that senior bankers considered it one of their duties to ensure junior bankers made friends with someone at an equivalent level at a client firm: "That was partially due to an immense generosity of spirit but it also ensured that Warburg's had relationships embedded at every level."
But as the firm grew it became harder to maintain the focus on relationship banking. Nicholls said that there was insufficient planning to deal with potential conflicts that might arise from Warburg's rapid expansion in the late 1980s and early 1990s: "I remember taking some US colleagues to see a client and one of them talking about some complex derivative - a convertible with a put I think it was. And I distinctly remember my client catching my eye as if to say: 'What is this?'"
Siegmund Warburg had long forecast the difficulties his firm would face. In his book High Financier, Niall Ferguson wrote: "By May 1979 [Siegmund Warburg] was urging colleagues to 'plan for shrinkage [rather] than for growth'. 'We have already grown too much,' he wrote. 'Our excessive growth over the last four years or so has had the effect of making the various parts of our firm less and less controllable.'"
However, just the month before, Siegmund Warburg had also written: "The problem for a merchant banking house like SGW & Co. is to stand up to the continuously increasing position of the universal banks." It was left to Siegmund Warburg's successors to manage this tension between growing big enough to compete and becoming too big to manage.
The Big Bang exploded in 1986 and within a matter of months Warburg had merged with Akroyd & Smithers, a jobbing firm that acted as a market maker on the London Stock Exchange; Rowe & Pitman, a stock broking firm; and Mullens & Co, a gilt broker. Between 1985 and 1993, the number of staff at the firm doubled.
"It was felt that there was a time-limited opportunity to compete with the Americans," said one former Warburg banker. "That meant we had to be aligned with the best securities firms and to expand internationally." But the acquisitions inevitably diluted the firm's unique culture and failed to solve three flaws: Warburg lacked a big enough balance sheet, home market or international presence to compete with the US interlopers.
Loss of focus
The bank's merger spree was by no means an inevitable reaction to the changing world. Lazard and Rothschild had similar models to Warburg – an advisory bank combined with an asset manager – and they have both survived and prospered. The difference, according to one ex-Warburger, is that Lazard and Rothschild understood the inherent cultural fit between the two sides of the business.
Siegmund Warburg had little interest in asset management, often describing it as mere "share-pushing". That prejudice survived – "asset management was where you were sent if you failed in corporate finance," said one former employee. Mercury Asset Management was partially listed in 1987 (see page 16).
"The flotation of Mercury proved to be a huge mistake in retrospect," said Nicholls. "It meant, inter alia, that Warburg no longer had access to those cashflows and lost a wonderful source of stability." Both Lazards and Rothschilds were somewhat protected by their unique ownership structures. But they also remained focused on what they were good at, according to one former Warburg banker.
In his book City Cinderella, Peter Stormonth Darling writes about Siegmund Warburg's worries for the future of the firm after his death: "We would advertise, we would grow too big, and have too many people, and worst of all, we would join the City establishment and inherit its complacency." One former Warburg banker said: "That was almost unavoidable as the firm became bigger and more successful. It started to believe everything that was written about it."
Superficially, the post-Big Bang expansion experiment appeared to be going well. The bank's 1993 accounts showed that it operated in 31 locations, was a member of 33 securities exchanges, ranked third for global M&A and employed more analysts than any other investment bank. Warburg announced record results in June 1994.
Too small a base
But, ironically given its heritage, Warburg may have become too British to pull off the global expansion. One former Warburg banker described the international offices as being like foreign embassies to which one was "posted": "The neglected opportunity was Europe. The US firms thought of Europe as one market and were allowed to steal a march on Warburg. It was scandalous really."
The expansion strategy was also taking its toll. In the year to the end of March 1994, group expenses increased by 32% and staff costs shot up 40%. The average number of employees increased from 3,835 in the 1993-4 financial year to 4,353 the next. In The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, Philip Augur writes: "Once this expansion had occurred, and given the need to keep other staff happy in a competitive market, Warburg had little control over bonuses and found itself locking into an inflated cost base."
Warburg had become unwieldy. Augur described what came next as "one of the swiftest falls from grace ever seen". In October 1994, Warburg made a surprise profit warning. In December, it was forced to go public on merger talks with Morgan Stanley which, for many, demonstrated that Warburg was running out of road. Things went from bad to worse within days when the talks were abandoned and the US firm revealed it had really wanted to get its hands on Mercury Asset Management.
The collapse of Barings in February 1995 sparked an open debate about the future of UK merchant banks. And in May, Warburg, the "flagship" of that model, was bought by Swiss Bank Corporation for just 8% more than its book value. (Just a few months later, by contrast, Merrill Lynch paid 2.4 times book for Smith New Court.)
Augur wrote: "The tragedy is that Warburg could have been different if its culture had been nurtured and its strong position in the early 1990s developed a little more slowly." One former Warburg banker said: "In the end Warburg ended up doing too many things on too many fronts off too small a base."
• Special ingredients
"Warburg demonstrated beyond doubt that it is the people in an organisation that make the difference," according to one former employee. Certainly the list of those in the City and beyond who spent an early part of their career at the firm is long and distinguished. Here is a far from comprehensive sample:
Liam Beere: Managing director at Moelis & Company Robin Budenberg : Chairman of UK Financial Investments Edward Chandler: Chairman of corporate finance at Deutsche Bank Michael Cohrs: Member of the Financial Policy Committee and Court of the Bank of England Ken Costa: Former chairman of Lazard International and author of God At Work Simon Dingemans: Chief financial officer of GlaxoSmithKline Philip Dunne: Conservative Member of Parliament for Ludlow and Minister in the Department of Defence David Freud: Conservative peer and Minister for Welfare Reform Robert Gillespie: Director general of the Takeover Panel James Leigh-Pemberton: UK chief executive of Credit Suisse Mark Lewisohn: Senior managing director in corporate client solutions at UBS Mark Nicholls: Chairman of Rathbone Brothers Franck Petitgas: Global co-head of investment banking at Morgan Stanley Michael Tory: Co-founder of Ondra Partners Piers von Simson: Founder of Auden Capital Tim Waddell: Joint head of UK investment banking at UBS Simon Warshaw: Senior managing director in corporate client solutions at UBS Philip Yates: Partner at Perella Weinberg Partners
• The rise and fall of a household name
1946: SG Warburg founded by Siegmund Warburg and Henry Grunfeld
1956: Warburg acquires Seligman Brothers and gains a place on the Bank of England's Accepting Houses Committee
1959: Warburg advises Reynolds Metals and Tube Investments on the purchase of British Aluminium, the first UK hostile takeover
1963: Warburg advises Autostrade, the Italian motorway network, on the first Eurobond
1969: Warburg Investment Management founded (later renamed Mercury Asset Management)
1982: Siegmund Warburg dies
1986: Big Bang prompts Warburg to merge with Akroyd & Smithers, Rowe & Pitman, and Mullens & Co. UBS acquires Philips & Drew
1987: Mercury Asset Management partially listed on the London Stock Exchange
1992: Swiss Bank Corporation acquires O'Connor & Associates, a Chicago-based options trading firm
1994: Merger talks between Warburg and Morgan Stanley collapse
1995: Barings collapses. SBC acquires Warburg to create SBC Warburg
1997: SBC acquires Dillon, Read & Co, a US investment bank, to form SBC-Warburg Dillon Read
1997: UBS and SBC announce an all-stock merger to form UBS AG. The investment bank is renamed Warburg Dillon Read
1999: Henry Grunfeld dies
2001: Warburg Dillon Read renamed UBS Warburg
2003: UBS Warburg is rebranded UBS investment bank


text:
Thank you for showing interest in this item. You will be notified by email as soon as this item is available to purchase.
The item you selected has already been subscribed to notify to this email.
System error: Failed to submit email, please contact website administrator.
Product Instructions,
Use & Care Guides:
Download our Product Instructions
and Use & Care Guide
(based on 1 review)
Ratings Distribution
5 Stars
4 Stars
3 Stars
2 Stars
1 Stars
Reviewed by 1 customer
Displaying review 1
Back to top
(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
Makes math vocabulary fun!
By Kris
from Rochester NY
About Me Educator
Best Uses
Comments about Learning Resources MathDiction™:
I used this game with my students in Adult Literacy/GED classes. They loved it! We had a lot of fun while learning and reinforcing math vocabulary. I recently ordered the game for my daughter's third grade classroom as a way to reinforce 2nd grade terms and introducing the new vocabulary for the third grade. I believe anytime you can make learning fun and interactive, students are engaged and learn more.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
Was this review helpful? Yes / No
- You may also flag this review
Comment on this review


text:
Ladies Vintage Evening DressesWelcome to the best place to shop for vintage dresses online! We have a huge collection of fantastic vintage retro dresses for any occasion. In our vintage evening dress category, we have vintage cocktail dresses, vintage prom dresses, vintage disco dresses, vintage mod dresses, and vintage rockabilly dresses.
Please also checkout more of our women's vintage dresses: Chinese, Day, Ethnic, Halter, Hawaiian, Disco and Wedding.
Items added more recently are shown first
|Dresses (Evening)
|Dresses (Evening)


text:
U.S. Men's Update: Sweet Home Anaheim
B.J. Hoeptner Evans
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: (719) 228-6800
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 4, 2010) – The U.S. Men's Volleyball Team is back at its training headquarters at the American Sports Centers in Anaheim, Calif., and preparing for the 2010 FIVB World Championship, which begins Sept. 25 in Italy.
The U.S. Men will open in Reggio Calabria and will play Mexico (Sept. 25), Venezuela (Sept. 26) and Argentina (Sept. 27).
After finishing eighth overall in World League the U.S. Men saw their FIVB world ranking slip from second to third behind first-place Brazil and second-place Russia, who finished first and second in the World League final round. Serbia (fourth) and Italy (fifth) round out the top five.
The following players are in training this week at the American Sports Centers:
Matt Anderson (West Seneca, N.Y.)
Dean Bittner (Lakewood, Calif.)
Carson Clark (Santa Barbara, Calif.)
Kevin Hansen (Newport Beach, Calif.)
Andy Hein (Carol Stream, Ill.)
Tyler Hildebrand (Mesa, Ariz.)
Tom Hoff (Park Ridge, Ill.)
Russell Holmes (Fountain Valley, Calif.)
Max Holt (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Jayson Jablonsky (Yorba Linda, Calif.)
Rich Lambourne (Tustin, Calif.)
David Lee (Alpine, Calif.)
Paul Lotman (Lakewood, Calif.)
Ryan Millar (Alpine, Utah)
Evan Patak (Pleasanton, Calif.)
Reid Priddy (Richmond, Va.)
Alfee Reft (Oxnard, Calif.)
Sean Rooney (Wheaton, Ill.)
Riley Salmon (League City, Texas)
J.D. Schleppenbach (Ventura, Calif.)
Jacob Schkud (Santa Monica, Calif.)
Kawika Shoji (Honolulu, Hawaii)
David Smith (Saugus, Calif.)
Clay Stanley (Honolulu, Hawaii)
Donald Suxho (Korce, Albania)
Robert Tarr (Cape Canaveral, Fla.)
Brian Thornton (San Clemente, Calif.)
Scott Touzinsky (St. Louis, Mo.)
Dustin Watten (Long Beach, Calif.)
Jonathan Winder (Irvine, Calif.)
U.S. middle blocker Ryan Millar (Alpine, Utah) and wife Suzanne welcomed son Oliver Walsh Millar to the family on June 30. The Millars also have a son named Max who was born in 2006.


text:
LINGUIST List 16.2295
Sun Jul 31 2005
Jobs: Socioling: Visiting Asst. Professor, Reed College
Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer
The LINGUIST List strongly encourages employers to use non-discriminatory standards in hiring policy. In particular we urge that employers do not discriminate on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. However, we have no means of enforcing these standards. Job seekers should pay special attention to language in ads regarding employment requirements and are encouraged to consult our international employment page
. This page has been set up so that people can report on the employment standards of various countries. To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
1. robert brightman,
Sociolinguistics: Visiting Assistant Professor, Reed College, Portland, USA
Message 1: Sociolinguistics: Visiting Assistant Professor, Reed College, Portland, USA
robert brightman <robert.brightman
Sociolinguistics: Visiting Assistant Professor, Reed College, Portland, USA
This announcement was accompanied by a donation to the LINGUIST List!
University or Organization: Reed College
Department: Linguistics Program
Job Rank: Visiting Assistant Professor
Specialty Areas: Sociolinguistics; pragmatics, discourse, computational linguistics
Reed College seeks applications for a one-year visiting position in Linguistics
at the visiting assistant professor level for the academic year 2005-6,
beginning August 2005. We will be especially interested in candidates who can
teach in one or more of the following areas: sociolinguistics; computational
linguistics; discourse, corpus-based linguistics; dialectology, language
variation and change, historical linguistics; pidgins and creoles, language
contact; language families/areas other than Austronesian and Algonquian.
Teaching load is five courses over the academic year, plus some senior thesis
advising. Prior teaching experience desirable. Given the extreme time
pressure, we would request all applications and supporting documents, including
letters of recommendation, to be sent either by email or by express mail to the
address below.
Address for Applications:
Robert Brightman
Linguistcs Search Committee
Reed College
Portland, OR 97202
United States of America
Application Deadline: Open until filled.
Contact Information:
Robert Brightman
Email: robert.brightman
Phone: 503 771-1112 ext 7335
Fax: 503 777-7776
Respond to list|
Read more issues
LINGUIST home page
Top of issue
Print This Page
any bad links or misclassified data
LINGUIST Homepage
Read LINGUIST
Contact us
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.


text:
Blood-Stained Reward
Episode 21 | TV-MA
Following Makishima and Kogami, the CID Division 1 detectives arrive at the facility where the Uka-no-Mitama virus is managed. Now it's a race between Kogami and the CID to see who can get to Makishima first and stop him from releasing the modified virus.
Dub Expires: 08-14-2014
Sub Expires: 08-14-2014
Official Site: www.funimation.com/shows/psycho-passHide Details


text:
Make the most out of what Jesus gave you
Happy Easter! Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Do you ever stop on Easter to think of how we are celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? We are. He did it all. Never before and never again has anyone done that.
Before we go any further, I want to talk about Jesus's father. God. Let's start at the beginning. I believe it takes more faith to believe in the creation of the world as depicted by scientists than to believe in the creation of the world by God. Just look at the perfection of the world. I love nature! I love the soft breeze through the branches of the trees. I love the breathless glory of a sunrise. Just as I love a gorgeous sunset. I love water (sometimes I drink it down and sometimes I drink it in). I love the moon and stars at night. Everything is in its place and we can count on it. Yes, sometimes we have natural disasters like a volcano erupting or a hurricane or a tornado. All of these are out of the usual, but they are never forceful or destructive enough to ruin everything God has made. These natural disasters are challenges to Man and Man always rises to the occasion, with people helping each other through grief and to rebuild.
Now, God created his son Jesus, knowing that Man would fail and that he would need a savior. But why should that savior be Jesus? Why should He suffer and die just to eradicate all of our sins? It's because the depravity of man was so great that it required a very high price. What could be a higher price to pay than to sacrifice the life of a son, especially God's son? Jesus was innocent of all sin, yet he was willing to be sacrificed for us. Let's put ourselves in place of God the Father. Could you sacrifice your own son? Could you allow him to suffer, bleed and die for Man, who was so hateful and sinful?
The story is hard to accept, because Jesus didn't deserve what was done to Him, and Man didn't deserve what was given to him. All of this is hard to understand, but the heart of the story is that God's sacrifice of His son Jesus was love in its purest form. God loved us, and made the ultimate sacrifice to save us. God put us first, above His son, and Jesus put our needs first, too. He accepted his Father's plan of salvation. No wonder people find this story hard to believe. But believe it! I say, grab that truth with both hands and be saved!
I read a lot and some of what I read is just so profound that it's hard to believe. Sometimes, educators find great joy in writing into the heads of the readers. Well, I feel the same way, except I don't want to write into your heads, I want to write into your hearts. Notice the heart is lower than the head, but if the heart understands, then the message will reach the head and never leave the heart. Jesus wants our hearts. I hope I have let you see God and Jesus in a new light. Maybe that's what Bible scholars mean when they say "Jesus is the light of the world."
Let's think about the current state of the world today. How do you think God sees us? What proportion of the people are doing His work? Is the percentage up or down? Are more people going to church or fewer? Are more people reading the Bible or fewer? Is there more love in the world, or more hate and intolerance?
Last night I watched a program on how the American people were fooled into believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that we were in danger of being attacked. Then it showed how some politicians knew the truth but were afraid to say so. They didn't want to lose their positions in the government. It was a matter of losing money and losing face. It's a hard position to be in. The president and his advisors fed us lies and we swallowed them.
Okay, the world isn't doing as well as it could be. But what can we do about it? I am told repeatedly that I can't change the world. What can I do alone? I read and listen to the news. I express my views to people, and I agree with some things and disagree with others. The thing is, no one should remain quiet. I try to spread love, joy and patience, and I try to live by God's word. I owe Jesus that. No one can afford to do nothing. Make wise choices and make the most out of the second chance Jesus gave you.


text:
Dear Gregg Keller
For officially deciding that GOProud can't take part in an "official" capacity at CPAC, I would like to say to you the following:
A shame. I was actually hoping to attend this year.
For officially deciding that GOProud can't take part in an "official" capacity at CPAC, I would like to say to you the following:
A shame. I was actually hoping to attend this year.
God knows that the intersection of Olympic and Bundy in West LA is a nightmare for drivers during the evening commute. There are lots of reasons to think that maybe a major new hospital complex at that location is not a good idea. Since I drive past that point every day, I can understand the opposition.
But there is no excuse for the enormous lie that graces the cover of the mass mailer that went out today:
Anyone looking at this flyer would think that this huge campus was being dropped into the middle of a residential district, surrounded by a sea of houses with swimming pools and, no doubt, small children and pets who would all be at risk.
In fact it is a run-down commercial/light industrial area with a number of vacant and/or foreclosed properties, and no houses for quite some ways.
Shame on the "Fight Bundy Village" folks. As Congressman Weiner demonstrated, lies never help, especially when the truth will serve as well.
From ESPN.com comes the story of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Leonard Pope, who saved a 6-year-old boy from drowning in a swimming pool. The Chiefs' backup tight end on Saturday saved the son of a longtime friend from drowning in his hometown of Americus, Ga. According to the boy's mother, Pope was the only person at the party who knew how to swim. Pope jumped into the pool — wearing all of his clothes, "cell phone, wallet and everything" — and pulled her son, Bryson, from the water. The tight end would have been at camp but for the NFL lockout.
Just this morning, via Popehat, I learned of the passing of Joel Rosenberg.
I first got to know Joel – as much as anyone can be said to know someone via internet interaction – back in 2007. While we certainly disagreed in that instance, I knew right then that I liked the guy.
Flash forward a number of years, and lo do we learn of Joel standing up for his rights again the jack-booted thugs of the Minneapolis Police Department.
An impressive man in all senses of the word.
I'll be picking up his books soon, as I feel some certain amount of shame for never having read them before.
Farewell, Joel.
I did not watch it, but here are things I wish it had contained (I am informed none of them actually did, more's the pity)
– "I, William, take you, Kate to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, or until I find some other whore to start banging… Oh, sorry, looks like these were Dad's…
– "Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…"
– Instead of traditional wedding march, they use either Yackety Sax or Liberty Bells.
I'm a "Rule of Law" kinda guy… I don't like drug laws, but I abide by them. I don't like the Supreme Court's ruling in Snyder v Phelps, but I recognize it as being the right decision. I dislike it when celebrities get virtually no punishment at all for crimes that would see one of us plebeians thrown into jail.
So I'm actually sort of upset by this verdict.
The jury in Charleston Municipal Court found Billy Spade of Hico not-guilty of the charge. Spade was arrested when he spit tobacco juice on a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.
Look… I hate the WBC and all it's members. I wouldn't life a finger to assist them in any way regardless of what was happening. Hell, I'd probably not help them even if it caused me to suffer the same fate. Seriously, my hate and loathing of those completely worthless fuckwits is a real and tangible thing.
But that doesn't change the fact that the guy did commit battery. He spit on her, for crying out loud. If I spit on – or even at – a cop, my ass would be soundly beaten and tossed in jail, and I would almost certainly lose my court battle. The man's claim at trial that he was spitting on her sign, which she was holding over her head, is pretty damned weak. In my mind it doesn't even pass "reasonable doubt".
What happened here was the jury didn't like the victim, and so the wrong-doer got a walk, and frankly that should scare the shit out of you.
What if the jury just plain didn't like black people? Or gays? What if they don't like Republicans? Or Jews?
Would you be OK with the a jury giving a pass to someone who just walked up and spit on a gay man holding a sign saying he wants the right to marry? Would you be OK with a gay man getting a pass for spitting on a girl saying marriage should only be between a man and a woman?
If not, why would you find it OK to spit on a member of the WBC?
Either the law applies to everyone, or it should apply to no one.
Now, to start with I would like to say that I dislike the idea of electing judges (or more specifically having to re-elect them). If anything might give an example as to why, we only need to look at Wisconsin.
The Kloppenburg/Prosser election is, you just know it, going to become a huge pile of fraud and litigation. Kloppenburg currently leads with 204 votes, with supposedly 500 ballots being found in a precinct that went 73% for Prosser.
Look, the Franken election went the exact same way – boxes and boxes of ballots were found in fucking car trunks, for fuck's sake.
There are reports of ballots being shredded, students voting multiple times, and then there's the fun WI law where you can register to vote the day of the election and you're eligible to vote after a mere 10 days' residence. Let that one sink in – stay there for ten days and show a couple of bills (I would suggest an VoIP phone bill and cell phone bill, personally), and you're good to go.
Thankfully, the Wisconsin Attorney General is a Republican, so people who commit voter fraud might actually get prosecuted (though the SoS is a Dem, so no telling how much cooperation there will be).
Every person who voted twice needs to be prosecuted, every report of destroyed ballots need to be investigated like it was an attempt on the life of a US President, and any attempt at stone-walling or impeding efforts to prevent the stealing of an election needs to find the person sitting the fuck in jail.
No mistake, this is going to be long and dirty.
And don't even think about what happens if litigation ends up in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court…
Update: With some votes still being counted, the totals have swung so Prosser has a very, very slim lead (double digits).
If you care to watch a man slowly go mad with rage and desperation, I highly recommend the twitter feed of one Michael Moore.
Kloppenburg has already declared victory! Repubs in WI r behaving like sore losers. Now they've hired Bush lawyer from FL 2000 recount.
I think I have a Shadenboner…
Either I am the most out-of-shape person on the entire planet, or Ubisoft's "Your Shape – Fitness Evolved" for the Xbox 360 (Kinect required) is brutal.
Also, backwards lunges can fuck right off.
I'll give a real, almost completely profanity-free review if folks would like…
Apparently – so I have been told – there has been a bit of a too-do in Wisconsin, what with every single State Senator with a "D" after their name fleeing for part unknown for over 3 week because they don't want their biggest contributors to lose any amount of power.
We will, for the moment, continue to ignore how it is possible that the news stories haven't carried titles like "Worthless Elected Officials Run Like Bitches" and "Why Won't Those Shits Come Do Their Fucking Job?". Instead, we will focus on more current events. Events like the State Senate deciding 'eh, fuck it' and deciding that, since the only time they require a quorum to vote on a bill is when it is fiscal in nature (which I am told has a very specific meaning in Wisconsin), they would simply separate from the bill all the stuff dealing with the unions, make it it's own bill, and vote on that.
So they did a little conference with the State Assembly, and then in a floor session lasting mere minutes, voted on and passed it.
Without a single damned Democrat in the room, and if there were Democrat State Senators in the state, it was only on the highways as they sped back to Madison.
Or maybe there decided that they would hang out a little bit longer and take further advantage of that "Stay 10 days, get a free night's stay" deal. I say that because, with the State Assembly set to vote Thursday morning on the measure, they still won't say when they plan on coming back.
Senate Democratic leader Mark Miller of Monona says Democrats will "join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government," but he refused to say when.
Here's a little bit for friendly advice for State Senator Miller: When you flee the state to prevent a vote on something – and thus flying in the face of everything the word "democracy" stands for – you don't get to pledge to "come take back the government". You pretty much proved that you are unfit for any sort of office, and probably shouldn't even be allowed to vote in elections in the first place.
Gov. Jerry Brown tells legislators he will push for a $25-billion cut in California's budget unless voters OK tax extension
Jerry Brown, testifying before the Legislature, says without more taxes he will insist on a budget that is balanced through spending cuts. He has said he does not want to borrow to close the gap.
"I want to make one thing clear," Brown said. "… If we don't get the tax extensions, I am not going to sign a budget [unless it is] an all-cuts budget."
So, is this supposed to be a reason to vote FOR the tax increases? And does anyone really believe that the legislature will go along? The prospect of an all-Democrat government shutdown has my irony meter working overtime.
This, as they say, really is the money quote:
A TSA spokeswoman confirmed that Diego Gonzalez was a TSA behavior detection officer
These people are in charge of finding people in the crowd who will receive added scrutiny.
These are the people we are told to trust, people who are highly trained and complete professionals.
We. Are. Fucked.
I'm a geek. As is fitting one of my geek-ness, I am a member at a website called RoosterTeeth.com.
They do all sorts of things, but are best known for the machinima web-series Red vs Blue (based upon Halo). There are members from all over (even the fictional land known as Canada).
One of the members is from Trip, and he's discovered that the L government, while blocking things like twitter and Facebook, aren't blocking RoosterTeeth's site, which allows for members of the site to post journals, pictures, and video.
So he's doing that.
Because fuck them, that's why.
Here's the link to his profile, where you can see his entries. Maybe you'll have to sign up for a membership, I dunno. It's pretty straight-forward and simple. If you have to, do it. It's worth it to read.
Note: All country/city names have been been shortened in the hopes that RT stays unblocked there for as long as possible.
Powered by WordPress.


text:
Re: Should I learn RoR ?
there's the free http://www.buildingwebapps.com/learningrails website that has video presentations and uses Rails 2.0.2 . I'm enjoying it as it gets you up to speed faster than just reading. If you're keen on trying it, these tutorials will let you know if Rails has the right potential for your needs.
Rails can't do everything, but in understanding Rails it helps considerations in framework design in nice digestable chunks.


text:
The Meatball Shop: an idea that's so simple, it's pure genius!
When David Rocco wants meatballs but no meat, zucchini saves the day.
Debi proves she's a whiz at chopping; salt-tossing, not so much.
In 1 Minute: How to make Italian Turkey Mini Meatballs.
In 1 Minute: How to make Italian Turkey Mini Meatballs.
Ground turkey replaces beef in Ellie's lighter, heart-healthy meatballs.
Make Rachael's tasty Chinese take on traditional spaghetti & meatballs.
Inspired by a desert trip, Alie and Georgia serve meatballs and s'mores.
Alton Brown answers viewers' questions about meatballs.
Tyler Florence works his magic and comes up with the ultimate meatballs.
Get Cooking Channel on your TV.


text:
Topic: Combining two similar helpers
Could anyone help me combine the following?
# TODO - merge with get_class
def status_pic(req)
return image_tag("approved.png") if req.approved
return image_tag("denied.png") if req.denied
return image_tag("question.png") if req.requested
return ""
# TODO - merge with status_pic
def get_class(req)
return "approved" if req.approved
return "denied" if req.denied
return "question" if req.requested
return ""
# What I'd like to have
# type = 1 for image type = 2 for string
def get_status(req, type = 1)
# ...
# Maybe something like this? ...
# Is DRY getting in the way of readability here?
def get_status(req, type = 1)
[approved, denied, requested].each do |state|
if req.state
# If I did this I would have to change "question" to "requested"
return image_tag("#{state}.png") if req.type == 1
return state
TIA for any help


text:
Washed Away
BROCTON – Heavy rainfall, estimated to be between 2 and 4 inches per hour, caused havoc and evacuations in the Village of Brocton Friday morning.
Chautauqua County's 911 dispatch center began alerting Brocton Fire Department personnel of flooded basements and overflowing banks along creeks and streams shortly after 9 a.m. Friday, according to Brocton Fire Department leader and County Emergency Management Services representative Rick Cole.
"The first call out came in around 9:09 a.m. for Ellicott and Ransom roads, with reports of water and debris across the roadway. That of course is above us here in the village, and eventually flooded basement calls started being dispatched near Bear Lake Road. Eventually, we needed to start evacuating trailers at the lower end of Ellicott Road in Ellicott Estates Trailer Park. We then had to start evacuating up and down Lake Avenue, as well as everyone in the Crestview Estates Trailer Park on Lake Avenue."
The Red Cross was on scene to help assist with evacuating residents who were first housed at the Brocton Fire Hall and eventually relocated by school bus to Brocton Central School. Water was seen rising as high as the incline of South Swede Road in the village and nearly filled the railroad culverts traversing Lake Avenue to their height. Traffic was shut down to parts of Lake Avenue and other sections of village streets Friday as emergency crews dealt with the climbing waters.
Cole and Fire Chief Brian Woleben noted that besides the Red Cross, hazmat, the County Dive Team and fire police as well as Portland Fire Department, Cassadaga, Sunset Bay, Silver Creek and Irving fire and rescue squads were activated and assisted with what was needed. A sluice pipe under a culvert at Mill Street and Route 20 was being monitored by State Department of Transportation crews Friday and a bridge leading to the residence of John and Michael Munger was completely washed away from the roadside.
John Munger, who had just made it over his bridge before it was covered by rapids of Slippery Rock Creek had left to go to the Brocton Post Office at 9:30 a.m. Friday and was gone for about 10 minutes when he returned home to find his bridge covered in water. Traversing the bridge, he took shelter in his home with his five dogs before walking back down his driveway to assess the situation.
"The water just kept coming, and began filling the lower part of our yard. I saw logs, debris and I think even a swing set float by as the water began raging. Even while it was underwater, I noticed that the bridge was still attached, but once the water began to recede, probably about two hours later, that's when it eroded from the roadside and fell away."
Munger, a Portland fireman himself, contacted 911 dispatch approximately three times to report his bridge underwater, and his collapsed gas line at the roadside. He noted he wasn't contacted to evacuate his home and credits fellow Portland Fireman Dave McIntyre with responding to shut off the gas main at the roadside. The third time he contacted dispatch was to alert them to passersby who were stopping along the eroded side of Lake Avenue as he was concerned someone would slip into the still-heightened creek.
While evacuated residents were safely returned to their homes Friday afternoon, about the same time that a village-issued boil water advisory had been lifted, the Mungers remained literally trapped in their home as their bridge was their only open access. An access road through a neighboring grape vineyard that leads to their property was inaccessible at the time of the raging creek waters and doesn't provide clear access as it's overgrown with wooded foliage and brush, according to the couple.
"We're just assessing the situation right now and are glad that we're all safe. We're not entirely sure what to do at this point after being told by our homeowners' insurance company that we're not covered by a flood insurance policy. We're totally open to any suggestions or assistance anyone can give us at this point as we try and figure out what to do," stated John.
According to Cole and Woleben, no injuries were reported during the crisis. Brocton Mayor Dave Hazelton and Streets Department Supervisor Tom Allen both confirmed that there were remarkably no interruptions to village utility services during the flood.
It's estimated that at least six inches of rapidly flowing water can sweep a person away. Cole and Woleben remind residents to be cautious and make common sense decisions in a flood situation such as turning off any electricity to any parts of a flooded structure, not to attempt driving or wading through rising water and to keep away from the edges of rising creeks and streams.
The mayor reported that as of 3 p.m. all village streets were opened to traffic and that the earlier issued boil water advisory had been lifted and was only issued as a precaution and not in response to any water emergencies.