text:
A new poll shows that a majority of Californians now favor legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
But the results bring up more questions than answers. Such as: Do they favor legalization philosophically or in practice? How will they feel when it's being sold in their neighborhood?
The Field Poll released Wednesday found 54 percent of the state's registered voters (with a 3.5 percent margin of error) support legalizing marijuana and letting it be sold and taxed like alcohol.
This is a change: In 2010, the same poll found 50 percent support, and later that year voters rejected legalization in a ballot proposition. Go back further, and legalized pot was truly a fringe cause, backed by only 30 percent in a 1983 poll and 13 percent in a 1969 survey.
Naturally, pot promoters will find in this poll new hope for a planned 2014 ballot initiative to legalize the drug, as measures in the states of Washington and Colorado did in 2012.
But if California's experience with medical marijuana is any guide, there may be a big difference between favoring legalization in theory and wanting it on your block.
This week's Field Poll showed California's 16-year-old law permitting medical marijuana is supported by 72 percent of registered voters — and that 58 percent would not mind having dispensaries in their city.
You don't need to be a math wizard to see the problem here. It looks as if 14 percent fewer Californians like medical marijuana in their neighborhoods than like it in general. If the same gap applied to recreational marijuana, wouldn't only about 40 percent want it in their towns? That's the difference between another state victory for marijuana legalization supporters and failure in the country's most populous state.
As residents of Los Angeles, Long Beach and other Southern California cities are well aware, where medical marijuana is concerned the devil remains in the details, with city leaders still figuring out how to (or not to) regulate its distribution and the federal government continuing to be opposed.
By the way, support for legalizing recreational pot was stronger in the San Francisco Bay Area than in Southern California, stronger among younger than older respondents, stronger among men than women and stronger among non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans than among Latinos.
There still are huge segments of the public for whom legalizing pot for party use would be anything but welcome.
Backers of such a plan have a lot of persuading to do.


text:
Taveras has setback with tight right hamstring
VIERA, Fla. -- Plans to push Oscar Taveras so that he could make up for missed at-bats have now been hampered by a right hamstring issue that forced the top prospect out of the lineup on Sunday.
Taveras alerted the Cardinals to tightness in his hamstring while serving as the designated hitter in Saturday's game. He went hitless in three at-bats before being pinch-hit for in the ninth inning. Manager Mike Matheny had planned to start Taveras against the Nationals again on Sunday but instead chose to have the outfielder bus with the team to Viera and only participate in pregame batting practice.
"He measured out strength-wise fine again, but it's time to slow things down again unfortunately," Matheny said. "We're going to hold him back for a little while."
The setback further complicates Taveras' attempts to play his way onto the Cardinals' Opening Day roster. He sat out the first week of Grapefruit League games while finishing his recovery from ankle surgery, but was expected to play regularly upon returning last Friday.
Instead, Taveras, ranked by MLB.com as baseball's third-best prospect, now has to prove his health to the Cardinals again before getting clearance to return to the field. After doubling in his first at-bat of the spring, Taveras has gone hitless in his five at-bats since.
"Even the balls he was missing, he was just missing," Matheny said. "He has that knack and that ability to find a good part of the bat on the ball. He's rare in that regard. But we need to have him healthy to really see what he can do."
Jenifer Langosch is a reporter for MLB.com. Read her blog, By Gosh, It's Langosch, and follow her on Twitter @LangoschMLB. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Dr. Rolf Schmitz, Muskingum College administrator and educator, honored for work in early childhood advocacy and education
APRIL 16, 2004 - A tireless advocate for children and their teachers was honored recently by the Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children. The Early Childhood Award was presented to Dr. Rolf G. Schmitz, director of the Master of Arts in Education program at Muskingum College and founder and director of the Educating Children Summer Training Institute (ECSTI) at Muskingum.
Dr. Schmitz was cited for his significant career contributions to the field of early childhood education and for his impact on the needs, rights, and well-being of children throughout the state.
During the past 10 years, Dr. Schmitz has developed ECSTI into one of the premier summer early childhood programs in the country. The program started with nine seminars and has grown to include 31 seminars scheduled for this year. Participants come from across the U.S. and from some 19 foreign countries. He has also been instrumental in bringing such distinguished leaders as Sue Bredekam, Paula Jorde Bloom, Lillian Katz, and Kevin Swick to Ohio.
Dr. Schmitz is the only male Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) Fellow in the world. According to his nominators, Dr. Schmitz grew up in Europe during World War II and, as a result, is well aware of what crisis can do to a child and a familys life. He encourages teachers to investigate the many agencies that can support families daily and in crisis.
As a lecturer, writer, and adviser to national and international early childhood associations, Dr. Schmitz has traveled the globe, speaking in Mexico, Hungary, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Singapore.
His publications are varied and include articles on the RIE and Pikler methodology of infant and toddler educaring. He is the founder and former editor and publisher of a bimonthly journal, Junge Kinder, for the Association for Education of Young Children, Europe. He also edited another newsletter, Our Children.
Dr. Schmitz is the owner and director of CHILDREN FIRST! a federally trademarked early childhood education service providing consultation, specialized training and evaluation to those in the early childhood field.
He earned a B.A. from Ohio Northern University and an M.S. and Ed.D. from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Maps & Directions
Academic Affairs
Undergraduate Admission
Financial Aid
Graduate & Continuing Studies
Business Office
Academic Catalogs


text:
Posted 5 years ago
(76 items)
I do not know much about this sort of item, but from what I've researched, WM Rogers seems to be a fairly well known name for those that collect items like this. I'm not sure, but there may have been a serving tray that went with this originally. Does anyone know the years they were produced? I think it may depend on the marking next to the maker, which I posted an up close photo of.


text:
Auburn Tigers 96 Piece Plastic Dinnerware Set
Perfect for parties, picnics and tailgating. This convenient party package includes 24 place settings of plastic cups, plastic plates, plastic forks and napkins. 96 pieces in all
How long will my items take to ship?Most of the items we sell will ship within 1-2 business days from the date ordered. Every item on our website will tell you how long it takes to ship under the availability section when that item.
Once an item leaves the warehouse, Regular Ground shipments will be in transit for 2-5 business days & expedited shipments will be in transit for 1-3 business days.
You can click the "Estimated Delivery Dates" link next to the add to cart button on each product page to get an idea of when your merchandise will arrive to you.
How much does shipping cost?Our shipping charges are automatically calculated by our shopping cart after you enter your shipping information. Our shipping rates are based on the total cost of merchandise in your order:
|Order Amount
|Regular Ground Cost
|Orders Under $10
|Orders $10-$19.99
|Orders $20-49.99
|Orders $50-$74.99
|Orders $75-$99.99
|Orders $100-$149.99
|Orders $150-$199.99
|Orders $200-$299.99
|Orders $300-$399.99
|Orders $400-$499.99
|Orders $500-$599.99
|Orders $600-$699.99
|Orders $700-$799.99
|Orders $800-$899.99
|Orders $900-$999.99
|Orders $1,000 or More
*To obtain the shipping costs to Hawaii, Alaska, APO addresses & also for expedited shipping, please add your items to the shopping cart, enter your shipping address and use our shipping calculator for current rates.
You May Also Like
Regular price: $249.95
Sale price: $174.95
Regular price: $32.95
Sale price: $23.95
Regular price: $19.95
Sale price: $19.95, 2/$32.14


text:
RANCHO CUCAMONGA – The Thrift Shop of Assistance League of the Foothill Communities will hold a $15-a-Bag Sale on Thursday and Friday.
Clothing, shoes, books, housewares — anything that fits in a paper bag supplied by the shop qualifies — except jewelry and collectibles.
The shop is at 8555 Archibald Ave. Store hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Assistance League of the Foothill Communities is a nonprofit philanthropic membership organization dedicated to children in need serving the communities of Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario and Upland.
Information: 909-484-7853.


text:
One day after rejecting a public school spending plan, a legislative leader said Thursday his committee will consider a slightly different version submitted by Louisiana's top school board.
The latest proposal will allow the panel to consider a $3.5 billion spending plan without forcing a new proposal from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said state Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie and chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
"We have checked with all the lawyers," Appel said. "They are happy with it."
The panel on Wednesday rejected BESE's initial proposal in light of last week's ruling by the state Supreme Court, which struck down how the state financed vouchers.
The money was first planned to come from the $3.5 billion.
But later in the day BESE officials said the rejected proposal inadvertently included language never considered by the board.
The corrected version was sent by BESE to the education committee on Wednesday, including language aimed at keeping the resolution intact if the court tossed out the voucher funding method, which it did.
In a letter to Appel, BESE President Chas Roemer said the latest public school spending plan "clearly severs those portions of the MFP formula impacted by the court's ruling."
The MFP is the Minimum Foundation Program, which is the source of the $3.5 billion in school aid.
In a view that may spark controversy, Appel said the newest version sent by BESE will allow legislators to consider the proposal next week.
He also said the spending package — it is Senate Concurrent Resolution 23 — was filed in plenty of time to meet legal requirements, and the Legislature has until the June 6 adjournment date to pass it.
"We have absolutely no problem with that," Appel said.
The court, aside from derailing the way vouchers are financed, also struck down last year's MFP resolution, in part because the ruling said it was not introduced in time.
The legislation spells out state aid for about 700,000 public school students for the 2013-14 school year.
The court ruled 6-1 that it is unconstitutional for MFP dollars to finance vouchers, which are state aid that allows some students to attend private and parochial schools.
Nearly 5,000 students rely on vouchers in the current school and nearly 8,000 are set to do so in the upcoming school year.
Gov. Bobby Jindal and other voucher backers say money for the aid will be provided in the state operating budget. But efforts to do so are expected to spark renewed arguments about the merits of the assistance.
Another possible dispute may focus on whether the tweaked MFP proposal needed to be reviewed by BESE, then sent to the Legislature.
"We are opposed to the MFP," said Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that sparked last week's ruling.
"The MFP is unacceptable on its form; it is inadequate in its funding level," Monaghan said.
The MFP proposal is also expected to trigger controversy over planned changes in how special education and gifted and talented students are funded.
The state has about 82,000 special education students and spends $313 million based on the number of such students.
Under the proposed change, 10 percent of the money initially would be based on a student's disability, where and how the student is educated and academic performance.


text:
GSA's Peck Receives Henry Hope Reed Award from Notre Dame
Award recognizes GSA's commitment to creating and preserving public architecture.
March 28, 2011
Marie-Alice Denis, 202-219-0965
Contact: MaryAnne Beatty, 202-501-0768
WASHINGTON – GSA Commissioner of Public Buildings Robert A. Peck is the recipient of the 2011 Henry Hope Reed Award presented by the University of Notre Dame's School of Architecture. The prestigious award is given to an individual working outside the practice of architecture who has supported the cultivation of the traditional city, its architecture, and art through writing, planning, or promotion.
"Creating and preserving legacy public architecture is Bob Peck's passion, and he's been a leader in this movement for the last several decades," said GSA's Administrator Martha N. Johnson. "GSA, its customers, and the nation have been the beneficiary of his vision to create sustainable public architecture for future generations to enjoy."
Peck has had an illustrious career in both the private and public sectors. As Commissioner of Public Buildings, a position he has held twice in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, Peck oversees a federal portfolio of 370 million square feet of space in federally owned and leased facilities, with an annual budget of more than $8.6 billion. This portfolio includes sustainable federal office buildings, courthouses, and land ports of entry designed and built by some of the most renowned architects in the country under GSA's Design Excellence Program.
Peck has also served as managing director of commercial real estate broker Jones Lang LaSalle, where he advised corporations, government, and nonprofit institutions on real estate portfolio strategy. He has served as the president of the Washington Board of Trade and as a vice president at the American Institute of Architects.
Previous public-sector positions include chief of staff to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, as well as associate counsel to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works. Peck also worked at the Office of Management and Budget, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Federal Communications Commission.
The Reed Award is presented annually through the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, a national leader in incorporating the ideals of traditional and classical architecture into the task of modern urban development.
As the federal government's workplace solutions provider, the U.S. General Services Administration works to foster an effective, sustainable and transparent government for the American people. GSA's expertise in government workplace solutions include:
• Effective management of government assets including more than 9,600 government-owned or leased buildings and 215,000 vehicles in the federal fleet, and preservation of historic federal properties;
• Leveraging the government's buying power through responsible acquisition of products and services making up approximately 14 percent of the government's total procurement dollars;
• Providing innovative technology solutions to enhance government efficiency and increase citizen engagement; and,
• Promoting responsible use of federal resources through development of governmentwide policies ranging from federal travel to property and management practices.


text:
WWE: Missed Opportunities Segement 5
by, 07-14-2013 at 10:58 PM (6041 Views)
I meant to get this up before the actual Money in the Bank PPV, but due to technical reasons I was not. Anyways, with that said, I thought I would look at WWE's missed opportunities at superstars who should have won a MITB match instead of the ones they chose for the situation. Let's get started:
I am not a huge fan of Christian, but knowing what he has done for the WWE is quite proficient. He was someone who sustained in revolutionizing ladder matches and him not having been former Money in the Bank winner is beyond me. The perfect time to give him that briefcase was WrestleMania 26, instead of Jack Swagger. Think about it. Later that night, Chris Jericho would defeat Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship and then be speared through a barricade. WWE could of had Christian run out to the ring to cash in his Money in the Bank, have Edge throw Chris Jericho into the ring, Christian spear Jericho, and win his first ever world championship there with his brother right beside him raising his hand. It would have been a real bro to bro moment. I do not know about all of you, but that would of been a cherishable and amazing heartfelt moment.
Chris Jericho
I am surprised to know that the guy who came up with the whole doctrine of Money in the Bank never won it. In my humble opinion, the perfect time to give it to him was in 2010. Instead of giving it to the Miz, they could have had the Nexus come out and help Chris Jericho win it. I am not saying Chris Jericho would become the leader of the Nexus, just an ally due to his mentor-degree with Wade Barret. They could have had him team up with Nexus at Summerslam in which they would win with Wade Barret and Chris Jericho being the last two men standing. Later, they could have had Wade Barret beat Randy Orton for the WWE Title only to get cashed in by Chris Jericho starting a Teacher vs. Student feud. This is all just an idea I feel would of been utilized right. Otherwise, Chris Jericho is an amazing talent and could have really put Wade Barret over by actually winning Money in the Bank. Instead we got the Miz in a lackluster reign.
Shelton Benjamin
This man was a tremendous talent who had such a tangible and unique feel in the presence of the ring, especially those wicked spots in the Money in the Bank matches. He was so ravenous in his desire to win. Plus he is the only guy out of the first Money in the Bank participants to never be World Champion. That fills me up with some melancholy. He is such a veteran in these types of matches and gosh well deserved one. An idea for him would have been WrestleMania 24. Yeah sorry CM Punk, your first World Title run did not really impress me. Shelton could have easily cashed in in say Backlash that year and reignited his feud with Triple H back in the day. Shelton Benjamin is definitely a win.
A huge draw to the mid-card ambiance was MVP. He had credible feuds with the likes of Chris Benoit and Shelton Benjamin. He even had credible reigns as a United States Champion. Truth is, I cannot really come up with a good time when he should have won it/when to cash it in and so. I just believe he had the right attitude, heel or face, to be a good Money in the Bank holder.
Kofi Kingston
I know we have are unbelievers out there, but Kofi Kingston can be and should of have been an amazing World Champion, if executed properly. All he needs is a more serious gimmick. That's it. Anyways, he should have won MITB in 2011 whereas there was a heated rivalry between CM Punk and John Cena. This was a perfect opportunity for Kofi Kingston to pick up the briefcase and cash it in on his former tag team partner and one of his best friends, CM Punk. Yes, CM Punk would have still sprinted out of the arena in this scenario but later down the line a Kofi Kingston vs. CM Punk feud could have easily heated up giving us WWE fans something fresh, something invigorating. I know you Kofi marks would have enjoyed that. Instead, WWE sky rocketed Del Rio back to the top to win the title, lose the title, win the title, and lose the title within only a few months. Additionally, Kofi Kingston is a 9-Time Champion winning every mid-card title in the WWE today, which are more championship runs then most of the main-event guys of today. He also is an inspiring performer and does great in merchandise sales. All he really needed/needs is a more serious gimmick. He is decent on the mic in my opinion. Anyways, Kofi for the win.
So that is my blog. Please feel free to comment.
"For God did not send his Son into the World to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
-John 3:17


text:
George Lucas briefed Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher about plans to make three new "Star Wars" last summer over, but he didn't say anything about selling Lucasfilm to Disney, which was announced earlier this week.
"Oh my gosh, what a shock that was," Hamill told Entertainment Weekly. "I had no idea that George was going to sell to Disney until I read it online like everybody else. He did tell us last summer about wanting to go on and do (Episodes) VII, VIII, and IX, and that (newly appointed Lucasfilm president) Kathleen Kennedy would be doing them. He seems to be in a really good place. He's really happy."
Yeah. Having an extra $4.05 billion will do that to a guy
"When he said, 'We decided we're going to do Episodes VII, VIII, and IX,' I was just gobsmacked. 'What? Are you nuts?!' (Laughs) I can see both sides of it. Because in a way, there was a beginning, a middle, and an end and we all lived happily ever after and that's the way it should be -- and it's great that people have fond memories, if they do have fond memories. But on the other hand, there's this ravenous desire on the part of the true believers to have more and more and more material. It's one of those things: people either just don't care for it or are passionate about it. I guess that defines what cult movies are all about. We'll see."
Hamill said Lucas didn't say whether there would be roles for Hamill and Fisher. Though it's probably safe to say Fisher won't be squeezing into the metal space bikini anytime soon.
"Well, no, he was just talking about writers and the fact that he wouldn't be directing. I guess he wanted us to know before everybody else knew. He said, "Now you can't tell anybody!" (Laughs) Even now I'm nervous about saying anything. I just don't know."
The sale should be finalized by the end of the year. A spokesman for Lucas told the Hollywood Reporter on Thursday he plans to put the bulk of the money into a foundation which will primarily focus on education.
Contact Tony Hicks at email@example.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks.


text:
- Home
- News
- Sports
- Business
- Entertainment
- Lifestyles
- Opinion
- Driveway
- Impress
VIDEO: Imperial Metals president faces Likely, B.C. residents after Mount Polley mine breach
Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch faced the music on Tuesday, put in front of the citizens of Likely, B.C. after the Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach sent waste water into Hazeltine Creek.
A water ban is now in force for all affected areas, which includes the Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers up to the Fraser.
"Now, until we do an investigation, I would be just speculating if I knew what failed," said Kynoch. "It's a bit of an anomaly to me, where it occurred... It will be a lot of investigation before we do have any answers.
"I apologize for what happened. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if that could have happened, I would have said, 'It couldn't happen.' I know that, for our company, it's going to take a long time to earn the community's trust back."
Kynoch called it a "gut-wrenching experience". He also released a statement on Tuesday, apologizing for his delayed response after the breach occurred on BC Day on Monday.
The Watershed Watch Salmon Society estimates that 1.5 million migrating Fraser River sockeye salmon are destined for the contaminated Quesnel Lake, a fact that wasn't lost on residents at Tuesday's community meeting with Kynoch.
"This is a provincial, almost global... we're talking the salmon of the entire planet going through this lake," said Likely, B.C. resident Douglas Brassington to the Imperial Metals president.
"So, please address our water issue... Just remember, people are going to be drinking that water long after you're gone."
AUDIO: Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch says he would drink the tailings pond water, via Shane Woodford (CKNW)
VIDEO: Fly-over of Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach in Likely, B.C. (The Canadian Press)


text:
• Acres burned: 1,700+
• Structures Damaged: 5 homes destroyed, 17 other buildings damaged
• Injuries: 2 firefighters and 1 resident
• Containment: 30%
• Cause: Early reports suggest a campfire
• People evacuated: 4,000
• Evacuated areas: Mandatory evacuations remain in effect in Azusa north of Sierra Madre Boulevard between Azusa Avenue and the east end of the city. Glendora evacuations were lifted at 6 p.m. Thursday.
• Homes evacuated: More than 3,700 homes under voluntary, mandatory evacuations in Azusa, Glendora
• School Closures: Schools in Glendora Unified School District and Citrus College will be open Friday. St. Lucy's will remain closed until Tuesday, Jan. 21.
• Evacuation Centers: Glendora High School, 1600 E. Foothill Blvd., Glendora; Duarte Community Center, 1600 Huntington Drive, Duarte. Pets can be brought to the Inland Valley or Pasadena Humane societies. Horses can be brought to the Fairplex in Pomona.
• Firefighters: 750 from Los Angeles County, U.S. Forest Service and fire agencies in Region 1 which covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and Santa Barbara
• Aircraft: 8 each of water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft
View more stories on the Colby Fire
GLENDORA>> As thick smoke made a clear view difficult, Linda Peterson pointed to a structure peeking out over the top of a hill; she could barely make out the outline of the roof of her house, but the sight gave her comfort.
"It's still standing," Peterson said.
Peterson lives at the top of Glendora Avenue, right in the thick of Thursday's Colby Fire. She sat most of the day at the Village Eatery in downtown Glendora with her husband, George, and their friends and neighbors.
The group tried to make light conversation, but paused frequently to call friends who might know if their houses were damaged, and to keep a close eye on the hills where they hoped to return soon.
As they stood in the street looking at the smoking foothills, a house suddenly caught fire, sending visible flames billowing into the air. George Peterson received a call on his cell phone and was told his house was gone. A few minutes later, another caller told Peterson that his house was safe.
"I feel anxiety. We can't do anything, all we can do is wait," he said. "We're not worried because it's just a house. We are safe, our animals are safe. It is what it is."
The Petersons were two of more than 4,000 people who were forced to evacuate Thursday. Many residents of northern Glendora and Azusa were ordered to leave their homes, while Duarte and Bradbury residents were put on alert should the fire spread west of Highway 39.
Another evacuee, Wes Perkiss, who owns Hill Top Real Estate in Glendora with his wife, Chris, was also waiting to hear the fate of his home.
"We heard our garage was burned, but we don't know," Perkiss said.
Perkiss said he and his wife had to suddenly leave after flames quickly surged toward their house early this morning.
"I was about to leave for a meeting at 7 a.m. and then Chris came around the corner and said we have to go back, and I looked up the hill and it was all flames," Perkiss said. "When you walked out of the house you could feel the flames off the hills radiating your body and you know you've got to go."
The city opened an evacuation center at the American Legion Building, there was another center at Memorial Park in Azusa, and the Red Cross opened a shelter at Glendora High School in the afternoon, accepting overnight guests with nowhere else to go. The Pasadena Humane Society, Inland Valley Humane Society and Memorial Park accepted displaced pets, and more than 200 horses and other livestock took refuge at Fairplex in Pomona.
Many evacuees found shelter with relatives or hung out at local restaurants hoping to be allowed back home.
Barbara Woods said she and her husband Sam Ragucci were awaken by the rumbling of Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopters flying low overhead early Thursday. The couple walked outside and saw her neighbor's back yard on fire.
"It was coming right toward us," Ragucci said. "It was very disturbing."
Ragucci said he returned to his house after he was forced to evacuate to spray his yard and roof with water to protect it from embers. The couple then took refuge at a coffee shop in downtown Glendora after running from their home with their two dogs, some clothes and a few other essentials.
"It's scary because you know there is only so much you take with you. It's very difficult," Woods said. "You can't take all the photos, all the things you treasure. You just don't have time. You just hope the firefighters save your home."
Melodie Wopschall took her family, seven dogs and two cats to the Vons parking lot at Foothill Boulevard and Grand Avenue, where she could see her neighborhood at the top of Barranca.
"It's been quite a morning," said Wopschall, adding that it looked like her house, built in 1957 by her father, would be safe. "I think we are going to be blessed to have it not burn down. I think after this it's going to be a lot of cleanup, but it's worth it to have something to go back to clean up."


text:
About a year ago, I got a call from my brother-in-law. He had learned that his landlord, the University of Illinois, had received a cash-rent bid of $360 per acre on the 700-plus acres he had rented the previous year. This was an increase of about $160 per acre. The question was whether he should match the $360 bid and keep the 700 acres that had also been farmed by his father and grandfather for more than 50 years. After some discussion, my brother-in-law said he was uncomfortable paying such a high rent. He let what had been his family's "home farm" go, so that Illinois' land grant university could earn the highest possible return on land it had received as a gift several years before.
My brother-in-law is not the only one faced with whether to pay considerably higher rents. I'm sure the vast majority of farmers have been asked to pay higher rents given that corn, soybean, and wheat prices were all exceptionally strong last fall and winter.
Do the math
Landlords should expect to earn returns on their land that are on par with the returns they could earn from other investments, such as stocks and bonds. But they should also understand that as they raise rents, they create situations where it is actually cheaper for tenants to purchase the land versus pay the higher rents.
In my brother-in-law's case, he would have been paying $6,000 per acre and financing the entire purchase with a 20-year mortgage carrying an interest rate of 8 percent. This financing arrangement would have resulted in my brother-in-law paying $611.11 per year for land he could have instead rented for $360 per year. It would seem that leasing would have been cheaper than purchasing land at $6,000 per acre. But only $480 of the first-year mortgage payment would have been interest. The remaining $131.11 would have been principal. Hence, the cost of land ownership would not been as high as it would seem at first glance. Still, an interest payment of $480 would be considerably more expensive than $360 in rent.
A key advantage of land ownership is that land can appreciate in value. This appreciation, even at modest rates, can greatly reduce the net cost of owning land. (See the table which reflects the net cost of owning land for various rates of land-value appreciation. The values here reflect the annual net cost of owning land and selling it at some point in the future. The values were obtained by converting the present values of mortgage payments and property taxes and the present value of the proceeds from the future sale of land into annual net costs that can be readily compared to annual cash- rent payments.)
The rent-equivalent values in the table show that when land values are increasing at an annual rate of 2 percent or more, it is less costly to purchase the land for $6,000 rather than pay a rent of $360 per acre.
Know your cost
Admittedly, purchasing land is a lot riskier and complicated than paying cash rent for a year's use of land. But don't blindly pay higher cash rents without considering the option of purchasing land. You should be aware of what it would cost you — net of real estate appreciation — to own land versus meet the demands of a landlord.
More importantly, you should be knowledgeable of ownership cost so you can determine whether landlords are indeed pushing rents up to levels where it now pays to buy the land versus renting it.
Bruce Jones is a professor of farm management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


text:
DNR News
** Archived Article - please check for current information. **
January 19, 2012
Jan. 20 deadline for comments on DNR comprehensive deer management recommendations
The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) governing board adopted revisions to the comprehensive deer management recommendations in December 2011. DNR seeks public comment on these revisions and technical wording through midnight, Jan. 20, 2012.
DNR staff has developed the technical wording that would be necessary to make adjustments to the current laws in order to put the deer management recommendations in place. DNR seeks public comment on these revisions and technical wording.
Proposed Legislation (PDF file)
Overview of Comprehensive Deer Management Recommendations
All comments can be submitted to Amanda Stroud, public information director for Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries at firstname.lastname@example.com.
More News
- Commercial shad, herring fishing gearing up
- Waterfowl Advisory Committee meets Feb. 7 in Columbia
- North American bat death toll exceeds 5 million from white-nose syndrome
- Youth coon hunt to be held in Rock Hill on Saturday, Jan. 28
- Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program marks 75 years of wildlife conservation, partnership
- Night Sky in the Lowcountry Educational opportunity available
- Camp Wildwood of South Carolina open for 2012 registration
- Youth Federal Waterfowl days set for Feb. 4-5
- New website provides detailed information on South Carolina Colonially Nesting Wading Birds
- Draft 2012 Aquatic Plant Management Plan available for public review, comment
- 25th Annual Wild Quail Management Seminar scheduled for March 8-9, 2012
- North Island hog hunts with dogs to remove destructive feral hogs
- Freshwater fishing trends
- Saltwater fishing trends
- S.C. weekly tidetable
- DNR video


text:
NEWPORT County are offering new deals to the bulk of their squad, including midfielder Mike Flynn, the Argus can reveal.
Only defenders Harry Worley and David Pipe, midfielder Ryan Burge and striker Aaron Holloway have been released by the Exiles as manager Justin Edinburgh sets about fine-tuning his squad.
However, although County fans will be jubilant at boss Edinburgh performing a U-turn on Flynn, question marks remain on another hometown hero, defender Byron Anthony.
Anthony had further surgery on his leg injury - having sustained a double fracture back in August in the Capital One Cup win at Premier League chasing Brighton - last Wednesday, and will meet with Justin Edinburgh this week. Any decision on his future is likely to involve consultation with Newport physio Adam Roche, though it is understood there is goodwill on all sides to finding an agreement.
County also list Wales international Darcy Blake and Mike Flynn as 'in negotiations,' in their embargoed briefing to the media, though the Argus understands both players will definitely be offered new terms.
Blake's future is very much in his own hands as he lays out his criteria to County and ponders other offers and it is understood discussions with Flynn will centre not on the issue of staying or leaving, but what role he'll assume, with the possibility of a dual player/coach role. The Argus has had it confirmed by a couple of sources that Flynn will indeed be an Exile next season.
However, County have also officially agreed that a slew of players will be staying next term.
Deals are now in place for Ryan Jackson and Jamie Stephens, who join Andrew Hughes, Adam Chapman, Aaron O'Connor, Robbie Willmott, Shaun Jeffers, Christian Jolley, Rene Howe and Joe Parker in being confirmed for Rodney Parade next term.
County have also offered deals to goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley, defenders Ismail Yakubu and Andy Sandell, midfielder Lee Minshull and strikers Chris Zebroski and Danny Crow.
Defender/coach Tony James won't be offered a renewal of his current agreement, but has been retained by the club as strength and conditioning coach.
The news that Flynn is staying at the club will come as a huge relief to supporters.
Boss Edinburgh previously revealed both Flynn and Pipe would be leaving the club, but a series of excellent performances and Flynn's "brilliant attitude," according to Edinburgh, prompted a rethink.
It was abundantly clear in County's 2-1 win over Rochdale on Saturday that Flynn is still a key performer for Newport and the fan response to him has seemingly proved impossible for Edinburgh to ignore.
The releases of Burge and Worley won't come as any surprise as both have been peripheral figures in 2014.
Worley has figured only twice since February and Burge, a regular around the turn of the year, simply hasn't established himself at the Exiles.
He's had an uneasy relationship with Edinburgh and hasn't played for a month despite being fit, though some of that time he was absent on compassionate leave.
Edinburgh has stated he is targeting six or seven summer signings to round out his squad for the 2014/15 season.
Retained players: Andrew Hughes, Adam Chapman, Aaron O'Connor, Robbie Wilmott, Shaun Jeffers, Ryan Jackson, Christian Jolley, Jamie Stephens, Joe Parker and Rene Howe.
Offered contracts: Lenny Pidgeley, Max Porter, Ismail Yakubu, Lee Minshull, Chris Zebroski, Andy Sandell, Danny Crow.
Released: David Pipe, Ryan Burge, Harry Worley.
Returned to parent clubs: Tom Naylor, Kevin Feely, Ian McLoughlin.
In talks: Mike Flynn, Byron Anthony, Darcy Blake.


text:
Dis PlayLanguage brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
"Dis" teaser gives clues that describe words containing "dis" in them. The clues do not refer to the words themselves; rather they refer to the word that must be added to "dis". For example, "Dis limb is very handy" would be "disarm".
1. Dis is something you might give to someone you respect.
2. Dis is a shortened version of a male name.
3. You would use dis if you didn't have enough money on you to make a purchase.
4. Dis 1, dis 2, dis 3, dis 4...
5. Dis is a young, unmarried woman.
6. Dis is what you are trying to do to dis teaser!
Answer1. distribute
2. dismal
3. discredit or discard
4. discount
5. dismiss
6. dissolve
What Next?
See another brain teaser just like this one...
Or, just get a random brain teaser
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of
which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Back to Top


text:
BLACKHAWK! Black Reinforced 2-Inch Basketweave Web Duty Belt with Loop Inner – Medium
BLACKHAWK! Black Reinforced 2-Inch Basketweave Web Duty Belt with Loop Inner – Medium
- 2″ width
- Loop liner
- Lightweight, high-performance
- Disinfecting properties of nylon, look of plain leather
- Sizing: Small (26″-30″), Medium (32″-36″), Large (38″-42″), XLarge (44″-48″), and XXLarge (50″-54″).
BLACKHAWK! Has done it again, giving you the best of both worlds–traditional-looking yet street-tough duty gear. Their duty gear combines the lightweight, high-performance, disinfecting properties of nylon with the classic look of basketweave leather duty gear. Only BLACKHAWK! gives you the strength of a proprietary five-layer laminate system with an integral polymer core for long-lasting service life.
List Price: $ 49.99
Price: $ 41.99
Related Web Application Products


text:
Time to Cover FXB Short
After the minutes from the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee meeting for February were released earlier today, traders noticed a shift in the committee's voting stance and sent the British pound to a new eight-month low against the U.S. dollar.
That's great news if you're short the pound or if you shorted the CurrencyShares British Pound ETF (FXB) as I recommended on January 30. Since then, the British currency has collapsed due a combination of circumstances: the breaking of a major trendline, a likely triple-dip recession and an economy too heavily geared toward its financial sector. This combination of technical and fundamental analysis yielded a big win, with the pound losing nearly six handles in the three weeks since the article was published. That's a huge move in the currency market, where high leverage (compared to U.S. stocks) is used to offset low volatility....418 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.
There's no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.
Already a Subscriber? Please login.


text:
Accessing Library Resources & Services during the UAB Holiday Closure
The UAB Campus will be closed Monday, December 24, 2012-Tuesday, January 1, 2013 for the Christmas holiday. This closure will include Lister Hill Library, the Patient Resource Library at The Kirklin Clinic (TKC PRL), as well as Lister Hill Library at University Hospital (LHL@UH). All will be closed December 22nd January 1st. Sterne Library will also be closed.
LHL reference librarians will be checking email daily through the web form at ereference. Also, online resources will be available through the library's website at Homepage. Books will not be due during this time period but any books can be returned to the book drops. ILL services will be unavailable during this week, but the new Get It Now service will be available throughout the holiday.
TKC PRL visitors will be able to use the email form listed above and can also complete paper requests at the TKC to be answered when the library reopens on January 2nd. They may also return books they have checked out from the TKC PRL. No books will have due dates within the period the library is closed.
LHL@UH is accessible 24/7 to those with direct patient-care responsibilities who have applied for access via the library. If you have not had your badge activated, please see the LHL@UH library staff by December 1, 2012 to request access. Information requests may be submitted via the web form listed above, and all electronic library resources will be accessible via www.uab.edu/lhluh.
Posted on December 14, 2012@ 8:52 AM by Peggy


text:
HUNDREDS of balloons have been released in memory of a couple killed in a car crash on the East Lancashire Road.
The balloons in blue, pink and white were released by friends, family and colleagues of Amy Hobson, aged 22, a mum-of-one, and her boyfriend, 19-year-old Aaron Jones.
They were killed after the Vauxhall Corsa being driven by Mr Jones was involved in a crash with two Audis as he was turning onto the East Lancs Road at about 5pm on Sunday, June 22.
Horwich-born Mr Jones died at the scene and Miss Hobson died several hours later in hospital.
The balloons were released on Monday at the McDonald's restaurant in Pendlebury, where the couple both worked. They had been together for 18 months.
Tags were attached to the balloons explaining that they had been released in memory of the couple to celebrate their lives. A picture of the couple was also on the tag.
One of the balloons was found in Leverhulme Park, Darcy Lever, by a 12-year-old girl.
A petition has also been launched since the couple died lobbying for traffic lights to be installed at the junction where the crash happened.
A Facebook group has been started called Traffic Lights Between Barton Road and the A5185 Lancaster Road junction.
Two drivers have been charged in connection with the crash and have been remanded in custody.
Carl Wood, aged 27, of St James Street, Farnworth, and Steven Ward, aged 25, of South Avenue, Swinton, have both been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
They are due to appear at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday, July 8.


text:
Lolli Swim focuses on the beauty of being feminine. With cheeky cuts, perfect fits, and an assortment of the best colors and patterns, Lolli Swim is the perfect line of bathing suits to emphasize how fun it is to be beautiful. Finding herself in love with all things sparly and sweet, the founder of Lolli Swim, Vy Nguyen, decided at a young age that she would make clothing that best fit her favorite place: the beach. From there, she and her friends spent time putting together the best parts of their old swim suits to make something completely new and fashionable. Nguyen took it upon herself to learn the ins and outs of fashion and eventually started her own line of swimwear. The result, Lolli Swim, is here to enhance your enjoyment.
No products match your selections. Try clearing your filters.


text:
Updated from 6:39 p.m. ET to include additional information on Texas Instruments and NetApp. NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- The ugly selling continues and it's hard to find a reason why the tide will turn anytime soon. The kneejerk reaction to President Barack Obama's re-election has seen plenty of follow-through with the Dow Jones Industrial Average now down in five of the past six sessions and the Nasdaq Composite qualifying for a correction by shedding 11% off its post-QE3 high for 2012. All the rhetoric is pointing to a very difficult debate on solving the fiscal cliff. The president is sticking to his guns on higher taxes for the richest of Americans, pressing the advantage he gained a little more than a week ago. The Republicans have shown some willingness to reach across the aisle but they also have to defend what turf they have left and can't afford to cave completely. Deutsche Bank offered this assessment as anxiety about Capitol Hill builds on Wall Street. The firm noted that Obama is now looking for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over the next decade, double the $800 billion target that he couldn't get GOP leaders on board with in the summer of 2011. One week on from the U.S. Presidential election result, and we're no closer to a solution on the fiscal cliff with 48 days left in the year," Deutsche Bank observed on Wednesday, adding later: "The seemingly hardline approach sets the scene for tough negotiations with congressional leaders on Friday." And the question can quickly go from "why buy stocks here?" to "why not sell before all of 2012's gains disappear?" Longtime market watcher Ed Yardeni was trying to stay bullish about the end of the year ahead of Wednesday's regular session but noted the time crunch of the fiscal cliff isn't exactly conducive to a surge in stocks. "The year is almost over," he wrote in emailed commentarty. "There won't be a year-end rally until the fiscal cliff issue is resolved. If it isn't resolved before the end of the year, then there is likely to be more downside to the current correction until the issue is resolved early next year. I'm still expecting a happy ending for the year, but there isn't much time left." Sam Stovall, chief U.S. equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, noted some of the selling is being driven by investors looking to get ahead of changes in tax implications for investments. "With uncertainty surrounding the conclusion of the fiscal cliff, be it a likely postponement, a preferred outright solution, or the unthinkable continuation of irreconcilable differences, investors are tripping over themselves in an attempt to lighten their positions in stocks with hefty dividend yields or price appreciation, as future tax rates won't likely be as favorable," he wrote. "Even though this swift exodus may soon be followed by a 'V' shaped recovery should a resolution be forthcoming, a lot of technical damage has already been done. We think this will need to be repaired before a sustainable advance is resumed."
- Log In
- Newsletters
Access insights and guidance from our Wall Street pros. Find the product that's right for you.
- Action Alerts PLUS
- Daily Swing Trade
- Income Seeker
- Quant Ratings
- Real Money
- Real Money Pro
- Stocks Under $10
- Top Stocks
- Trifecta Stocks
- Real Money Pro Portfolio
- Chairman's Club
- Compare All


text:
Point and Shoot Cameras
Access manuals, downloads, specs and more when you specify your product model
make selection
- Mega Pixels
Type your model name or number
Top SolutionsREAD MORE
How To
How to Connect a Camera to a TV via an A/V Cable
Conneting your camera to your TV Power the camera on. Rotate the mode dial to 'Settings'. Select 'Connectivity'. Select 'Video Out'. For US televisions, select 'NTSC'...READ MORE
Features & Specs
Compatible SD Memory Cards for Your Camera
Choose Your Camera Model For a list of memory cards for the NX series cameras, click here. If your model of camera is not listed below,click herego to theSamsung Download...READ MORE
Features & Specs
Setting Up the Remote ViewFinder App for Your Samsung Camera on an Android Device
To setup the Remote ViewFinder feature: Turn on the camera. Turn the mode dial to Wi-Fi. Select the Remote View Finder icon. If a message appears to download the app, select Next....READ MORE
Features & Specs
The Aperture Setting on Your Camera
Explaining Aperture The size of the aperture is related to the amount of light. The size of the aperture is represented by a value known as the "F-Number." (Example: F3.5-5.6) A...READ MORE
Product info
Manual, downloads, specs and register
For the latest manuals, driver updates, other related software, specs and the ability to register your product, we'll need some more details about your device.
- Mega Pixels
Interactive guide
An interactive demo that guides you through the features of your device.LAUNCH DEMO
Browse answers, ask questions and get solutions from other Samsung customers.
Accepted solutions from the Samsung Community.
Is there any want to buy replacement parts for our Gear 360? Our camera blew over and the outer glass lens protector was scratched. Easy to fix but we cannot find the part.
Hey, my gear 360 is recording multiple files on the micro sd card in 1 minute increments. So, basically it's splitting up long recordings. How do I adjust this setting?
Repairs & service
Send your device in for repairs or visit a Customer Service Location.
How would you like to contact us?
1-800-SAMSUNG Mon - Fri : 8AM -12 AM (EST) Sat - Sun : 9AM -11 PM (EST)
Live Chat


text:
Greg Baldwin speaks with the straightforwardness of a person who has made the following statement so many times he has forgotten that most people will miss the weight of its full meaning: "The heterosexual community has to understand what we want and where we're coming from and who we are."
Baldwin, a 44-year-old litigation attorney and a partner in the state's largest law firm, chairs the Dade Action PAC, a year-old political action committee that is an incipient presence on South Florida's gay and lesbian landscape. Sitting at the varnished desk that takes up most of his eleventh-floor office in Holland and Knight's Brickell Avenue suite, Baldwin is a presence in himself: tall and fair-skinned, with a powerful build that seems appropriate for his clean-cut American good looks, and gray eyes that are remarkable not because of their size or color, but because they seldom seem to blink.
"I would say 75 per cent of all heterosexual people think of gay people as a bunch of promiscuous, maniacal nuts who run around in dresses, talk with lithps, and have loose wrists," Baldwin continues. "And what are we really? We are teachers, we are lawyers, we are doctors, we're next-door neighbors, we are priests, we are nuns, we are rabbis. We're laborers, we're cab drivers, we're everything else. We pay taxes just like everybody else does."
Unlike everybody else, gays and lesbians tend not to get the benefit of the taxes they pay. Baldwin and the 107-member Action PAC aren't pursuing a goal that's unique among homosexual activist groups: They want equal rights in housing and health, and they want the government, the police, and the heterosexual public to treat them like human beings. But their approach to that deceptively simple-sounding destination sets them apart. Neither a placard-toting crew of radical activists nor a crisis organization with an AIDS-specific agenda, the Action PAC delivers its broader message through traditional political means: phone calls and meetings with local and state officials; endorsements and campaign support at election time.
Which is not to say they oppose the efforts of other activist groups, or ignore crises in health, harassment, and hate crimes in the campaign off-season. The Action PAC played a role in shepherding the recent hate-crimes amendment through the state legislature. Earlier this year, when several Miami Herald stories prompted county officials to draft laws prohibiting unsafe sex in health clubs and so-called bathhouses, Action PAC was contacted for support and advice.
More recently, in response to an increasing number of complaints about harassment by police in Miami Beach, Baldwin and other Action PAC board members, along with members of Broward-based GUARD (Gays United to Attack Repression and Discrimination), have held meetings with Miami Beach Police Chief Phillip Huber, demanding unbiased police treatment of gays and lesbians, and successfully lobbying for a "sensitivity" section in the department's in-service training sessions for officers. Huber is cooperating; the sensitivity training, a one-hour course taught by the Action PAC's Robin Buhrke, was added to the in-service sessions for Miami Beach officers in mid-May.
"It's just beyond the pale to have a cop walk up to you in 1991 and say, `Hey faggot.' I mean, it's hard to picture a cop walking up to a black person and saying, `Hey nigger.' And I have trouble imagining a cop walking up to a Jewish person and calling him a kike. But to say, `Hey faggot,' `Hey queer,' `Hey fairy' -- that's the coin of the realm. It's not just punks driving past a gay bar, it's cops, calling you a faggot. I mean, there's a real societal message in that stuff.
"`Sensitivity training' is really a misnomer. All it is is an attempt to explain to authority figures where a particular group is coming from, its view of the world. See, we -- and I suppose this goes for any minority -- we don't view authority and government the way the average middle-class white American straight person views it. Because we've been beaten up by it. A lot of us will walk out of a gay or lesbian bar at one or two o'clock in the morning and be stopped by the cops and be terrified. Why? Not because we're being stopped by a cop, but because of the fear that being stopped is going to wind up `outing' us -- by `outing' I mean the involuntary disclosure of a person's sexual orientation. And for us that's a very real fear. Because when we get outed, we can get fired, we can get thrown out of our apartments, our neighbors can turn on us, all sorts of terrible things can happen that you never even think of.
"Chief Huber was very responsive. We've met with him twice. The first was at the end of April. There had been reports in The Weekly News [the Miami-based gay and lesbian newspaper] of people complaining that they were entrapped, or harassed verbally. The cops in Miami Beach had been outstanding during the Health Crisis Network AIDS march in February. They were polite, they were respectful, they were sensitive, it was everything you could want. And yet a month later we get these awful reports from TWN.
"Part of the allegation was arrests of gay men on the beach for lewd-and-lascivious behavior, and a lot of allegations of entrapment. There are apparently two cops over there that liked to pretend they're having oral sex, and they invite passers-by to join them. And if you pause to join the `fun,' you get busted.
"I said to Huber, `Look, if you were a cop and you went out on the beach or in a parking lot and you found a boy and a girl making it in the car or in the sand, what would you do?' He looked at me. I said, `We both know what you'd do. You'd harass them, you'd hassle them, you'd embarrass the hell out of them, and you'd chase them away.' And I said, `But if you go to the same place and find two men doing it, or two women, what would you do? You'd arrest them.'
"The letter of the law is that if a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman are having sex on the beach, it's not legal. They don't arrest the man and woman, but they do arrest the men and they do arrest the women, and all we said to Huber is, `Why? Why the double standard? We don't read about a boy and a girl on their prom night who get arrested in their car for lewd-and-lascivious.'
"He looked at us in total surprise and said, `I never thought of it that way.' Which is true. Nine out of ten straights have never thought of it that way. Because we're not legitimate, we're not normal. I hold my lover's hand, it's a public misdemeanor.
"He also said, `We don't prosecute.' And I said to him, `How would you like to go through your life with an arrest on your record for lewd-and-lascivious, whether you get prosecuted or not?' If you ever try to get a job with the government and they run your criminal history, they're going to come up with a lewd-and-lascivious and you're dead in the water.
"When we went over the second time, with GUARD, Huber said he had been stressing to his officers that, `In your decisions to arrest, if you would not arrest a man and a woman, then don't arrest two men. But whatever you do, be consistent.' Now, what effect that's going to have, I don't know. But I can tell you the effect it's had on me. I'm talking to a guy who knows that South Beach is changing, and who wants the department to change with it. And I can work with a guy like that.
"We also confronted Huber about the Rapoport incident. Joel Rapoport and Freddy Rodriguez of [AIDS activist organization] ACT UP were out in July, late at night, putting up posters on South Beach, explicit posters advertising safe sex. And a cop came by and saw the posters and just went off the deep end (this is according to them, of course; I've got their side of the story), making references to little faggot clubs and this disgusting faggot stuff on the posters. She seized the posters and didn't arrest them, which is an absolute no-no.
"Joel called us up and complained about it, so I wrote a letter to Huber and said that it's not our point to defend their conduct; you're not supposed to put up posters in Miami Beach, it doesn't matter if you're advertising B'nai B'rith, or the White People's League, or safe sex. But no cop has the right to start mouthing off to a person about that person's sexual orientation or race or creed or color or political affiliation or anything else. I said, `For sure, if this involved an Afro-American or someone who was Jewish, you'd come down like that. And I expect the same thing.'
"Huber said the best way to get a handle on the whole thing is to have people report harassment to the department's Internal Affairs office. A lot of times an investigation's going to be inconclusive, a lot of times it's the cop's word against the victim's word. But Huber said IA does two things. The first is, there's nothing in the world that a cop hates more than an IA investigation. And the second is that if every gay or lesbian person that gets hassled by the cops reports it, the word is going to get out that if you start mouthing off to a gay person, you're going to wind up in an Internal Affairs investigation -- and it's going to stop. Unfortunately there's going to be a very difficult transition period, because we're going to be finding more and more incidents as people speak out. It makes the situation look worse and worse instead of better and better."
Part Two
In several ways, Greg Baldwin's own life got worse and worse before it got better. A graduate of Boston College, Baldwin served in Vietnam as a lieutenant, an army infantry platoon leader who earned an Army Commendation Medal, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, a chestful of shrapnel, and a bum knee. After attending law school at Cornell, he took a job in the organized-crime section of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked from 1974 until 1980. For the next two years Baldwin worked for Georgia Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn on the Senate Subcommittee on Investigation.
In December of 1981, Baldwin publicly "came out" as a homosexual, effectively ending his professional association with Senator Nunn, who happened to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Even though he didn't work on that committee, Baldwin was suddenly considered a security risk. "Nunn said, `If my enemies find out that I have a security risk on one of my staffs, it won't matter what committee, they will use it to withhold information from me,'" Baldwin recalls. "He said, `I don't want to destroy your career, I'm not going to fire you, and I'm not going to ask for your resignation, but I do think you should go find another job.'"
End of conversation. End of life in Washington, D.C., and end of marriage for Baldwin, who has two sons, one of whom is now twenty, the other seventeen. Baldwin says that to this day he doesn't understand why a man who was considered good enough to tote an M-16 into battle should be considered a threat to democracy because he sleeps with men, but he has accepted it as a fact of his life.
In 1982 Baldwin came to Miami and got a job here with the U.S. Attorney's Office, even though a background check revealed his sexual orientation and caused some friction. "They found out I was gay and concluded that made me a security risk," he explains. "That one I could fight, and did. And won." In 1986 he left the U.S. Attorney for Holland and Knight, where he was made a partner in 1988. Baldwin says his sexual orientation has never become an issue at the law firm, and has not interfered in his work in gay and lesbian politics and AIDS groups. Since coming to Miami he has helped organize the Health Crisis Network, and was a founding member of both Body Positive and HOPE (Home of Peace Enterprises, which gives emergency cash assistance to people with AIDS).
Baldwin wasn't here in 1977, when Anita Bryant launched the "Save Our Children" campaign that led to the defeat of a countywide gay-rights referendum. But he is keenly aware of the impact it had on the lives of Dade's gays and lesbians. Leading the rancorous battle to pass the referendum was Bob Kunst, executive director of Cure AIDS Now. Kunst, whose stewardship of Cure AIDS Now is currently under investigation for possible misuse of county funds, has said that even in defeat, the campaign was the best thing that ever happened to homosexuals here, galvanizing the community to come out and fight. Baldwin argues that Bryant's gay-bashing had the opposite effect, and if anything at all was galvanized, it was Kunst himself. Through most of the Eighties, Baldwin asserts, Kunst was the principal "spokesman" for Dade's gays and lesbians, simply by default.
"Whenever anybody wanted to know about the gay community, the media went rushing down to Bob Kunst," Baldwin says. "And Kunst, who's an expert in sound bites, would come back with statements -- some of which were good, some bad, and most of which were embarrassing to gays. You'd see him on TV, and under it were those little white letters: `Gay Spokesperson.' And most of the gay and lesbian community would cringe every time we saw it."
No single event since "Save Our Children" has had as significant an effect on gays and lesbians as the turmoil that erupted in the Dade County Commission this past March, after the Miami Herald published several articles revealing unsafe sex practices at Club Body Center on Coral Way. The stories sparked county commissioners to action, and the resulting debate that surrounded efforts to pass a "bathhouse ordinance" was a watershed, according to Baldwin. Members of the homosexual community proved that they had the courage to step forward and speak in a public forum for themselves -- without the intrusion of Bob Kunst.
"The bathhouses had changed or had been closed in many other cities, by public-health authorities or by city zoning, sometimes over the opposition of the gay community, sometimes with the gay community. Here, nothing had happened. We knew in October that this article was being written, and we were concerned, because anything that deals with a gay bathhouse impacts on the gay community, at least from a public relations point of view. There was no question that there was going to be legislation; it was clear something was going to be passed. What happened was, Commissioner Gersten contacted us and said, `Can you all see your way to support this?' We told Gersten that we could only support it if it was from a public-health point of view, and if the law-enforcement aspect was basically health oriented instead of police raids. He said, `You're not going to have any problem with what I write.'
"He sent it over, and we sent it to about a dozen organizations. The feedback we got was that the definition of high-risk sex was so broad as to include any sex, and it was basically an anti-sex ordinance. Nobody would support it in that respect. The other problem was that the enforcement was so vague that conceivably we could have Metro cops rushing in and doing raids. We told Gersten that if he amended it in those two areas, he'd have eight or ten organizations come down and testify on its behalf. But before the ordinance was even drafted, Bob Kunst started screaming that this was gay bashing.
"The problem wasn't that it was gay bashing; the problem was that the goddamn zoning people and the goddamn health people totally ignored what was going on there. Pools and whirlpools are supposed to be licensed in Dade County, and they're supposed to be inspected every six months. The pool at the Club Body Center hadn't been inspected in over two years, and the inspectors and licensers didn't even know there were two whirlpools, because they had never been there. I can see them sitting in the office, saying, `Ah, don't bother with that, that's just the fags.' Nobody says anything, nobody does anything. Because it's just a bunch of faggots. `That's okay. We can let them be. They can go kill themselves.' That's gay bashing.
"When we went over to lobby on behalf of the ordinance, Commissioner Sherman Winn asked me, `If the gay and lesbian community knew about Club Body Center, why didn't the gay community do anything about it?' I said to him, `I think a lot of it is because we didn't know how.' And he said basically, `You all weren't organized enough to do it, were you?' and I said, `That's right. We weren't.'
"And we weren't. There was no organization to do it. There was nowhere for the politicians to go; there was nowhere for the community to go. This goes back, I think, to Anita Bryant, to the fact that, for better or for worse, that campaign was essentially run by Bob Kunst, Jack Campbell [Democratic activist and proprietor of Club Body Center], and a few other people, and we got our teeth kicked in. I think that traumatized the gay and lesbian community, and it forced many lesbians and gay people to become apolitical, to just turn their backs on the system in disgust, and to set up their own lives, separate and apart and insulated from the rest of society. As a result, we have not integrated ourselves into this community at all, which hurts us very badly.
"Bob Kunst is a very complex character, and he has done an enormous amount of good and he's done an enormous amount of bad for the community. The bottom line is that Bob is motivated ultimately for Bob, and not for the gay community, not for the lesbian community. Bob makes a living out of this. Bob makes a living out of AIDS. And the person who backs Bob Kunst and keeps him financed is essentially Jack Campbell. According to Kunst, Campbell has given $50,000 to Cure AIDS Now and is a member of its board. And it strikes me as no coincidence that Bob Kunst was the one person in any AIDS organization who stood up and tried to defend unregulated bathhouses.
"Jack Campbell makes a living out of this whole thing. Jack's money comes from the bathhouses. The bathhouses are in existence because we are oppressed and repressed, and we have nowhere else to go. We need special places. We need gay bars and things like that. If there were not this climate of oppression and repression, we would not need a Club Body Center. But Jack Campbell isn't the issue.
"After Anita Bryant came the growth and maturity of the gay community in a very subtle and disjointed way. But over that period there was a great realization that we can do these things, that we can form organizations, take care of our own and others. If the Herald had published those articles one or two years before, the gay community would have said and done nothing, it just would have gotten beaten up. But it happened that the maturity and the articles came at the same time.
"This is what I'm really, really proud of with the PAC. It was the PAC that coordinated it. It was the PAC that brought them together. They all formed their own opinions, and they all had the balls to stand up and publicly express that position. You had organizations that had never spoken out before as anything -- gay or straight organizations -- taking public stands in front of the commission. Health Crisis Network, Body Positive, HOPE, the Gay People's Alliance, the Gay and Lesbian Youth Group, it just went on and on. They all came down and spoke. That was the great breakthrough of it -- that all these people who had never been out before in their lives stood up in front of an audience and said, `I'm lesbian,' or, `I'm gay,' and, `This is what I think is good for my community.' The extent that they were for us or against us is totally irrelevant. The point is, they did it. That does more to create and mature and give self-respect to the lesbian and gay community than anything anybody can do. That's not a one-person job. It's an entire community saying, `Hey, it's time.'"
Part Three
As recently as four years ago, when Baldwin and a few others attempted to form a gay and lesbian political group, they had trouble finding people willing to serve on a board of directors. But this past summer Baldwin and others began meeting with the idea of forming a political action committee, and, says Baldwin, "I couldn't get the people off the board." By August 10 of last year the Dade Action PAC had registered with the state.
One catalyst for change has been the AIDS crisis, although Baldwin is quick to emphasize that his organization is not an AIDS PAC. "Maybe that's the reason we're at the point we are," he says. "Because so many of us have lost friends. That sounds so trite; I don't know how to give it meaning. In the past twelve months, I've probably been to twelve different memorial services for people who have died. I don't have old friends any more. I don't have anybody that I've known for fifteen years. They've all died. We are absolute wizards at memorial services. It has an enormous effect."
In this past November's elections, the PAC's first, the group concentrated on two state House races: districts 114 and 117. In District 114 (from Galloway Road to South Miami to SW Eighth Street), they backed Fran Bohnsack, a Democrat, against incumbent Republican Bruce Hoffmann. Hoffmann won the election by 112 votes. In the 117th District (from Key Biscayne to Kendall to Coral Gables), the Action PAC supported Steve Nuell in the Democratic primary, which he lost to incumbent Susan Guber. In the general election, they did not back Guber but rather a Republican, Gary Gerrard. "We did it because trying to open any sort of communication with Susan Guber was like pulling eye teeth," Baldwin says, adding that local Democrats were shocked that the PAC would endorse a Republican candidate. "But if we weren't bipartisan, we'd be a Democratic club or a Republican club. Why pretend to be a political action committee if you're not bipartisan? It destroys half your effectiveness."
Susan Guber was re-elected. But in many ways, losing was a victory. Baldwin believes the Action PAC was able to sway a substantial number of votes in the gay and lesbian community, to the extent that Guber's staff later asked the group about its interests in the legislative session. The Action PAC wanted two things: an amendment to the hate-crimes act that would include sexual orientation; and opposition to any bill that would require mandatory reporting of a person's HIV status by name, address, social security number, or other identifier. Although Baldwin says other activist groups, particularly the Dolphin Democrats and the Florida Task Force, deserve most of the credit for passage of the hate-crimes amendment, the community's interests were served, and for her part, Guber responded positively.
This fall the Action PAC will devote its attention to Miami Beach, where a new mayor will be elected and all six commission seats are to be filled. Before election day, Baldwin hopes the group can double or triple its membership rolls and, through fund-raising events, gather $10,000 for operating expenses and an additional $10,000 to support candidates. By law a political action committee is allowed to contribute up to $1000 directly to a candidate (as of January 1, 1992 the maximum for contributions drops to $500), and to independently assist campaigns by means such as direct mailings and paid political advertisements. During the first week in September, the Action PAC expects to issue its endorsements.
"We're getting out our endorsement questionnaire," says Baldwin. "We're asking things like, `Will you support a domestic-partners registration act? Will you extend city employment benefits -- retirement and insurance -- to people who are registered under an act like that?'" If Miami Beach were to pass such legislation, unmarried couples -- who comprise an ever-growing percentage of the population -- could register their partnership the same way married couples do, and the "spouses" of city employees would be entitled to the same benefits married "spouses" get. Other questionnaire items ask candidates for their opinions about the formation of a community relations board, a civilian review board for the police, and an unpaid liaison position between the gay and lesbian community and the City of Miami Beach. This last, Baldwin admits, "might sound kind of silly -- until you realize that it will ultimately become a liaison between South Beach and the city."
The Beach is an obvious target for the Action PAC. Not only are all the commission seats up for grabs, but the area's gay and lesbian population, especially in South Beach, appears to be growing faster than anywhere else in the county. In fact OutWeek, a New York-based gay publication, tabbed South Beach as a "gay mecca" in a March cover story. (Greg Baldwin, it should be pointed out, owns a house in Coral Gables.)
"Is South Beach going to become a `gay mecca'? That's a terrible question, because it misses the whole point. What you're doing is freezing a neighborhood in transition in one moment in time and saying, `This is what it is always going to be, this is what it was aimed to be.' Every community is constantly in change. And what's happening on South Beach is overdue. It's what's happened in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, L.A., New York, Buffalo, Rochester, and a dozen other cities in this country. You get a piece of the city that gets run-down, beaten up. The schools get crummy, the crime rate goes up, and what they call `undesirables' are moving in. And then somebody suddenly realizes, `Hey, you know, these buildings are not all that bad. They could be fixed up. They could look nice. We could make money on this.'
"So somebody goes in and buys an apartment building for $100,000, fixes the thing up, raises the rents, and sells it for $200,000. The person who buys it does the same thing and sells it for $300,000. And the same thing happens with individual homes. Washington is the one I remember best, because I lived there while it was happening. I was gnashing my teeth because I didn't have the money to get into the market there. Not just Dupont Circle, but all over -- property that nobody else would touch.
"The thing is, why would nobody else touch it? There's a good reason. Because the `average' American -- married, a couple of kids -- they have to go where there are decent schools, where the kids can go out and play. Two men don't have to worry about the kids, the schools. And you're talking about double-income family units. The Wall Street Journal really pointed this out with great eloquence. The average gay-couple income in the U.S. (gay men, that is -- no matter how you slice it, women get screwed economically) is $55,000 a year. The average heterosexual-couple income is $35,000 a year. Think of the disposable income that a lot of gay couples have, ironically in relationships that the law won't recognize.
"They can go into a place like South Beach and sink money into a place, improve it, sell it, and move out. They don't have to worry about the average city services, because they don't need them as badly. So what you have is a constant progression. Gay people move in, or lesbian people move in, they improve the neighborhood. In the process of this, heterosexual couples move in with kids, and they start demanding better schools. And the better schools can be provided, because now it's a better neighborhood and the tax base is much stronger. The whole thing feeds on itself. What you ultimately end up with is not a `gay mecca,' which is bullshit, or a `straight mecca,' which is equally bullshit. What you wind up with is an economically and socially viable community of gay people and straight people -- married, single, whatever -- that works.
"I wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood that's totally gay. I don't now, and I won't move to one. I like diversity as much as everybody else. I enjoy my neighbors. I don't think people are rushing into Miami Beach because they think they'll live only with gay people. I think that number one, they're thinking it's economically sensible, and number two, it's a comfortable environment, a place where they can live without being harassed or hassled. This is the problem with the cops there. That's why people on the Beach won't take that any more, because they didn't come for that. They know they live in a community that is, in some areas, predominantly homosexual, and they're not going to be treated like the minority.
"And we can get that by voting. We've had at least one candidate from each one of the commission races and the mayoral race -- and in fact more than one in most of them -- contact us asking for our questionnaire, and looking for our endorsement, because they know the potential voting power of the lesbian and gay community."
What do you do when you've offered your support and a candidate doesn't want it? Or is afraid that it will do his or her campaign more harm than good? For a gay and lesbian political group, endorsing candidates is a double-edge proposition. This past fall, the Dade Action PAC endorsed Alex Penelas in his race against incumbent Metro Commissioner Jorge Valdes. The Action PAC endorsed other candidates, too, including commissioners Sherman Winn and Joe Gersten. But Penelas was young and unmarried, and word got out that the Valdes campaign planned to use the endorsement in radio spots emphasizing that Penelas was supported by homosexuals. When Action PAC members got in touch with Valdes, according to Baldwin, the commissioner said, "No, no, no, I won't do that, that's dirty pool." The day before the election -- which Penelas won -- the Valdes campaign distributed a flyer that reproduced the Action PAC's endorsement. It circled Penelas's name, circled the words identifying the PAC as "gay and lesbian individuals," and drew a line between the two. Says Baldwin: "It stinks, a real smear tactic."
Part Four
It's not difficult for Baldwin to envision an election in which gay rights becomes the main campaign issue "because the other candidate is a yahoo." When the Action PAC offered its support to Gary Gerrard, they did so on the condition that he had to accept it publicly. No hush-hush efforts to get out the gay vote; no resorting to the subtlety of palm cards on election day. Baldwin says Gerrard wanted to accept the endorsement, but his campaign had a great deal of trouble with it. "Saying to a politician, `Gee, I understand why you would not want us to publicly endorse you,' is saying to him, `Yeah, I realize that faggots can be a real problem to your election,'" Baldwin explains. "Well, that's exactly the opposite of what we want to convey. So it's a tough decision."
Baldwin himself is unequivocal about the subject. "Personally where do I come down on it? Balls to the walls. You want our endorsement, you take it publicly," he says. "I don't want to see us cut off our heads to spite a headache. To turn to a politician and say, `You can accept our endorsement secretly,' is stupid from our point of view. The balancing point is what we want to accomplish in an election as opposed to what we want to accomplish in the long run. How we're going to resolve this, I don't know. But we will."
The Dade Action PAC, Baldwin stresses, is very much focused on the long haul. He completes his term as the organization's chair in December, and says he has no intention of becoming the spokesperson for the gay and lesbian community or of chairing the group for a second term. "For some reason, the lesbian and gay community has always thought in terms of `a leader,'" he observes. "The heterosexual community doesn't have `a leader.' It has `leadership.' There's a hundred people in this county that you could call the `leaders.' Why should the lesbian and gay community have to have a leader? It doesn't make sense. Our problem is we always think of it in terms of one person."
Baldwin's successor, University of Miami associate professor of psychology Robin Buhrke, has already been elected by the board. The Action PAC's primary aim will remain the same: secure gay and lesbian rights -- eventually in the form of a county ordinance. More than likely, such legislation is many years away. For one thing, gays and lesbians must win over the Hispanic community. Although the Action PAC does have Hispanic members, Baldwin has stopped short of bringing the gay-rights issue to Latins. "I think it would be a mistake to try and sell this whole thing to the Hispanic community," he explains. "It's something the Hispanic community has to pick up by itself. It has to see a functioning political group within Dade County society. When Hispanics feel there is that kind of group they can deal with -- and maybe have to deal with -- then they will."
"I think we could pass a gay-rights bill in the county commission right now, it's as simple as that. Do I want [the commissioners] to pass it? No, because we can't win a referendum. We're not organized and we don't have the money. Will we be? Hell, yeah -- in five, six, seven years. What we're looking for is to set up an organization that is strong enough that ultimately we'll not only be able to pass an equal-rights bill, but we'll be able to sustain it in a countywide referendum. Whether it's on the Beach or in the county, we know we're going to hit a referendum.
If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.
You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) - please keep an eye on your mailbox, we're movin' in!
"What effect are we going to have? I don't know. Look at Miami Beach in November and I'll tell you. Let's say we carry the couple thousand votes that we believe we can in Miami Beach. We all know that a couple thousand votes will carry that election. Let's say that we elect the commission and the mayor. What's the next step? Run in and get a gay-rights vote [from commissioners]? You're nuts. The next step is to go to the politicians and get an anti-discrimination clause for hiring and firing among municipal employees. Get our friends to introduce us to our enemies. Whether it's city, whether it's county, Miami Beach, Miami, Coral Gables, anything, we're a minority by definition. We're never going to win an election or a gay-and-lesbian-rights referendum on our own. Broward County has proved that. Straight people hold the majority of the votes. We have to convince them. It's sort of stupid to go up to Susan Guber or Gary Gerrard or Xavier Suarez and say, `I want a gay-rights bill and I want it today and I want you to introduce it, and if you don't, goddamn it, you're a bigot.' That plus 25 cents might get you half a cup of coffee.
"What's going to happen eventually is that we're going to have a bunch of municipalities in the county that have passed an equal-rights ordinance. And when we get the standard arguments -- `Oh my God, you'll molest all our children! You'll take over our schools!' -- we'll be able to say, `Well, Miami Beach has had this ordinance for five years. None of this has happened in Miami Beach. South Miami has had this ordinance for four years. None of this has happened in South Miami. The crime rate didn't go up. The number of missing children didn't increase.' Bit by bit, until we get to the county. And then we'll hit the county, then we'll hit the state.
"There's probably 70 cities that have gay-rights ordinances -- human-rights ordinances. There's legislation in Palm Beach County that provides for protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Tampa has something. Gainesville is considering something, so is Monroe County. But nobody's ever done it down here. In Broward they spent ten years building bridges. The Democratic party endorsed them, the labor unions endorsed them, they had all the basic power structure endorsing them. They didn't win the referendum, but that's a monument for down here. I don't care whether we come in first or last, I just want Dade County to do it. And they will. When we go for it, we will go for it knowing that our enemies are either neutral or on our side. Or knowing that we can beat them. One of those three.


text:
Note: This item is more than 13 years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
Print – Plain Text – Permalink
News Release
Media Contact: TPWD News, email@example.com, 512-389-8030
Aug. 30, 2004
Reward Offered in Fort Griffin Burglary
ALBANY, Texas — Out West, where frontier-era scofflaws like Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid once flaunted the law in the late 1800s, some things never change.
Modern-day outlaws broke into the headquarters of Fort Griffin State Park and Historic Site over the weekend, making off with a number of 19th century firearms. The Old Fort Griffin Memorial Regiment, a park friends' group, is offering a $300 reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen antique guns.
Sunday morning, park employees discovered the break-in that occurred Saturday night, said Lester Galbreath, manager of the historic fort established by the U.S. military in 1867 during the Indian Wars. He said it was the first burglary there where artifacts were stolen that he could recall.
According to Galbreath, the thief or thieves made off with an 1873 Winchester rifle, a Spencer rifle, 1863 Sharp's carbine, 1860 Colt Army pistol, 1851 Navy Colt revolver and handmade double-barrel shotgun.
"The items weren't found at Fort Griffin, but they were really nice artifacts and they won't be here to benefit the public. That's the real tragedy," Galbreath said.
Galbreath would love to have the stolen weapons back in his possession to display during the upcoming Fort Griffin Frontier Times, a full-scale re-enactment event scheduled Sept. 17-19 designed to recreate Texas' last frontier circa 1880.
Anyone with information about the stolen property should contact the Shackelford Sheriff's Office at (325) 762-2000.
Fort Griffin is located on U.S. Highway 283, 15 miles north of Albany about an hour's drive northeast of Abilene and two hours west of Fort Worth. For park information, call (325) 762-3592.
Publication — Permission is granted to publish, in whole or in part, any news releases on this page.
Print — A print-friendly version of the news release shows only the release with font sizes set to the browser default.
Plain Text — Plain text versions of TPWD news releases are provided for copying and pasting into editing software.
To copy text into an editing software:
- Click a Plain Text link to display the plain text page in your browser.
- Select all.
- Copy.
- Paste in a document in your editing program.
Permalink — This is a direct link to the news release, omitting the navigation context from the URI.
English/Spanish — News releases posted in both English and Spanish have one of these links.
If you have any suggestions for improving these pages, send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com and mention Plain Text Pages.
(5.4.16 i)


text:
2010 Nano-Biophotonics Summer School at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Licensed according to this deed.
Published on
The 2010 summer school covers: Principles of Nano-Biophotonics Technology and methods of investigation Current research (e.g. biomolecular sensing, nanoprobes, nonlinear microscopy, nanoscopy, nanoplasmonics)
Sponsored by
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL


text:
This game was classified by the community with the following category scores - Violence=3/3, Sex=0/3, Mature Content=2/3. Vampire Slayer is a fast and furious multiplayer team game that pits the stealth and speed of Vampires against the weaponry of the Slayers. There are bots for singleplayer too.
Buy Xbox content on Xbox.com. Your Xbox 360 console will automatically download the content next time you turn it on and connect to Xbox Live.Learn More


text:
Vegetable Risotto Recipe
5 2 2
Short grain rice is preferred when making this classic Italian dish. Arborio rice is the most widely available short grain rice to use.
Recommended: 65 One-Dish Dinners That Make Cleanup a Breeze
VERIFIED BY Taste of Home Test Kitchen
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1/3 cup butter, cubed
- 1-1/2 cups uncooked arborio rice
- 1 cup white wine
- 4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 3 cups fresh broccoli florets
- 2 cups chopped yellow summer squash
- 2 cups frozen peas, thawed
- 1 package (10 ounces) frozen cooked winter squash, thawed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
- In a Dutch oven, saute onion and garlic in butter for 2-3 minutes or until tender. Add the rice; cook and stir for 1 minute or until rice is glossy and coated with butter. Stir in wine; cook for 2 minutes or until wine is absorbed.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until rice is tender. Let stand, uncovered, for 10 minutes before serving. Yield: 6 servings.
Originally published as Vegetable Risotto in Weeknight Cooking Made Easy Annual 2005, p204
Reviews forVegetable Risotto
My Review
Click stars to rate
Any changes to your rating or review will appear where you originally posted your review
Average Rating
Reviewed Nov. 6, 2014
"Ok, sorry I can't really say I made this recipe but I followed this recipe except I added 3 bags of Birds Eye steam fresh baby broccoli blend in place of the other vegetables. It turned out great but if you like your vegetables more crisp tender I might cook a little less time or add vegetables a little later. I loved the arborio rice and the wine for additional flavor."
Reviewed Jun. 18, 2011
"This risotto is absolutely amazing! We didn't have the winter squash, and I used water instead of wine. My husband, who's not fond of veggies, gobbled it up. We were disappointed we didn't make more!"


text:
Blueberry Crumble Oatmeal Stout Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Crumble topping:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, slightly melted
1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
Pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
1 bottle Pyramid Oatmeal Stout, at room temperature
1 stick butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream
Blueberry stout filling:
1/2 cup blueberry jam
1 tablespoon Pyramid Oatmeal Stout
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Cream cheese frosting:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 pound confectioner's sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. For the crumble topping, use your hands or two knives to incorporate the butter evenly into the other ingredients. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet; bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside.
3. For the cupcakes, sift dry ingredients together. Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat stout and butter until blended and frothy. Add eggs, one at a time. Slowly add vanilla and sour cream. Add dry mixture gradually.
4. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle emerges clean.
5. Whisk the blueberry filling ingredients together.
6. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Slowly add cream and vanilla. Beat in confectioner's sugar until smooth. Refrigerate.
7. When the cupcakes have cooled for 10 to 15 minutes, hollow out a small hole in the center of each; fill with a blueberry filling. Spread a little bit over the top of each cupcake, then sprinkle with crumble. Top with piped cream cheese frosting.
— Christina Walker, winner, Pyramid Alehouse cupcake contest


text:
Not Enough LightLanguage brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
Fill in the sentence below so that the first two words combine to make the third word. For example, given "The prime minister ____ the meeting, even though the ____ was technically the ____ official," you would fill in RAN, KING, and RANKING.
If there is not enough light to ____, ____ ____ the lamp.
AnswerIf there is not enough light to READ, JUST READJUST the lamp.
What Next?
See another brain teaser just like this one...
Or, just get a random brain teaser
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of
which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Back to Top


text: The Spinlock replacement Jaw Assembly set for ZS1824C Carbon jammer. For lines 18mm-24mm. The HC-Series Jaws are designed with a 'Keronite' ceramic finish which resists the polishing and wear of grip surfaces caused by the intense heat generated when a high loaded rope accelerates through the jammer during driven hoists. The coated surface is much more durable than the hardest anodising and allows for faster engagment onto highly loaded line and improved load holding performance with difficult 'exotic' line covers.


text:
Pelfrey confident as Twins break camp, head north
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Making his sixth Grapefruit League start, right-hander Mike Pelfrey allowed four runs on five hits and three walks over four frames in the Twins' 7-4 win over the Red Sox on Saturday afternoon at JetBlue Park.
Pelfrey went 1-0 and posted a 3.57 ERA over 17 2/3 innings this spring. He allowed seven earned runs, 16 hits, one home run, issued six walks and notched nine strikeouts.
"Overall, I've had a good spring," Pelfrey said. "Today, the ball was flat and the ball was up. I don't care if I'm facing Little Leaguers or the defending World Series champs, I'm going to get hit. And, obviously, they hit the ball very hard.''
Pelfrey, entering his second season with the Twins, went 5-13 with a 5.19 ERA last season. He is scheduled to make his next start April 4 in Cleveland, the Indians' home opener.
"Last year, our biggest struggle was starting pitching," Pelfrey said, "and I think it's going to be a night-and-day difference. If you are going to turn it around, pitching is the way to turn it around. One through five, we'll be able to keep us in games and give us a chance -- and that is all you can ask for."
In eight Major League seasons, seven with the Mets, Pelfrey is 55-67 with a 4.48 ERA.
Maureen Mullen is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.