text:
Cabernet Cult
Napa Valley's forgotten classics still make outstanding acquisitions
With the chill of a Northern California January in the air, the customers start lining up at five in the morning. Coffee and donuts are distributed. Friends get reacquainted. At nine o'clock, the heavy redwood doors of the winery swing open, the new vintage of Silver Oak's Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon goes on sale, and the line of 500 begins to move.
Twice a year, Cabernets from Silver Oak, one of California's best and most consistent wineries, are made available to the public; the Napa Valley designation in the winter, the Alexander Valley in the summer. Purchases are strictly limited to six bottles per person on the first day, not including the occasional large-format bottle, older release or other collector's item, and fewer bottles thereafter. Still, the wine sells out.
Once it's gone, anyone wanting to buy a bottle of Silver Oak must order it from a restaurant wine list, find it at secondary markets such as auctions or get on the lengthy waiting list for the biannual mailings. Occasionally, a few bottles will find their way to select retail outlets, but their scarcity is likely to make the cost exorbitant. "By any definition you use, Silver Oak is a cult wine," says marketing manager Peter Carisetti.
Yet in the context of the California marketplace these days, it isn't. And despite their cultish followings, neither are highly regarded Cabernets such as Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Dunn, Groth and Far Niente. These wines are allocated, but they're available to anyone who makes an effort to find them. They're expensive, sure, but the prices aren't prohibitive when compared to the best of Burgundy, Barolo and others.
And though they are made in small quantities relative to most California wines, not to mention the assembly-line numbers of Bordeaux, these releases are many times larger than those of the true cult labels. The annual production of Colgin, Bryant, Screaming Eagle and Harlan Estate combined, for example, doesn't equal a single vintage output of Silver Oak.
"It's one thing to release 250 [12-bottle] cases of wine and be sold out," says Silver Oak winemaker Daniel H. Baron. "We just released the 1996 Alexander Valley, which was 40,000 cases. Allocation at the winery is down to a bottle a person now, and we could have sold out every bottle in the first week if we'd wanted to."
Cabernet Sauvignons such as these are the forgotten classics of California¿forgotten in the sense that they fall between wine shop standards such as Beringer, Mondavi and Caymus and the rarified cult bottlings that few wine drinkers have ever seen, let alone tasted. Once the most exalted bottles California had to offer, the uncorking of a Cabernet from one of these classic Napa County wineries constituted a special occasion. You knew you'd be drinking a wine that balanced a seriousness of purpose with layered flavors of ripe California fruit. These were drinkable, collectible and age-worthy wines. And they still are.
But in today's wine world, that doesn't make them sexy. They're too familiar, at a time when unfamiliarity has become a virtue. Come across a Cabernet you've never heard of in a double-thick bottle? If it's more than $50 and only a few hundred cases were made, it must be terrific. Buy it now, before it gets too popular, and impress the crowd at dinner tonight. (And you'd better drink it tonight; most of these wines are built for speed, not longevity.)
Al Brounstein of Diamond Creek used to joke that he was going to allocate all his resources to produce only a single bottle a year of the best wine anybody had ever tasted, and he'd sell that bottle for $1 million. "But I might break it, so maybe I'd better make two," he'd add as a punch line, but the sentiment was real. The less you make of a wine, the better you can theoretically make it¿and the more you have to charge to recoup your investment. Of such mathematics are cult wines born.
"The recipe for success now is to make 100 cases of wine, charge $100 a bottle, get it into some key auctions, and have your friends buy it," says Randy Dunn, who has been making wine at his residence on Howell Mountain since 1979. "It's a slam-dunk. Because people have this unlimited money, and they're willing to pay."
That's good news for wine drinkers interested more in what's inside the bottle than in the buzz surrounding it. Let the silly money chase the cult wines; there's plenty of terrific California Cabernet to be consumed by everyone else. The profits born of a sustained economic boom in California and beyond are bound to go somewhere, so it might as well drive up the price of limited-edition commodities such as Araujo, Grace Family and Vineyard 29. Consider that if those wines didn't exist, the likes of Silver Oak would doubtless cost that much more.
The best of the cult bottlings have raised the standard of wine being produced in California today. They may ultimately be proven ineffective as investments, but they're made-to-order for today's fruit-loving American palate by talented enologists such as Helen Turley, Heidi Peterson Barrett, and the team of Tony Soter and Mia Klein.
And the cults raise the profile of California wine. The best of Domaine de la Romanee Conti's Burgundies sell for $500 and more upon release and Bordeaux's Petrus almost as much, so having a handful of California wines attracting that kind of money pulls up the U.S. wine industry to some sort of level¿if absurd¿economic plane. If they serve as a sort of expensive-wine starter kit for the newly affluent, that's not a bad role, either.
"These really luscious, flabby Cabernets, they're getting people to say, ¿Hey, this is a great bottle of California wine,'" says Dunn. "And maybe these wine drinkers will evolve into thinking there's something beyond that. That's what the rest of us keep hoping, anyway."
It's the sound of music in the Napa Valley these days: the beeps and rumbles of heavy machinery carving yet another building out of the rich soil. In this case, the structure is a new hillside wine cave for Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. And cult wines helped pay for it.
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars¿not to be confused with Stags' Leap Winery, a Beringer-owned estate dating to 1893, currently known for its Petite Sirah¿has for years released three redoubtable Cabernets: one from the Fay vineyard, one from the Stag's Leap vineyard and a reserve-level Cask 23 consisting of select lots of the two. Depending on the vintage, the wines range from quite drinkable to extraordinary.
With consumers paying into four figures for single bottles of California cult wine at auction, the idea of spending $25 for a Stag's Leap Fay -- or a Groth, a Far Niente or any of these wines -- began to seem ridiculous. As a result, many prices have doubled in recent years.
"You now have collectors who collect California wine as much as the traditional wines from France," says Stag's Leap owner Warren Winiarski. "That interest, coupled with the strong economy, makes the entire wine market favorable." He gestures to the construction around him and says, "We could not have done this without it."
A philosopher-poet of California wine who formerly lectured in the classics at the University of Chicago, Winiarski has been around long enough to understand the vicissitudes of the marketplace. Stag's Leap was one of the original California cult wines, earning that status when a bottle from its second vintage beat a range of classified growth Bordeaux at the Paris Tasting held in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.
Like the current generation of cults, the '73 Stag's Leap that wine merchant Steven Spurrier entered into the blind tasting altered the wine world's perception of California. "The Paris Tasting wine was a deliberate effort at moderation," he says. "It was my goal to get a more balanced statement from the wine than California had been getting. And it worked."
Throughout the 1970s, California's Cabernets had been tannic monsters, produced as a reaction to earlier criticism that the New World could provide nothing more than immediate gratification. There seemed to be a certain status in making wines that weren't drinkable upon release, just like Bordeaux. Whether the wines ever came around to give pleasure seemed almost immaterial.
The emergence of drinkable but age-worthy wines like Stag's Leap and Silver Oak ushered in a new era. "What I try to do is have the palate actually perceive the relationship between the tannin and the fruit, the balance between hard and soft elements," Winiarski says. "In that sense, a little bit of work is required from the taster." He expresses it as the difference between a rectangle, in which unequal sides are perceived as harmonious, and a square, in which there can be no balanced relationship, and therefore no real beauty, because all sides are equal.
The analogy may be esoteric, but Stag's Leap brings it to life with Cabernets of unmistakable California lineage that even the staunchest Bordeaux advocate can appreciate. Shouldn't such successful wines sell for what the market will bear? The question has swept through Napa Valley and beyond, as the Fay and Stag's Leap vineyard releases have crept up to $50, and the Cask 23, of which about 2,000 cases are annually made, to $100.
Up Howell Mountain and past the town of Angwin, which feels like a piece of Middle America plunked down in the midst of the country's finest grape-growing land, the unpretentious Randy Dunn finds to his chagrin that he's selling his wines at nearly $50 on release, which means they might nudge $100 on a restaurant wine list. But the $10 increase from previous years has so far made only a handful of customers cut back on their annual allotment of his purple-black bottlings.
"There are something like 50 California wines out there for over 100 bucks, and certainly there are 100 wines for 50 bucks," he says. "So you get to thinking, maybe I should creep mine up a little bit and raise the money to buy the next piece of land."
As a response to the cult wines, Dunn is releasing mixed cases of his older wines. For years, he has been holding back close to 100 cases of his annual production, a significant number for a winery that only produces 4,000. Now, two bottles each of the 1987, 1988 and 1989 Howell and Napa releases -- each under $30 on release -- will cost $1,800 in a gift 12-pack. That's $150 a bottle, or about what Colgin fetches off its mailing list.
What a consumer gets for that money is well-aged, evolved Cabernet Sauvignon. If it doesn't have the fruit-filled flash of some of the cult wines, that's just as well to Dunn. "Some of those hard-to-get wines I've tasted, I say to myself, 'My God, how do they get the reviews they get?' They're flabby wines, and I don't think they're going to show very well in a few years."
Sitting in his backyard at a picnic table, with wind chimes making their sweet melody and three dogs asleep beside him, Dunn watches a gray heron alight on a tree limb. He seems eminently attuned to the sweep of time: earth time, and wine time, too. He pours a glass of his 1997 Howell Mountain Cabernet, which won't be released until later this year, a full vintage cycle after most California wineries. His wines spend two and a half years in oak barrels, yet they're anything but over-oaked.
The '97 is big and rich, rough on the mouth because of the young tannins. Despite the huge fruitiness of the 1997 vintage throughout Napa that made many wines instantly accessible, this is a wine that's still wearing pajamas, a wine that hasn't yet dressed for the party. "No different from any of my wines at that stage," Dunn says with a shrug. It requires a decade of cellaring, and that fact alone won't appeal to the seeker of instant gratification. But then, with such a limited amount of wine, Dunn doesn't have to appeal to everyone.
"In the long run, things will sort out," he says, swirling his glass as the wind chimes sing. "When the cult wines are 20 years old, if they're still around, I think the differences in what we're doing and they're doing will have long become evident."
Sitting in the living room of her new Napa Valley home, Judy Groth leans forward. "The wine business," she says, "has been harder on us than we thought it would be."
In the early 1980s, her husband, Dennis, was working as the chief financial officer at Atari, the electronic games company, and fell into a sum of money. Judy hoped it would buy them a beach house somewhere. "But Dennis said we needed a tax shelter," she says. "He had some ideas¿barges on the Mississippi, greenhouses in Mexico¿but I wanted something we could at least use as a getaway."
They compromised on one of the more picturesque patches of the Napa Valley floor, grape-growing land across from Silver Oak. When the sinking ship that was Atari cut Dennis loose in the mid-1980s, he was 42. He had some money saved, and he put it all into the Napa property to make a winery happen.
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text:
According to one site (and of course picked up by many others), John Travolta leaked the name of his son-to-be —Benjamin— several weeks before his birth, prompting us to pose this Question of the Week:
What do you consider to be the optimum moment to make your baby name announcement—and why?
Would you be certain enough of your decision, and impervious enough to namenapping and negative opinions, to pronounce it to the world at any time during your pregnancy (or even before)?
Would you, like the Travoltas, wait until the birth was imminent?
Or would you have a strict no-tell policy and not make the news of your baby name decision public until after the arrival and you're absolutely sure that the name fits the babe?
Post Categories:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Many dairy farms are scrambling to find adequate forage supplies this year.
Corn silage that is available may be short on starch, increasing reliance on corn grain to meet dietary starch needs. This year, corn grain has been limited by drought stress.
"Unfortunately, stress on the corn plant can also lead to growth of molds that can produce mycotoxins," says Mike Schutz, Purdue University extension dairy specialist. In a recent episode of the Purdue Dairy Digest podcast series, Schutz discusses the risk of aflatoxins from corn.
Listen to the audio by clicking on episode #127 "Coping with Aflatoxins" here.


text:
The Keighley branch of an armed forces charity has moved home to cope with heavy demand for its services.
The Keighley & Aire Valley division of SSAFA Forces Help (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) was set up in March last year.
Until two months ago the group occupied a small room in the Temple Row Centre, but it is now based in a larger office at 182 Skipton Road. The charity shares the building with Aire Valley Counselling & Therapy.
Phil Kendall, divisional secretary of Keighley & Aire Valley SSAFA, said: "We needed to move because the amount of people we were getting through the doors was too much for our small office. We didn't have privacy for our clients.
"We work mainly on a house visiting basis. But we were encouraging clients to treat our office at Temple Row as a drop-in, because many people are more comfortable speaking face-to-face rather that with someone at the end of a telephone.
"Last year from March to Christmas we dealt with 90 cases, some of which also involved the clients' families. There are now six of us, but at that time there were initially only two of us serving as caseworkers before another two joined later in the year.
"The issues we deal with can be anything from someone needing their tumble dryer replaced to helping to provide mobility scooters or stairlifts. We help people who are in debt, or people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"We're here for anyone who has served in the forces, including people who have done National Service or been in the reserves. The oldest person we're helping now is 93 and the youngest is 22.
"We provide assistance to all cultures and nationalities, as long as they've served in the British Forces."
Mr Kendall, who lives in Oakworth, served in the Royal Signals Corps for ten years.
He said he would welcome additional volunteers prepared to give up a few hours of their time each week.
Bob Holt, the charity's acting county secretary for West Yorkshire, said the national organisation had been running an advertising campaign to attract more volunteers.
He said the group needed a steady influx of newcomers.
People willing to help locally can contact Keighley & Aire Valley SSAFA Forces Help on (01535) 669354, 07960 512707 or ssafa email@example.com.


text:
Ok,first off I would like to say that I think the chinese aren't doing that much wrong. Why? Because the Tibets are trying to throw off the Olympics, which is an international sports event that shouldn't be affected by politics. I mean, why can't the chinese just be able to host the Olympics without terrorists interfering? They haven't done anything to them...Ok so I know the tibets want to be independent from china. Sure but why can't they negotiate with the chinese instead of using violence? It's like terrorists rampaging across the U.S. and we're not allowed to stop them from killing innocent people, cause it's wrong. You know how many people died in China because of this trivial matter? And why the heck is America supporting the Tibets?
One reason I believe is that China is fastly becoming the most high tech country, even surpassing the United
States. Feeling threatened that one day they might become their enemy, the U.S stamps China as a violent
/brutal country. This video was awful alright, but nothing compared to the bombing in a restaurant that killed seven women. Also many videos related to this matter had important scenes cut out. One was when some terrorists tried to plant a bomb in a supermarket, and when the police arrived to the scene, the Tibets violently hit them with wooden sticks. But they didn't show that part of course and only revealed the police taking them to the station. This is really unfair, America can hate China all it wants, but it should not have anything to do with the Olympics, a national sports event that everybody is meant to enjoy
Im under your bed~
man. People are so messed up.
He showed me what it was to cry
IcyKen, speaking of which, the Natives in British Columbia are thinking of disrupting the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
And you don't negotiate with the Chinese government - you either bribe them, and when that doesn't work, take them out, which is of course impossible, but hey, at least they're trying. China is already more capitalist than the US, and remains only communist by name. The government has already turned on its founding principles.
Modern Olympics has always been about politics, remember the Moscow and Los Angeles games? And what about the Berlin games right before WWII?
Frankly, I don't feel comfortable having a country with no values becoming the most powerful. They are not only godless, as the Americans claim, they also have a lack of Humanistarism, which any country should have, regardless of race, religion, gender, etc. At least the Americans claim to have them.
Kenshin1986 wrote:
Documentary footage from earlier this year, of a camera crew with a climbing group watching and filming as Chinese soldiers snipe and kill Tibetans trying to cross the border to India to see the Dalai Lama.
Not terribly graphic, just disturbing.
mostly cuz dali lama is a traitor, if it were me, i would kill whoever is on the traitor's side.
hello. i am a human.
arano wrote:
lol,you two are some stupid fucks,congratulation to that!
FatedEmperor wrote:
HAHAHAH shoot the Tibetans!!!! The loser has to succumb to the winner...just like in ever other war. China isn't the only country that treats the losing side cruelly, all of you should stop being so pansy about it. No different from Catholics and Christians burning heretics and killing Muslims or the Nanking Massacre by Japan. Or also all those Indians that Europeans and Americans killed.
arano wrote:
lol,you two are some stupid fucks,congratulation to that!
your the fuck and all those other critcizers....this is the way the world runs, kill urself if you can't live with it. people get killed everyday, stop crying over a few tibetans. stop being so f-ing ignorant about the world dude and grow up.
rofl,i need to grow up!you are funny!
are you in china now,wait you cant be,because that fucked up country wouldnt
let you post here!
if you think china is so great then go there!and get all your human rights ripped apart!
and no,that is not the way the world runs,its what fucked up countries like china make the world.
and your"shoot the tibetans!"statement is so stupid,i cant even explain how
immature and narrow minded it is.that would mean the killing of the jews in ww2
was right as well,right?kid you dont know what you are talking about.
learn some history!
Claim down, captain justice. As far as i know some tibetans began the riot first. They killed and hurt 10+ others (Han). To some extent, I do hope that it was just simple as shooting and killing, but the truth is you can't just trust your media,neither can us.
Kenshin1986 wrote:
FatedEmperor wrote:
heretics and killing Muslims or the Nanking Massacre by Japan. Or also all those .
dude i dont want to go into that, we japanese have our side of the story its just u guys see all the bullshit propaganda and believe everything the media throws at u.
Heard it and it's your term not to "believe everything the media throws at u". Maybe the batter way is:Stop talking about "how many",you know? Just say sorry first or never. You see what the German does after ww2? Show your integrity as Japanese
i have a room mate is tibetan, they don not want independence, they want a peaceful life, they all have a good life now, who wants independence is dalai. when you talk about tibet, you should know the history ,and the whole thing about dalai. anyone who support dalai, i think you donnot know tibet very well.
Is it a fictional TV series ?
Welcome to view my blog-- blog.ezparity.com
Long ago, Tibet conceded rule of Tibet to China, the ruler even gifted his daughter to sweeten the deal. Tibetans eventually got tired of the Chinese and kicked them out.
China still has the original documents regarding this. The problem is, China has reformed so many times, you can hardly call it the same country it was then.
Technically the Taiwan government has a right to rule China, more so than China has a right to rule Tibet.
But it's true that most Tibetans don't care about the Chinese occupation. The Dailai Lama, who isn't so innocent and sweet as you may think, and his people are recruiting suicide bombers as part of their gorilla movement. That's why when you drive down the streets of Lhasa, you see the soldier boxes on every strategic street corner.
The downside of the occupation is technological growth leading to rapid cultural deterioration, but what culture doesn't that happen to in our modern world?
The majority of Tibetans stay away from the cities, not because they've been ousted, but because they're still mostly nomadic. Most villages consist of less than 50 people and are located in remote areas.
Here's a picture of one located near a hot spring:
You can only see half of the village with the picture, but it being near a hot spring, boasted at least 100 residents.


text:
Simon Pegg voices the battered bounty hunter...
To insure your action figure collection, get in touch with Collectibles Insurance, the official insurance company of the Figures.com network. Say "Figures.com" to get 5% off your first term premiums.
To buy action figures, take a look at BigBadToyStore.com, RedfordFilms.com, PastGenerationToys.com, BriansToys.com, ToyWiz.com, SmallJoes.com, MonkeyDepot.com, and Urban-Collector.com.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars draws closer to its fourth season finale, and return of Darth Maul.
This week, in "Bounty," an aimless Asajj Ventress joins a team of bounty hunters under the leadership of young Boba Fett. On an alien world, they undertake a dangerous but profitable mission that tests the limits of their skills, and the strength of Asajj's character.
Dengar - one of the bounty hunters seen in the company of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back - is coming to The Clone Wars, and actor Simon Pegg (Star Trek and Shaun of the Dead) is playing him in this week's episode.
"Bounty," airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, March 2nd on Cartoon Network.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwduvnTkMRw&feature=youtube"]Star Wars[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCV0_qRcbvE&feature=youtube"]Star Wars[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRuJ3rV_80s&feature=youtube"]Star Wars[/ame]
Source: Lucasfilm


text:
With help some time ago, an AS3 animation (for an eLearning lesson) was ported to JS. Because of the scaling, it displays in browsers as blurry. I think the problem is that the canvas drawing is using 1X1 rectangles, when they should be 8X8. Also, there are mis-matches between canvas size in the JS, CSS, index files. Canvas should be 640X640.
I have tried to fix this but with no success and would appreciate any help getting it sized correctly and displaying clearly.
There are 3 small files (index.html, style.css and src.js) and the link is: http://elearningprojects.com/websample1/index.html
Thank you for any help.
Kind Regards,writer1
There's a new CSS property called image-rendering that might solve the problem for you.
image-rendering: optimize-contrast;
It's designed to help fix such pixel-rendering issues.
So far, the most compatible use that I've seen of it is with this:
canvas {
image-rendering: optimizeSpeed; // Older versions of FF
image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; // FF 6.0+
image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast; // Webkit
// (Safari now, Chrome soon)
image-rendering: -o-crisp-edges; // OS X & Windows Opera (12.02+)
image-rendering: optimize-contrast; // Possible future browsers.
-ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor; // IE
Hi Paul,
Thank you for your reply. I had found this information earlier and tried it without success.
I suspect that the problem is that the script is using scaling which causes blurring. (I am a beginner and don't fully understand the script. A few years ago, someone had helped with the script-no longer available to help). I think that it is trying to build the animation with 1X1 rectangles and then scale them up (8X) to the canvas size. Instead, I think that it would solve the scaling/blurring problem if it started with 8X8 rectangles. But, I don't know how to re-write this to accomplish the change. Also, the canvas size is different in 2 files (style.css and index.html) : 640X640 (correct size) in one and 80X80 in the other. Simply changing these has also not been successful in solving the problem. So, I'm stuck, need some additional help to get it working without blurring.
Any help re-writing to avoid scaling, match up canvas sizes, would be appreciated.
Kind Regards,
No - the problem in this case is that CSS is being used to stretch the canvas, so the web browser automatically interpolates the image which blurs it.Do not use CSS to make the canvas bigger. Using CSS to make the width and height bigger is directly causing your problem.
So far as a solution goes, the canvas has a scale command.Here are a couple of examples that demonstrate how the pixel art can be scaled up without smoothing by applying a custom scale command to the canvas:
Thank you for this explanation which narrows down the problem.
I took a look at these examples. But, I'm not sure how to fix the CSS. Currently, it is:
canvas{ border:1px solid black; height:640px; width:640px;}
This seems to be specifying the width and height? So, I'm not sure what to change? (:
Remove the bloody width and height parts from the CSS. They are badly scaling up the canvas, which is causing your unwanted blurry look.Instead of using CSS, use a larger canvas in the HTML, and from the JavaScript scale up the context that JavaScript uses on the canvas.
I'm going to bed - good luck
Thanks, Paul.
Apologies for my not understanding fully. I will try to get it right.
I looked at a few possible solutions, and found that even when using a correct technique, that it leaves out browsers such as Internet Explorer:
ctx.webkitImageSmoothingEnabled = false;
ctx.mozImageSmoothingEnabled = false;
ctx.scale(8, 8);
See demo at http://jsfiddle.net/saviski/pGs4f/12/
So instead of doing that type of thing, it's time to do it the old-fashioned way. I've put together a drawAtScale function instead, which also requires that a buffered work space is used, so that it can then be scaled to whatever size the target canvas is.
function init() {
buffer = document.createElement('canvas');
buffer.width = 80;
buffer.height = 80;
bufferCtx = buffer.getContext("2d");
canvas = document.querySelector("canvas");
displayCtx = canvas.getContext("2d");
function drawAtScale() {
var width = buffer.width,
height = buffer.height,
xScale = canvas.width / width,
yScale = canvas.height / height,
pixelDataSize = width * height;
for (i = 0; i < pixelDataSize; i += 1) {
displayCtx.fillStyle = "rgb(" + px.data[i * 4] + ", " + px.data[i * 4 + 1] + ", " + px.data[i * 4 + 2] + ")";
displayCtx.fillRect((i % width) * xScale, (i / height | 0) * yScale, xScale, yScale);
I've also reworked some of it to be clearer, and to allow you to easily change the buffer width and height from 80x80 to any other dimension you might wish to experiment with, or the canvas width and height in the HTML to anything you may desire.
You can see it working in action at http://jsfiddle.net/pmw57/as4UR/
Spent the day at it, but not with such an excellent result as you provided above. Impressive!
I tested in FF and IE, and it works in both on the desktop.
When I uploaded it and tried it using Chrome on an Android device, got a blank screen. (Ugh)
Also because it is constantly refreshing, when viewed in FF on an Android device, it stays at full screen even if pinched (it will get smaller while pinched and held, but once you stop pinching/touching the screen, it resumes its full screen display). So, I'll keep trying to dissect the script, see if I can apply any fixes for these, especially the full screen issue.
Again, thank you very much for your help. Brilliant!
I've been researching online about cancelling full screen mode and found some script:
function cancelFullscreen() {
if(document.cancelFullScreen) {
} else if(document.mozCancelFullScreen) {
} else if(document.webkitCancelFullScreen) {
Tried adding this to the JS, but so far when I view on a mobile FF browser, will not cancel full screen even with this script. I think the constant refreshing keeps causing the window to go to full screen?
I'll keep trying to find a solution.
OK, adding the following to the HTML seems to solve the full screen problem:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0">
Now, I need to figure out how to center the canvas in the middle of the screen on any device? It is currently displaying at 0,0.
Any help appreciated.
border:1px solid black;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
margin-left: -320px;
margin-top: -320px;


text:
Statistical Abstract of North Carolina Taxes
The Statistical Abstract of North Carolina Taxes provides statistics concerning taxes imposed under the Revenue Laws of North Carolina. It is designed to give legislators, tax professionals, researchers, and other interested citizens of North Carolina information about the amount of taxes collected, classifications of taxpayers, and the geographic distribution of taxes. The Statistical Abstract includes both historical series of data and detailed reports for the most recent fiscal or tax year available. It was prepared by the Department of Revenue's Revenue Research Division, based primarily on data recorded from individual and business tax forms in the Department's data systems.
Table of Contents
Part I. Taxes And North Carolina Gross Domestic Product
Part II . Summary Of State General Fund Revenue Collections
Part III. State Tax Collections
Part IV . Local Government Sales And Use Tax Revenues
Part V. Other Local Government Taxes And Revenues
Complete Statistical Abstract in PDF Format
- File and Pay Taxes
- Find Tax FAQs
- Find Tax Information
- Pay a Bill or Notice
- Request an Installment Agreement
- Understand My Notice
- Collections – Past Due Taxes
- Periodic Review of Existing Rules
- Reports and Statistics
- Resolving Disputes
- Identity Theft
- Individual Income Tax Estimator
- Individual Income Tax Rates
- Sales and Use Taxes for Real Property Transactions and Services
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- BSO Case Number: 16-1310-001921
- PIO Number: 13-11-1
- Date: October 26, 2013
- Time: 12:50 p.m.
- Place of Occurrence: McDonald's, 5986 S. Flamingo Rd., Cooper City
- Jurisdiction: Cooper City
- Justin Martin, male, 10, Davie
- Kay Martin, male, 42, Davie
- unidentified
Description of Incident:
A mother and son lunch outing turned sour when a thieving family stole a 10-year-old boy's iPad at a fast food restaurant in Cooper City. BSO is looking for the criminals.
Kay Martin, 42, and her son Justin, 10, were eating lunch at a McDonald's restaurant on October 26, when they became the victims of a group of thieves. Justin laid his iPad on the windowsill by his table. Surveillance video shows an unidentified male as he spotted the device, sat down next to it, picked it up and headed back to his table. He and a woman at his table speak intently for a minute before the group decides to leave with the iPad in hand. The man, two women, one of which appeared to be pregnant, and two children left in a silver SUV, possibly a Dodge Journey SXT Mendota.
Anyone with information can call Det. Glenn Gainey at (954) 435-2200 or report anonymous tips to Crime Stoppers of Broward County at (954) 493-TIPS (8477) or online at www.browardcrimestoppers.org. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $3,000 for information that leads to an arrest.
***MEDIA NOTE: A clear video is available for download at www.sheriff.org.
- INVESTIGATORS: BSO Det. Glenn Gainey, D16/CID
- THIS REPORT BY: Gina Carter/PIO 11/1/13 1100
Posted At: 11/01/2013 10:00 AM
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For the second straight year, the pro-am division ended in tie Sunday with the team Michael Letzig and John Erickson sharing AT&T Pebble National Pro-Am tournament honors with pro winner Brandt Snedeker and Toby S. Wilt at 31 under 255.
Both teams posted for final-round 65s at Pebble Beach Golf Links, with Snedeker's win marking the ninth time the tournament's pro winner also was part of the pro-am title.
The pro winner/pro-am winner double first occurred in 1959 when Art Wall, Jr. won the pro title and teamed with Charlie Coe in the pro-am. The last time the tourney's pro winner also claimed a share of the pro-am win was in 2011 when D.A. Points was victorious as a pro and won again with amateur Bill Murray.
Jordan Spieth and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who held a one-stroke lead at 25-under 189 after carding a third round, 10-under 62 at Pebble Beach, finished in a six-way tie for third place at 257.
Letzig and Erickson, who began the final round trailing by one shot, posted a 58 in the third round, the tournament's low team tally.
Nice break for Harbaugh
Soaking in the cheers and encouragement of fans all week, Harbaugh left Pebble Beach Golf Links with a big smile on his face after he and pro partner Jason Day finished tied for 13th at 26 under par, five strokes behind two teams that shared the pro-am title.
"Yeah, we were definitely in position to win and didn't get anything going," said Harbaugh, who hadn't picked up a golf club since last year's AT&T. "I didn't know if I was going to top the ball or hit like two inches behind the ball, or somewhere in between."
Harbaugh and Day were actually the pro-am leaders at the midway point but lagged a bit Saturday and couldn't make up ground Sunday. It didn't really matter. Four days of listening to encouragement from the galleries definitely left the coach in a better mood just seven days after his team's agonizing defeat to the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans.
"Just the support out here from 49er fans, probably first and foremost, was the best part of the experience," Harbaugh said. "It was a real treat to play Pebble Beach and to be in this tournament is a great honor. Everything is just A-plus-plus."
His best memory of the week?
"I had dinner (Saturday) night and sat across from Clint Eastwood," he said. "My wife and I had a really nice conversation with him and Phil Mickelson was also sitting at our table. That was pretty darn cool. Then the night before last, my wife danced with Bill Murray."
Now it's back to the football grind for Harbaugh.
"We're thinking about the combine in less than two weeks in Indianapolis," he said. "We have 13 or 14 draft picks, and (general manager) Trent Baalke and all the scouts worked all week and through the weekend, so we'll join them Monday and get going on this draft."
No record for Lefty
Phil Mickelson was the tournament's prohibitive favorite, but his quest to match Mark O'Meara with five individual wins was rarely mentioned after the first round.
Mickelson has always been a great fourth-round player. So recovering from a huge deficit, like last year's six-stroke rally, was always a possibility — until he drove found the oceanside rocks, fell on his back while looking for his ball and tripled bogeyed the 18th hole to conclude the third round.
Mickelson didn't fare much better Sunday, hitting two more balls on 18 and winding up with a double-bogey 7. He finished with a 72 and tying for 60th with Rod Pampling at 1-under 285.
Welcome back, Iceman
Retief Goosen, the two-time U.S. Open winner, finished tied for ninth in his first PGA Tour start of the season after his recovery from back surgery last fall.
With his top-10 finish, Goosen earned $175,000 to earn Major Medical Extension status for the remainder of the 2013 season. Goosen needed $76,336 to extend his current status. It was Goosen's first top-10 since a tie for third place at last year's FedEx St. Jude Classic.
Third round's a charm
Brandt Snedeker was the fourth player in five tournaments this season who has won after leading or co-leading following the third round.
Russell Henley (Sony Open), Tiger Woods (Farmers Insurance Open) and Phil Mickelson (Waste Management Phoenix Open) were also victorious this season after third-round leads.
Bryce Molder, meanwhile, waited until the fourth round to play some of his best golf. He was out of contention after beginning the final round trailing the co-leaders by 10 shots. But Molder likely had the best round of the tournament with his early-in-the-day 64 on Sunday.
Molder had eight birdies and no bogeys and equaled Russell Knox and Chris Kirk for the low score of the tournament. Molder moved up 31 positions on the leader board and finished tied for 12th.
There were 21 rounds bogey-free posted during the tournament. Brian Stuard was the only player with two bogey-free rounds.
The Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.


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Ryan Malone's modeling career comes to an abrupt end
June 03 2008 11:18AM
For those of you who missed it, Malone has broken his nose TWICE in the Stanley Cup Finals. After taking this point shot to the grill and rebreaking his beak, he comes back minutes later. Let's see any other sport in the universe that has players that do that.
What a hero but what a mess.
He was true grit later on when he went down to block a shot with one mitt covering his re-arranged face.
My nose hurt just watching it. He will do an excellent Bryan Marchment impersonation from now on I bet.
He blocked a shot in front of the wrong net. I smell collusion, sure Malone is a pending free agent but he isn't suppose to be playing for another team until AFTER July 1.
As for tough atheletes, I once saw a twelve year old's tongue snap off during the national spelling bee finals while trying spell;
only to return a 10 minutes later and win the whole damn thing by correctly spelling;
Rumour has it Mr Miyagi fixed the kid up in a back room with that hand rub dealie thing he does.


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Earnings season wrap-up: 21 February
Page 1 of 8
Nicholas Grove is a Morningstar journalist and Christine St Anne is Morningstar's online editor.
Companies covered in this report:
• AMP Limited (AMP)
• Origin Energy (ORG)
• Brambles Limited (BXB)
• Insurance Australia Group (IAG)
• ASX Limited (ASX)
• Goodman Group (GMG)
• CFS Retail Property Trust Group (CFX)
• Iluka Resources (ILU)
• Qantas (QAN)
AMP reports profit lift of 3pc
AMP Limited (AMP) has recorded a 3.1 per cent rise in underlying profit to $955 million for the year to December 2012, just below Morningstar's forecast.
The financial services company declared a final dividend of 12.5 cents a share, flat on the previous corresponding period. The payment is 65 per cent franked, with the unfranked amount being declared conduit foreign income, the company said.
This took full-year dividends to 25 cents a share, franked at 60 per cent and down 13.8 per cent on the previous corresponding period.
Morningstar head of financial services Asia Pacific, David Ellis, said the flat dividends were due to market conditions, growth in capital-intensive businesses, and regulatory changes.
The dividend results in a payout ratio of 76 per cent of underlying profit for the full year and is within the target payout range of 70 to 80 per cent of underlying profit, AMP said.
Operating earnings in the wealth protection business fell 11.6 per cent to $190 million due to poor claims and lapse experience.


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Memorial: Celia Montoya Romero
December 2, 2012
Celia Montoya Romero went to be with the Lord on Wednesday.
She is preceded in death by her husband, Joe E. Montoya, and sons Johnny and Joseph Vincent Romero. She is survived by her children, Charlie Romero, Manuel Montoya, Laura Arellano, Henry Montoya, Myra Gonzales and Tomasita Cohrs; 23 grandchildren; 37 great-grandchildren; and 32 great-great-grandchildren.
Her funeral will be today at 10 a.m. at Grace Fellowship Church, 9210 W. Second Ave., in Lakewood. She will be laid to rest in Minturn River View Cemetery on Tuesday at 1 p.m.


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The biggest Bay Area earthquake in a quarter-century rattled across the Bay Area and Northern California early Sunday morning, with a 6.0 rattler waking up nervous locals, knocking out power to tens of thousands of buildings and sending items off shelves in homes and stores.
The slow rumble was reported at 3:20 a.m. and was centered close to Buchli Station Road, near American Canyon in Napa County, and was about 6.7 miles deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
An estimated 2.3 million people spanning 100 miles from the Santa Cruz area to Wine Country were affected by the quake -- with several thousand people quickly reporting that they had felt the rumble, the USGS reported.
People across Woodland, Davis and other areas of Yolo County also felt the quake. Numerous reports were received at The Daily Democrat of pools sloshing over their banks. There were also reports of building alarms going off. However, no major damage was registered within the county. More than 20 aftershocks were reported, topping out at about magnitude 2.5.
The quake is the strongest to hit the Bay Area since the 1989 Lomia Prieta quake, which was a magnitude of 6.9. That Oct. 17, 1989 quake occurred at 5:04 p.m. The shock was centered in a sparsely populated area about 10 miles northeast of Santa Cruz on section of the San Andreas Fault System.
The shock halted the World Series being played in San Francisco and caused fires and other damage in the Bay Area. It was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries in the affected areas. Damage was heavy in Santa Cruz County and less so to the south in Monterey County.
The largest on record was the historic 7.8 earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906.
The extent of the damage wasn't immediately clear. Two major injuries have been reported, and hospitals have been very busy with moderate injuries, Napa Division Fire Chief John Callanan said.
"There's collapses, fires," said Napa Fire Capt. Doug Bridewell, standing in front of large pieces of masonry that broke loose from a turn of the century office building where a fire had just been extinguished. "That's the worst shaking I've ever been in."
Bridewell, who said he had to climb over fallen furniture in his own home to check on his family before reporting to duty, said he was starting to see more reports of injuries.
The shaking emptied cabinets in homes and store shelves, set off car alarms and had residents of neighboring Sonoma County running out of their houses. Officials say widespread power outages have been reported in the area.
"It was a rolling quake, said Oakland resident Rich Lieberman. "It started very much like a rolling sensation and just got progressively worse in terms of length. Not so much in terms of shaking, but it did shake. It felt like a side-to-side kind of rolling sensation. Nothing violent but extremely lengthy and extremely active."
A member of Napa County dispatch tells the AP that there has been one report of structural damage, but additional details weren't immediately available.
Numerous emergency vehicles were on the roads in Napa and Sonoma counties.
California Highway Patrol Officer Daniel Hill told KTVU-TV that road damage appears confined to the Napa and Sonoma areas. He said there appears to be no damage to major bridges in the Bay Area.
"They are in pretty good shape," he said, noting that a couple of the roadways in the Napa-Sonoma area have some bumps and cracks. In Napa, a water main break left at least one street flooded, and power outages left streetlights dark.
Some street lights in Napa were knocked out, and there were scattered reports of fires, the California Highway Patrol said. People posted pictures on social media of a Walmart and a grocery store with bottles knocked over and shattered. Some residents posted pictures of their kitchens in disarray. One man posted a picture of his chimney knocked over. In Vallejo, the CHP closed some roadways because of damage. There were fears of gas leaks.
PG&E's online outage map showed more than 30,000 customers without power in Napa shortly before 5 a.m. Another 15,000 customers lost service in Sonoma, with more than 10,000 still in the dark in Santa Rosa. Outages of between 1,000 and and 5,000 were reported in St. Helena, Vallejo and Pinole.
Seconds after the shaking, which lasted upward of 30 seconds in some parts, social media was flooded with witness accounts of the earthquake, including from law-enforcement and emergency personnel in the area. People reported swaying chandeliers, pictures falling off walls and bottles shattering on the floor.
There were no immediate reports of damage to Bay Area bridges.
According to initial USGS data, it was categorized as "severe" in how the shaking was perceived, though user-reported data deemed it on a lower degree, as "strong." The earthquake was initially reported as having a 6.1 magnitude before being quickly downgraded to 6.0.
California straddles the boundary between two of the Earth's tectonic plates -- as a result, it is broken by numerous earthquake faults. Literally thousands of small earthquakes occur in California each year, providing scientists with clear indications of places where faults cut the Earth's crust. In 2007, a panel of experts estimated there is a 63 percent chance that in the next 30 years the San Francisco Bay Area will experience a catastrophic earthquake at least as powerful as the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake that rocked Southern Califonria in 1994. There is a far greater chance -- 99 percent -- that an earthquake that size will strike somewhere in the state during that time.


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I was reading about some of the MVP discs tonight at work and I came across the statement that you know you've run into a DGR lurker when their bag is filled with MVP, PDs, and a Sword (or something like that).
It got me to wondering. If you were new to the game and only used DGR content (without posting the question) to stock your bag with discs, what would that bag look like? Is their a "typical" DGR bag? Can you really spot other DGR folks by what's in their bag?


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NEW YORK — Walmart is ditching plans to build three stores in Washington, D.C., after the city council passed a bill on late Wednesday setting a higher minimum wage for large retailers.
"This was a difficult decision for us — and unfortunate news for most D.C. residents — but the council has forced our hand," said Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo in a statement released after vote, which passed 8 to 5.
The Large Retailer Accountability Act of 2013 requires large retailers with stores more than 75,000 sq. ft. and parent companies grossing at least $1 billion per year to pay a "living wage" starting salary of $12.50 an hour — the District has a minimum wage of $8.25. Under the terms of the bill, large retailers have four years to comply with the requirements.
The bill could still be blocked if D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray vetoes it or if Congress uses its local control to keep the legislation from taking effect.
Wal-Mart had warned in an op-ed article in the Washington Post on Tuesday that it would cancel plans to build stores at Skyland, Capitol Gateway and New York Avenue if the council passed the bill. It also warned that it would reevaluate its plans for three additional stores in the District.
"The question here is a living wage; it's not whether Wal-Mart comes or stays," said council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large), a lead backer of the legislation, in a report by the Washington Post. "We're at a point where we don't need retailers. Retailers need us."


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Lotus Alex Job Racing's (AJR) Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell drove their No. 23 Lotus Alex Job Racing Evora GT to a tenth place finish in today's American Le Mans Series Baltimore Grand Prix presented by SRT.
Sweedler had the controls of the Lotus Evora for the start of the two-hour race this afternoon. Under overcast skies, 90-degree temperatures and near 100% humidity the car's handling and driver stamina was tested. As usually happens in closed course street racing, the first turn proved to be a challenge. Sweedler went in and was jostled on all four corners, but emerged pointed in the right direction with all parts attached, but a slight alignment problem. Handing over to Bell (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) on lap 27 the Californian took the streets of Baltimore that surround Camden Yards, home to the Orioles. Bell did a strong stint to keep the Evora on pace as he struggled with high engine temps that robbed the Evora GT of power and an ill handling car.
"It was really hot out there today," Sweedler said. "It was really hot at the start. It was a slam, bam, bang them up first turn. That is really a one-car turn. There must have been 10 or 12 cars stuck in that corner. I think I got hit on every corner, front, sides and back. That affected the car's alignment, and we had to hold on to it all day. We had some new tires from Yokohama, and we are very happy with the upgrade from them."
Bell inherited an ill handling car that was heating up.
"Bill really got banged around at the start," Bell said. "He came out of it pretty good, and we kept him out. When I got in the car, it was heating up, so under the cautions I was trying to get clean air into the radiator. We were pretty much in survival mode. Yokohama brought us some new rubber this weekend, and that is just one more step forward for this hard-working team and the Lotus Evora GT." Alex Job, team principal, comes out of a tough street circuit with the car in-tact and another good finish.
"Bill had a tough start today," Job said. "He was able to keep his composure, assess the car and we decided to keep him out there and running. He had to adapt his driving style, but he did a good job. Townsend got in and had to manage the engine temperature and tires to the end, but that worked out as well. We had some new-generation Yokohama Tires on the car this weekend, which will definitely help us in the future."


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Three men face federal felony hate crime charges after attacking a black woman and white man in Marysville last year.
Billy James Hammett, 28, Perry Sylvester Jackson, 27, both of Marysville, and Anthony Merrell Tyler, 32, of Olivehurst, were arrested Tuesday for their racially motivated attack on the man and woman in Marysville, on April 18, 2011, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner's office.
Hammett and Jackson pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in Marysville Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd. They will appear before U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez at 9:45 a.m. next Tuesday.
Tyler surrendered Tuesday in Sacramento and will be arraigned Wednesday.
"The indictment alleges that when an African American woman accompanied by a white male drove into the parking lot of a convenience store, Jackson called the male a 'n----- lover,' said Lauren Wagner is a statement from Wagner's office. "Hammett then approached the driver's side of the car, using a racial epithet to refer to the African American driver, while Jackson and Tyler attacked from the other side of the car.
"The indictment further alleges that Hammett and Jackson punched and kicked the African American woman driver and white male passenger and that Tyler smashed the car windshield with a crowbar."
The defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy and two counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The Shepard-Byrd Act criminalizes certain acts of physical violence causing bodily injury motivated by any person's actual or perceived race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.
"If convicted, the defendants could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on the conspiracy charge, and 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on each of the two hate-crime charges," Horwood said.
The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory sentencing factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables, Horwood explained.
Follow The Democrat at twitter.com/woodlandnews


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Child support is the amount of money that a court orders a parent or both parents to pay every month to help pay for the support of the child (or children) and the child's living expenses.
Every county has a family law facilitator who will help you for free to:
Every county also has a local child support agency to help you get, change, and collect child support at no charge. Learn more about the local child support agency and find the local child support agency in your county.
You can also find more information at Parent Guide to Separation and Divorce - Child Support, which explains parents' child support responsibilities. It describes how to figure out what a parent should pay or expect to receive, as well as how to calculate other types of expenses. You will also find links to services that can help you and other types of resources.
Each parent is equally responsible for providing for the financial needs of his or her child. But the court cannot enforce this obligation until it makes an order for support. When parents separate, a parent must ask the court to make an order establishing parentage (paternity) and also ask the court to make an order for child support.
Child support payments are usually made until children turn 18 (or 19 if they are still in high school full time, living at home, and cannot support themselves).
Either parent can ask the judge to make a child support order as part of one of these types of cases:
Child support can also be ordered as part of a case filed by the local child support agency (LCSA), which is the local government agency located in each county that provides services to establish parentage and establish and enforce child support orders. Here is how:
Find out more about the local child support agency and the Department of Child Support Services.
California has a statewide formula (called a "guideline") for figuring out how much child support should be paid.
If parents cannot agree on child support, the judge will decide the child support amount based on the guideline calculation.
The guideline calculation depends on:
The child support order may also require the parents to share the costs for:
The guideline amount is presumed to be correct. The judge can only order something other than the guideline amount in very limited situations. (Read the California Family Code sections 4052 through 4057 for more detail on calculating child support and what the judge can do.)
To estimate how much child support the judge may order in your case, go to California Guideline Child Support Calculator. To understand how to fill in the information in the Child Support Calculator, download the User Guide.
Figuring out "income" to calculate child support
The court bases child support on a parent's "net disposable income." This means the parent's income after state and federal taxes and other required deductions. The court may order support based in part on bonuses, commissions, overtime, and other supplemental or non-wage income if the court determines that this income occurs regularly.
Certain income is NOT counted when determining a child support obligation. For example, the court cannot consider income from:
Figuring out "time-share" to calculate child support
The court will calculate "time-share" (how much time each parent spends with the children) by comparing the amount of time that each parent has primary physical responsibility for the child. In general, this means that the court will count the numbers of hours or other portions of the day a parent spends with his or her child.
Usually, child support payments will decrease as time-share increases.
If you fall behind in child support payments, you must pay interest on the balance due on top of the amount you owe. Interest charges are added by law, and the judge cannot stop them.
Interest is:
If you owe arrears (past-due child support), it is possible that your court order or wage assignment (garnishment) if there is one, will include an amount over the monthly child support. This amount goes to paying off your arrears, and it is often called a "liquidation amount." But even if you are paying off your arrears in installments, interest continues to be added to your balance.
Not paying child support can have very serious consequences. If the court finds that someone has the ability to pay support but is willfully not paying it, the court can decide that the person ordered to pay support is "in contempt of court." Being in contempt of court can be very serious because it can result in jail time. This enforcement tool is generally used only when all others have failed.
Depending on the situation, either parent might want to change the amount of child support that is paid. Changes in child support often make sense if either parent has had a significant change related to:
Once you ask the court to modify the amount of child support, the court will make its decision based on the current circumstances (mainly both parents' income and time-share with the child). This means that the child support amount could go either up or down. If you are not sure whether the change in circumstances will result in an increase or a decrease, you can ask the family law facilitator in your county to help calculate the estimates for you before you file papers to go to court.
Get more information on changing a child support order and step-by-step instructions.
IMPORTANT! If you are the parent paying child support, you will still owe the full amount of support in your current court order until you get the order changed - even if your situation has changed. So, for example, if you lose your job today but you do not change your child support order until 3 months from now, you will still owe child support from today until 3 months from now, even though you were not working. Also, if you owe that amount but are unable to pay it, you will owe interest (at the rate of 10 percent per year) on any unpaid balance.
Usually, court-ordered child support ends when the child turns 18 years old if he or she graduates from high school. If your 18-year-old child is still a full-time high school student and still lives with a parent, child support ends when your child graduates or turns 19, whichever occurs first.
Child support also ends when the child:
Parents may agree to support a child longer. The court may also order that both parents continue to support a disabled adult child that cannot support himself or herself.
Federal and California laws require that every child support order include an order for "medical support." This means that the court will order either or both parents to provide health insurance for the child as long as it is available at a "reasonable cost."
You should also know that:
If you do not think you can afford to pay your medical support order, you can file 2 forms to ask the court to change or end the order:
The family law facilitator can help you fill out and file these forms.
California courts are required to order the amount of child support determined by the child support guideline unless the case fits 1 of the few legal exceptions to that rule. One of the exceptions is that the parties agree to an amount different (higher or lower) from the child support guideline, as long as it meets certain tests.
In general, parents can agree on a "non-guideline" support amount if they:
Parents can also agree to a child support order based on the guideline. By agreeing and signing a written agreement (a stipulation) for the guideline amount, parents do not have to go in front of a judge to decide child support. Your agreement will need to be submitted to the court clerk for the judge to sign so that it can be enforced as an order of the court.
IMPORTANT! If 1 of the parents gets public assistance (like TANF), the local child support agency must agree to AND sign the agreement between the parents. The local child support agency must also sign the agreement if the agency is involved in a case to enforce (collect) the support order.
Writing up a child support agreement
Parents can agree to a child support amount, but only the judge can decide if it is appropriate and if he or she will accept it and sign it as an order.
The family law facilitator in your county can help both parents work out a child support agreement and write up the agreement.
To write up a child support agreement:
1. Figure out what guideline child support amount is
Before the judge can sign an agreement between the parents that sets a child support amount that is lower or higher than the guideline, you must first know what the California guideline child support amount would be.
To figure out what it would be, you can:
2. Agree on an amount and other issues
Part of being fully informed about your child support rights is knowing what the guideline amount of child support would be. So, if you agree to pay more or receive less than the guideline, you are doing it voluntarily and with all the information.
You also have to agree on who will keep or pay for health insurance for th children and how to split other expenses related to your child or children, like:
Child-related expenses are usually shared 50-50 or proportionate to each parent's income where there is a large difference between the parents' incomes, but you can agree to any division that you feel is appropriate in your situation.
And you need to decide how the child support payments will be made: directly between the parents, directly to the provider, or by wage garnishment (wage assignment).
3. Write up your agreement
Use the Stipulation to Establish or Modify Child Support and Order (Form FL-350). The form walks you through all the issues you need to address in your agreement so make sure you read it carefully.
Make sure you use the right case number (if you already have a case open). If you do not have a case open, you will have to open one so you can file this agreement as part of it. Find out what type of case to open in your situation.
Notice that, in this agreement, you are agreeing to keep each other promptly informed of any changes in income, employment, or address.
Ask the family law facilitator in your county if you need help writing up your agreement. Or if you wrote it up on your own, have the family law facilitator review it to make sure you filled it out correctly.
4. Sign your Stipulation (agreement)
Each parent must sign the Stipulation (Form FL-350). When you sign, you are agreeing that you understand it and that you are signing it voluntarily and are not being pressured or forced to agree. Make sure you attach the child support calculation that shows what the guideline child support amount is, even if you agree to a different amount.
If the local child support agency (LCSA) is involved in your case, either because they were the ones to open the case or because 1 of the parents asked them to get involved, they have to sign this Stipulation. If 1 of you is on public assistance (like TANF), the LCSA has to agree to the amount of child support.
5. Turn in your Stipulation to the court for the judge to sign
Find out from the court clerk if you need to make copies ahead of time and turn them in with the original or just turn in the original and make copies after. The procedures for how to do this will be a little different from court to court, so make sure you find out from the clerk of your local court what to do and when you should return to pick up your papers.
6. File your Stipulation after the judge signs it
After the judge has signed the Stipulation, file the original with the court clerk (after making copies if you did not already make them). The clerk will keep the original and stamp your copies "Filed" and return them to you. One copy will be for each parent and the third copy is for the LCSA if applicable.
Also file the Income Withholding for Support (Form FL-195) if you turned in one. When you fill out this form, make sure you only put in the last 4 digits of the social security number of the parent who will be paying child support, to protect their privacy.
7. Send the Order/Notice to Withhold Income for Child Support to the employer of the parent rdered to pay support (the obligor)
If you agreed to have the obligor's (parent paying support) wages garnished, send the filed Income Withholding for Support (Form FL-195) to his or her employer.
The California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) is the state agency that makes policy and oversees the child support services for the state. The local child support agency (LCSA), located in every county, is a county agency that provides the public with day-to-day services establishing and enforcing child support orders made by the courts. This Online Self-Help Center mostly uses "LCSA," but if you see "DCSS" or "Department of Child Support Services" on this website or on any forms you have received, keep in mind they are the same thing.
The LCSA is where you can get help to:
The LCSA CANNOT help you with:
The local child support agency always gets involved in cases where 1 of the parents is getting public assistance for the child, or the child is in foster care. In cases involving public assistance, the law says the LCSA will make the final decision on child support enforcement, even if the custodial parent disagrees.
You can get help from the LCSA even if you do not get public assistance.
Learn more about the Department of Child Support Services and find your local child support agency.
The California Department of Child Support Services Child Support Handbook has information on many topics, including:
The Basics of Child Support for Incarcerated Parents
Published by the Judicial Council of California.
Child Support Enforcement Abroad
Posted by the U.S. Department of State.
Child Support Publications from the California Department of Child Support Services, about establishing parentage and child support, incarcerated parents, wage assignments, and other child support-related issues. Available in several languages.
LawHelpCalifornia: Child Support
Links to information on child support for incarcerated parents, child support enforcement abroad, child support forms and more. (Select your county or enter your zip code for information specific to the area that you live in.)
Local Child Support Agency (LCSA)
The LCSA in your county can help you get child support even if you do not get public assistance. It can help you raise or lower child support, and enforce a child support order. The LCSA cannot help with child custody, visitation, or a divorce.
Learn about child support in California and the services at your LCSA.
Learn about the state Department of Child Support Services' Paternity Opportunity Program (POP).
If you have an open case with the local child support agency and are not satisfied with the assistance you are receiving from them, the Ombudsperson and Complaint Resolution programs may be helpful to you.
Read How to Resolve Problems with Your Child Support Case. And get information abut the Ombudsperson and Complaint Resolution and State Hearing Program.
Superior Court Family Law Facilitators
Locate the Family Law Facilitator in your county.
Families Change: Online guide for families going through separation and divorce. It has 3 versions – one for parents, one for children, and one for teens and pre-teens. The guides provide information on dealing with the changes, feelings and emotions during a divorce or separation, the law in these types of cases, resources for the family, and help to work out a child support agreement between the parents.
Sacramento County Public Law Library Legal Guides
This site has a list of books on family law and other legal topics.


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Complete range of coordinated designs available for you to choose.
The product is available in various colors to let you easily match with your interiors.


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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Two principals who are being fired amid the Columbus schools attendance data-scrubbing investigation are suing to get their jobs back.
The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/PSQpL9 ) reports that Tiffany Chavers and Pamela Diggs on Wednesday sued the school board, former and current superintendents and other district administrators. They're also asking for $400,000 each in damages.
Chavers, who was principal of Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, and Diggs, who was principal at Marion-Franklin High School, are two of the four principals suspended after an investigation showed a culture of changing attendance numbers to improve performance ratings, which can be used to determine government funding and employee bonuses.
The suit spells out Chavers' and Diggs' account of how they were directed to alter student data.
District officials had no immediate comment.
Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com


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Recently, I tried my hand at setting up a wireless repeater. Little did I know I would have a few problems and would end up 30-30-30 resetting my repeater-to-be several times. Here's my angle at fixing that foolishly tiny button that you have to hold for a ludicrously time in order to reset the router.
All I did was solder one side of a couple wires to the original button, and the other sides to a new, easier to reach button. Here's what it looks like from the top:
Now no more wasted paperclips! Hooray!
Edit: I've seen quite a few people commenting on various sites saying, in short, that if I'm resetting my router this much, I need a new router, not a fancy button. I'd like to clarify that I didn't need the button, nor are daily resets required. This router is the one that I go to if I want to try something out, such as making a repeater, or a client bridge, etc. So between locking myself out, and 30/30/30 resets before flashing firmware, I've needed to reset a few times, and it always frustrated me, fiddling around with a paperclip and that tiny hole. During normal operation, this router doesn't need resets. But normal operation is not what I do 🙂


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Course Details
Course Description
About The Instructor(s)
For additional course information, First Class requirements, syllabus, etc., check the About The Instructor(s) section for a link to a Faculty Website.
This section is Communication Skills intensive. Communication Skills I-V must be completed before taking this course.
Session, Dates: 1 (08/25/2014 - 12/13/2014)
Days: M W F
Time: 12:45 - 01:35 pm
Location: Moon Campus
Room: Nicholson Center 415
Seats Available: 1 Seat!
Credits: 3
This course introduces the integrated nature of the communications skills program and establishes the importance of communications for a successful life and career. Students are made conscious of the behaviors and communication patterns typical of the groups to which they and other students belong; they learn to see themselves as audiences for others as they explore how different audiences have different patterns of communication and different expectations; they are encouraged to value and respect differences in communication patterns exhibited by others; and they are encouraged to adapt to the patterns of behavior and communication expected in academic and professional life. Though all the communications skills are introduced and practiced, reading, interpreting, and writing are emphasized.
Dorothy D. McClester
Part-Time Faculty
English Department
Wheatley Center 142
For additional course information, First Class requirements, syllabus, etc., check the About The Instructor(s) section for a link to a Faculty Website.


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Letter to the Editor: Let views be heard on the Byers Peak anexation
March 5, 2013
Let views be heard on the Byers Peak anexation
To the Editor:
The Fraser Valley community should know that this Wednesday, March 6, at 7 p.m., the Fraser Town Board of Trustees will be holding another public hearing so that the Town Board can hear public comments regarding the annexation of the land owned by Byers Peak Properties (BPP), 295 acres west of the railroad tracks and between CR 72 and CR 73.
For those who are interested in sharing and discussing information about the annexation, I started a Facebook page – Fraser and Friends for Responsible Development. (www.facebook.com/pages/Fraser-and-Friends-for-Responsible-Development/134408106736544)
After reading documents in the Board Packet on the Town website and reviewing the Town staff's answers to questions from the February public hearing (available in the Board Packet), I still have many concerns about the proposed structure for the BPP annexation. As others might also have concerns or be able to provide explanations, I started the Facebook page as a forum for information sharing and discussion.
I certainly appreciate all of the work our Town staff, Board Trustees and consultants. The Town consultants' credentials and experience are certainly impressive. Yet, none of us are perfect, and sometimes, we can overlook significant issues.
Recommended Stories For You
For example, the proposed cost and revenue sharing agreement for water infrastructure and improvements shifts costs and revenues around in ways that could lead to millions of dollars in additional costs and foregone revenue for the Town. In proposing this approach, the Town obviously believes it's reasonable but, so far, they haven't really addressed the concerns presented at the February public hearing or provided a financial summary that shows the financial impact of the annexation agreement. If you are interested in the details, please see the Facebook page.
If you have comments, questions or clarifications, please share them with others on the Facebook page. In addition, please write or attend the public hearing on Wednesday. Because the annexation is quasi-judicial, the Town Board members must all receive the same information, either through written or oral comments at the public hearing. If you make a statement at the hearing, please also provide a written copy so that trustees can refer to it later.
Jane Mather


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An Eight Word PuzzleLanguage brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
What do the following eight words have in common?
crabcake, laughing, calmness, canopy, stupid, hijack, first, deft.
HintKnowing your alphabet helps.
AnswerEach word contains three consecutive letters of the alphabet in a row.
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.
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Sign In for your personalized experience!
www.imaginefestival.com FULL LINEUP HERE - 7 Stages:
Stage 1-[ OCEANIA STAGE ] (A...
The Life is Beautiful Music & Art Festival will return to the streets of Downtown...
After first making waves with their debut EP "Rude Nudes" way back in 2010, fast forward to 2017 and the duo known as Eastblock Bitches and the pair continue to fire out hits and are back with a brand new one.
Being released via Universal Music Germany ...[more]
The long awaited Electronic Music Awards, originally slated for 2016, are finally just around the corner - and we couldn't be more intrigued for what's to come: the celebration of musical tastemakers, creatives, executives and entertainment visionaries across e...[more]
Summer Beach Night Club / Bar Lounge
Flic en Flac
Océan Indien
Date de création : 29 mai 1997
Bar lounge :
Mercredis à dimanches
18h00 à 23h00
- Coc...


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This game was classified by the community with the following category scores - Violence=0/3, Sex=0/3, Mature Content=2/3. The 1990 arcade classic bursts onto Xbox! Now with optional Reflex Assist, you too can dodge lasers like a pro in this seminal bullet hell shooter.
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


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OSP to put out extra patrols near Reedsport
REEDSPORT, Ore. -- Oregon State Police are gearing up for extra patrols near Reedsport during the coming summer.
The Coos Bay Area Command of OSP has been awarded a grant to improve traffic safety, that will help pay for troopers to work overtime.
The focus will be to patrol part of Highway 38 east of Reedsport.
The section of the highway between Reedsport and the Dean Creek elk viewing area has been declared one of the most dangerous places to drive in the state.
Lt. Steve Smartt of OSP says you won't be able to miss them out on the road. "We'll be out and we'll be visible," he said. "It doesn't do us any good to just go out an hide. We want to be visible so people can see us, and it's just human nature that people will slow down and be a little more careful and that's basically what we want is for people to go where they want safely."
The patrols will begin at the start of the summer tourism season when many people are headed to the coast for vacation.


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That is the text I thought of, but it does not sound quite like the name he mentioned other than Dabba.Dmytro wrote:Hi Jackson,
That's Udana 8.10.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Dmytro wrote:Hi Jackson,
That's Udana 8.10.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Instead of using the subsistence of latent fire as an image for immortality, he(the Buddha) uses the diffuse, indeterminate nature of extinguished fire as understood by the Vedists to illustrate the absolute indescribability of the person who has reached the Buddhist goal.
The person who has attained the goal is thus indescribable because he/she has abandoned all things by which he/she could be described.
Note 723: It seems that at this point in the dialogue, the Buddha resorts to imagery to suggest what concepts cannot convey. The 2 images of the extinguished fire and the deep ocean, establish between themselves a dialectical tension, and thus both must be taken into account to avoid falling into one-sided views. The image of the extinguished fire, taken alone, veers in the direction of total extinction, and thus must be balanced by the image of the ocean; the image of the ocean, taken alone, suggests some eternal mode of being, thus must be balanced by the image of the extinguished fire. Again, the truth lies in the middle that transcends untenable extremes.
All the teachings compiled in this collection are for aiding us in our search for
well-being and peace. Having recognized that Nibbæna is a possibility for ourselves,
we are able to take the seeds, prepare the ground, and cultivate the fruit. The bliss of
tasting and being nourished by this fruit is a principle of nature that we are all able to
realize. A last example illustrating this principle of Nibbæna as a state of intrinsic well-
being also comes in the Udæna. In the previous sutta passage Bhaddiya describes the
bliss of Nibbæna as experienced in this life. In this passage – after the passing away of
Dabba the Mallian – the Buddha affirms that that Nibbænic bliss is not affected or
altered by the death of the body.
Just as the bourn is not known
Of the gradual fading glow
Given off by the furnace-heated iron
As it is struck with the smith's hammer,
So there is no pointing to the bourn
Of those perfectly released,
Who have crossed the flood
Of bondage to sense desires
And attained unshakeable bliss.
~ Ud 8.10 (John D. Ireland trans.)
jackson wrote:Greetings everyone,
In a recent talk by Ajahn Amaro he mentioned that there was only one sutta where the Buddha described the experience of an Arahant after death, and if I remember correctly the Buddha said that the deceased Arahant was experiencing indescribable bliss. I`d like to read the sutta Ajahn Amaro quoted but haven`t been able to uncover it online, so would appreciate it if anyone could point me towards it.
Return to "General Theravāda discussion"
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Lemon Tour
Enjoy a true local experience in the Valley of the Mills, just a short ride from the centre of Amalfi.
Take a stroll through a lemon grove and savour the aroma, learning how fruits here are still grown following ancient methods.Live like a local Live like a local
Discover the magical world that lies under the city of Naples.
Explore a fascinating mixture of caves, Roman roads, ancient theatres and World War II air-raid shelters.Enter a secret world Enter a secret world
Discover the city's historic centre, the largest in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, aboard a vintage Vespa.
Feel like an authentic "Napoletano" as you stop to enjoy an espresso at the most exclusive café in the city.Take a ride Take a ride
Make your own film
Let your children make their own holiday movie trailer.
Led by a professional filmmaker, they will learn how to plan a scene, act it out and capture it exactly as they imagined.Lights, camera, action! Lights, camera, action!
Boat Excursions
Jump aboard our traditional wooden boat Ercole and see the gems of the Amalfi Coast with a complimentary morning boat tour.
Or take a delightful sunset cruise, including canapés, soft drinks and Prosecco. We can also organise a full day's speedboat rental for the ultimate sightseeing tour.Contact us Contact us
Garden Tour
Explore the beautiful gardens of Belmond Hotel Caruso with our Head Gardener, Gaetano.
This sensory experience is accompanied by stories, anecdotes and curiosities. Discover flowers and plants with scented leaves, admire the wisteria framing the breathtaking view or browse the landscaped herb garden for interesting flavours.Take a scented tour Take a scented tour
Helicopter Tour
There are few more dramatic and luxurious ways to see the stunning Amalfi Coast than from the privacy of your own private helicopter.
Our pilot will soar over the cliffs that sheer down into sparkling turquoise seas. Then venture to the Gulfs of Salerno and Naples. Tailor-made tours are available on request.Take to the sky Take to the sky
Ravello Music Festival
This is the second oldest music festival in Italy, with a musical pedigree rivalled only by the stunning location.
The Festival runs throughout the summer with a series of concerts and a rich array of arts—from symphonic to chamber music and cinema to visual arts.Be inspired Be inspired


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Every Sunsout jigsaw puzzle is proudly Made in the USA by an environmentally conscious company that uses soy-based inks and recycled board.


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PORTLAND, Ore. (TheStreet) -- The National Football League's shield logo doesn't protect its official sponsors from attacks by their fiercest rivals during the Super Bowl.
The NFL has an official soup sponsor, a tire sponsor, a hot cereal sponsor and even a grooming products sponsor. What it doesn't have is sponsor exclusivity for Super Bowl ads, which allows 2014 Super Bowl broadcaster Fox to let any advertiser in on the game that it wants and open the door for non-sponsor "ambush". advertisers.
It also squeezes the NFL's official sponsors for even more cash just to maintain their association with the league's brand. According to Kantar Media, the Super Bowl has generated $2 billion in ad sales since 2004. Total ad spending climbed from $149.6 million a decade ago to $292 million just last year. The cost for a 30-second ad also skyrocketed, from $2.15 million to $4 million during that span.
Anheuser-Busch InBev paid the NFL $1 billion a couple years ago to wrest the league's official beer sponsorship away from MolsonCoors. It's also spent nearly $250 million during the past decade to not only air ads for Budweiser and other brands during the Super Bowl, but to buy exclusivity deals from CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC that prevent all other beer companies from buying big-game airtime.
This year, A-B is sinking at least $28 million into Super Bowl ads alone. That's just how high the stakes have become. The amount of Super Bowl commercial time has increased from 41 minutes and 55 seconds in 2004 to 51 minutes and 40 seconds last year, while the number of commercials aired has risen from 88 to 97 during that same period. With commercials of a minute or more making up 15% of all ad purchases last year, there's far too much cash on the table for a company to risk losing its Super Bowl advantage.
Even huge spending can't guarantee an NFL sponsor's share of the spotlight. Here are just five who are seeing their home field advantage disappear during the Super Bowl:


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Archinect - News 2017-09-19T11:32:15-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/79396202/the-park-over-the-highway-is-now-underway The "Park Over the Highway" is now underway Justine Testado 2013-08-14T09:55:00-04:00 >2013-08-22T10:03:29-04:00
 Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the start of the aptly named "Park Over the Highway" plan in St. Louis, Missouri earlier this month. The plan's objective is to connect the iconic Gateway Arch grounds and Downtown St. Louis by building a park over the Interstate-70, which has divided the city from the Mississippi waterfront for the past 50 years. Last month, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) awarded KCI Construction Company $26.4 million to begin construction. The project is expected to be done by Fall 2015.

 As depicted in the rendering above, the extensive renovation project also involves re-routing roads, laying groundwork pedestrian and bike paths, and general enhancement of the landscape.

 Funds for the entire $380 million plan came from public sources like federal grants and a voter-approved local sales tax as well as private contributions from major supporters like the CityArchRiver foundation.

 U.S. Transportation ...


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— Sure, the Motion Picture Association of America is out there watching all the movies and telling you what they think. But can you really trust generic warnings about "pervasive vulgarity"? You know the answer to that one, especially if you're one of those who think cinema's been in a downward spiral since "The Sound of Music."
What follows is a somewhat spoiler-filled account of the summer's least delicate movie moments and how they really stack up next to their official rating, scored via all those symbols people use when they don't want to type profanity. The longer the stack of symbols is, the grosser the content, with the raunchiest films listed first.
'The Hangover Part II' is raunchiest film of summer
The MPAA says: Rated R for pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images
Translation: To list it all would require as much time as it takes to watch the actual film. It's a few-holds-barred orgy of relentless profanity, casual racism, slapstick violence, male and female full-frontal-nudity, borderline consensual sex, insane amounts of drug use and monkeys smoking cigarettes. If you saw the first "Hangover" — and it seems like everyone in the world did, even people who dislike extra-raunchy comedy — then you've seen this one already, too.
Redeeming Qualities: None. But your reaction to that fact depends on your perspective. You either applaud the film's refusal to slap on a fake, morality-demands-it punishment for the marauding Wolf Pack, or you freak out over this group of man-children getting off scot-free, suffering nothing resembling a real-world consequence for their outrageous behavior.
Our Rating: #$#!*%
'The Change-Up' is pretty crude
The MPAA says: Rated R for pervasive strong crude sexual content and language, some graphic nudity and drug use.
Translation: Jason Batemen — after switching bodies with Ryan Reynolds — has a series of sexual encounters that focus on how disgusting the women are. Reynolds — after switching bodies with Batemen — tries to have sex with Bateman's wife but learns that she's disgusting too. Charming. Oh, and babies projectile-soil themselves and others.
Redeeming Qualities: A half-hearted attempt to teach the guys the real meaning of friendship and marriage and niceness and all that other stuff terrible movies tack on when they realize they can't risk audiences disliking absolutely unlikable characters.
Our Rating: #$@!*
'Bridesmaids' mixes humor and raunch
The MPAA says: Rated R for some strong sexuality, and language throughout
Translation: Funny, absurdist sex scenes bookend the film and frank female discussions about sex and men pack the 124-minute running time. And then there's that scatological bridal shop scene you've heard about, the one during which the MPAA must have collectively fallen asleep.
Redeeming Qualties: Intelligence, wit, warmth and the daring to address socioeconomic differences within groups of friends, something you never see in most American films, raunchy or not.
Our Rating: #$@!
'Horrible Bosses' could be feminist term paper
The MPAA says: Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language and some drug material
Translation: Colin Farrell, as one of the horrible bosses, has group sex with prostitutes, while another horrible boss, played by Jennifer Aniston, is a bizarre mix of male daydream and actual rapist. She exposes herself, verbally harasses Charlie Day, sexually assaults every man within reach and, weirdly enough, receives the film's gentlest comeuppance for her efforts. In the film's funniest moment, a huge amount of cocaine is spilled and would-be boss-murderers Day and Jason Bateman try to vacuum it up with both a Dustbuster and their noses.
Redeeming Qualities: None offered, but it's unintentionally worth looking at for the subtext of unrestrained male anxiety and idiotic ideas about aggressive female sexuality. Some feminist film studies student will have a field day using it as a term-paper source.
Our Rating: #$@!
'30 Minutes or Less' is pretty clean
The MPAA says: Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, nudity and some violence
Translation: Everybody on-screen uses the F-word. It's also pro bank-robbing. Meanwhile, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson talk a lot about sex, McBride gets a lap dance and, in one scene, commit what can only be described as a gay-mime assault on "Friday the 13th" killer Jason. They could show this on the FX cable channel late at night without any cuts and practically no bleeps.
Redeeming Qualities: None, but you won't mind that.
Our Rating: #$
'Mr. Popper's Penguins' can't stop pooping
The MPAA says: Rated PG for mild rude humor and some language
Translation: Penguins squirt their leavings on every possible physical surface of the set. Jim Carrey holds them up and squeezes it out of them like he's putting condiments on a cheeseburger. Then there's a lot more of this. And then some more. It never stops. Never.
Redeeming Qualities: It'll cure you of thinking they'd actually make good pets.
Our Rating: #$ -- Yes, that's one more symbol than "Friends With Benefits" got.
'Bad Teacher' isn't that bad
The MPAA says: Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use.
Translation: Cameron Diaz talks about sex the way most women in movies are never allowed to. Cameron Diaz smokes pot in front of children. Cameron Diaz is mean to the children she's smoking pot in front of. Cameron Diaz has clothes-on comedy-sex with Justin Timberlake. Cameron Diaz wears very short shorts.
Redeeming Qualities: Cameron Diaz learns lessons about true love. It's annoying when she does this but there you go, a weak stab at ethical outcomes.
Our Rating: #
'Friends With Benefits' barely earns its R
The MPAA says: Rated R for sexual content and language
Translation: The tamest R rating of the summer. Justin Timberlake's butt is on display, yet everything you think belongs to Mila Kunis is actually the property of her uncredited body double, one she barely needed in the first place. In other words, you'll wonder how a single bed can have so many sheets on it. A woman licks Timberlake's armpit and the script occasionally bounces some genuine R-rated words around.
Redeeming Qualities: It's sweet, like an otherwise well-behaved dog with an occasional habit of "loving" your leg too much.
Our Rating: #


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General News of Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Source: Peacefmonline
A member of the government's communication team has descended on Dr. Tony Aidoo, Head of Policy and Evaluation Unit at the Presidency, for verbally attacking General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensa Otabil.
Samuel George is of the view that Dr. Aidoo could have 'spiced up his words' and still made his point concerning the brouhaha surrounding the man of God's view on free education.
He has also advised his colleague NDC communicators to discuss the issue objectively and avoid the personality attack.
At a press conference in Accra last week, Pastor Otabil lamented over what he said was the manipulation of his sermons for political expediency, and appealed to President Mahama to call to order, NDC members who are piecing together comments he had made in the past, to create the impression that he is against the proposed free senior high school policy being espoused by Nana Akufo-Addo.
He described the act as "criminal", "unethical", "malicious", "Machiavellian" and above all "evil".
But Dr. Aidoo, who was obviously unhappy at the renowned Pastor's remarks, labeled him a coward, a man without integrity, a man whose own theology is replete with internal contradictions.
However, Samuel George avers that Dr. Aidoo's unsavoury language against Pastor Otabil 'cannot be the position of President John Dramani Mahama'. To him, since the Director of Communications for the Campaign Team, Hanna Tetteh, has already issued a rebuttal, no member of the government's machinery should comment further on the issue.
Speaking on Citi FM he said: "I have problems with certain members of the NDC; Dr. Tony Aidoo. I am a member of the NDC and he is a senior member of the NDC, but Dr. Tony Aidoo crossed the line and this is not the first time he has done that. I have much respect for him and the job he does but when it comes to the words he used to describe Pastor Mensa Otabil, I honestly believe that those words does not represent the position of his Excellency John Dramani Mahama…my plea to them (NDC communicators) is that they should hold their horses, tone down and watch the way they go. The man of God crossed the line with the kinds of words that he used but that for me are no justification for the kind of effusions from Dr. Tony Aidoo…"