text:
Four decades of James Bond films have proven that I must die now. Ive seen all the secret plans, uncovered facts and figures. I now know how the evil geniuses in Frisco plan to take over the world; i.e., I know too much. So this is where the needlessly complicated murder attempt comes in. Maybe something involving a laser beam, or a shark tank. I have five minutes, at the most, to plan my escape, and Im not even wearing a tuxedo.
Luckily, my host for the day is not a megalomaniacal supervillain of indeterminate ethnicity, harboring a grudge and possibly a few WMDs. (I dont think.) Its an attractive woman named Debby.
Truth is, theres no scheme to take over the world by Five Star Development, the company Debby Hanson works for as director of marketing. North Texas, maybe.
Hanson is merely showing me around Frisco Square, Five Stars newest, most ambitious development, mixed-use and multigenerational. Five Star already has developed one town square project in Flower Mound, Parker Square, and several more have sprouted up in bedroom communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the past few years, most notably Southlake Town Square. But Frisco Square--the company line goes--is bigger and better than the others, less about quality of retail than quality of life. Though, of course, quality of retail is still very important.
They might be right. Frisco Square is located just beyond where the Dallas North Tollway meets state Highway 121, a 4 million-square-foot community full of pretty parks and tree-lined streets with garden medians, stores that were meant for window shopping and the best restaurants around. Not to mention gorgeous townhomes and the kind of turn-of-the-century architecture that makes men want to wear bowties and fedoras. Frisco's new city hall is there as well, near the church and library, giving it the anchor a real old-fashioned town square needs. And the town square--like the newborn ones in Southlake and Flower Mound--gives the city a sense of history and identity it lacks, even though Frisco is 100 years old.
Frisco Square is literally and metaphorically a Five Star Development, a pedestrian-friendly plot of heaven you'd never have to leave unless you wanted to. But you probably wouldn't want to, especially since there's a concierge on-site to cater to your every whim.
Despite my initial fear of the project's too-good-to-be-true intentions (this perfect suburban development eerily mimics Cypress Creek, run by the evil mastermind Scorpio in a famous episode of The Simpsons), it's clear the only danger is that another generation of boys might be saddled with the name Opie. The most convoluted assassination attempt here is the three-hour checkers tournament at the senior center.
The tour doesn't take very long because, right now, Frisco Square fits very comfortably on a table in a leasing office and on a map on the wall. You can walk the entire thing in 10, maybe 15 seconds. Step outside that leasing office, and it's difficult to take in the scope of the project, to buy what Five Star is selling.
Because there's not much here at the moment. There are a few four-story buildings that eventually will house all kinds of retail and office tenants, with apartments above them. (A few of them have moved in already.) The first phase of townhomes is ready and waiting, and some have even been sold. The aforementioned senior center recently opened on the premises. Everything else is under construction or still on the map.
"Truly this is an urban environment," Hanson says. "It's nothing like anyone in this part of the country will know. We have a lot of people from Chicago and New York who are here. They come in and get the concept immediately. But, you know, to us suburbanites who drive everywhere, it's just a completely different concept to them." She opens up another map of the site so her visitor can see what she means, pointing to make her points. "But we really want people to feel like, you know, we want you to live down here, and your office is up here, and you'll be able to walk on the way home and check out a book at the library and sit in Frisco Square on a Thursday night and listen to live jazz...Our owner is absolutely committed to building something that is a legacy for not only his kids, but their kids and their kids."
It sounds great. Exactly the kind of small-town environment everyone involved with Frisco and Frisco Square immediately tries to conjure up when talking about the project. Reality is eight years away. It could be as many as 12. It also may never come. During its rise from sleepy suburb to Plano-sized player--with a gigantic mall, two huge sports complexes and a prodigious convention center either already there or coming soon--Frisco already may become too much of a big city to be a small town again. In 12 years, Frisco Square may be just another strip mall. You could say the same for Southlake Town Square and Parker Square.
"These kind of semi-self-contained communities are often pitched as a solution to sprawl, and I think they're really more examples of sprawl," says writer Alex Marshall, whose book How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and the Roads Not Taken was published in 2001. He's written about, well, how cities work for the past decade. "And they tend to be kind of Trojan horses, where they allow sprawl to get in the doorway under different names.
"They also, I think, really don't work just on their own terms. They're pitched as kind of having a lot of attributes that people like about older urban communities or smaller towns. But they tend to really not function that differently than typical, conventional subdivisions...They basically just add to the problem of too much development spread out over too large of an area and too much dependence on highways. They're really more like fashion statements than a real solution to sprawl."
If sprawl is evil, then the next few years will determine if Frisco will become just another suburban villain or something unique and worthwhile: a force for good. It will determine who is telling the truth: naysayers like Marshall or people like Cole McDowell, the president of Five Star, and David M. Schwarz, the architectural vision behind the projects in Frisco, Southlake and Flower Mound, as well as the man responsible for The Ballpark at Arlington, the American Airlines Center and Bass Performance Hall, to name a few. They argue that the traditional values represented in Schwarz's past-perfect architectural nostalgia can permeate and shape an entire community, that the design of a community can influence its behavior.
There is already some evidence--Celebration, Disney's much-criticized attempt at city building in Florida that was the model for The Simpsons' Cypress Creek--that it can't. But if Schwarz and McDowell are right, the city of the future just might be the city of the past. If Marshall is, well, at least there will be a new batch of strip malls that look really pretty.
If you want to get an idea of what Frisco Square will be, drive 30 minutes west on state Highway 121 to Flower Mound, to Parker Square. That will do for now, says Dana Baird-Hanks, Frisco's director of communications, who understates that "it's kind of comparable" to the project in Frisco.
Stand at Parker Square's front entryway and you'll see a living, breathing brochure for Frisco Square. There are no townhomes, but just about everything else is here. From this angle, it really does look like a picture postcard of what most cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area want to be, missing only a "Wish you were here!" banner hovering just above the rooftops. Just forget that you had to drive through three miles of failed ambition in Lewisville to get here.
Straight ahead, streetlights lead the way like a trail of bread crumbs past two-story buildings housing office and retail space to the solid, stolid Chamber of Commerce building, basking in the sunlight as though it's just waiting for someone to pick up the key to the city. Off to the right, a copper dome with a clock tower stands sentry over the ad hoc downtown. To the left, in the middle of an emerald green lawn, is the kind of gazebo Thornton Wilder wrote plays about. Today, a mom and grandma push a baby in a stroller while another youngster toddles along behind them. Nothing evil about it.
No detail has gone overlooked: David M. Schwarz's designs were meant to invoke the kind of old-fashioned downtown Flower Mound never had, and they do so to an almost fetishistic degree. Brick crosswalks meet you at every intersection, and scattered throughout Parker Square are benches where you can sit and visit for a spell. Vintage-looking fixtures adorn every building, each one constructed with varied brick styles and patterns, as though each had a separate birth. The illusion is that Parker Square grew organically over a few decades. Since it's so freshly scrubbed and new, the criticism often leveled against Schwarz's work--that it's more of a stage set than a town--carries some weight.
But Schwarz's style is exactly what Cole McDowell wanted when he hired Schwarz to design Parker Square. The president of Five Star Development and a Flower Mound resident, McDowell wanted to create a focal point for his community, give it a place to build a sense of history around...and to buy a pair of pants, maybe a nice plate of enchiladas. Build it and they will come and all of that. Flower Mound didn't have much else in that regard, since it was incorporated in 1961 and only recently had to think about what it wants to be when it grows up.
"These suburban communities that were little farm towns 30 years ago have been overrun by housing and land development," McDowell says. He founded Five Star in 1997 after spending the previous 15 years in real estate, building more than 1,000 single-family homes. "In most cases, the city planners and councils have not planned for a downtown. And so they're left with no image except a major intersection with grocery stores on each corner."
In short, he wanted the kind of town square that doesn't really exist anymore, even in places where it sort of does. Look at McKinney. Its old-fashioned town square is essentially a tombstone for the way of life McDowell talks about. The old courthouse, reconstructed in 1927 and currently being reconstructed again as a community arts center set to open in fall 2005, is surrounded on all sides by a dozen antique stores. Yes, there are tree-lined streets, brick crosswalks, office space and retail, restaurants and soda fountains. But they only reinforce the musty, antique atmosphere of the place. The McKinney Community Development Corp. is trying to resurrect the district, but it might be merely giving a face-lift to a corpse. As the low-rider truck pumping 2Pac proves, this is a different time in McKinney.
In Flower Mound, Parker Square pretends it isn't. Since it opened in 1999, Parker Square has given Flower Mound both tradition and traditional retail. Its Holiday Stroll on the Square events--with Christmas carolers in Victorian getups, Dickens plays being staged at the gazebo and over-the-top lighting displays by area businesses--bring in just about everyone in the city. Judging by today's turnout, the restaurants and retail keep them coming back throughout the year. Why wouldn't they? At just past noon on a lazy Friday in March, the sky is blue, the grass is green, the air is cool and the shopping is fabulous.
"It's been a great benefit for the community," says Jim Lang, Flower Mound's director of economic development. "I mean, everybody loves it."
Still, there's something about the place that feels artificial, and it's not necessarily the fiberglass benches that dot the terrain. It's not the parking lot filled to the brim with so many Explorers and jacked-up Lexuses that it comes across as either a playground for bored soccer moms or an SUV dealership. It's not the fact that one of the first businesses you see upon arriving is a laser skin center, the bread and butter of most strip malls. It's not even the multiple signs that warn: "No bikes, skateboards or roller blades," sucking the fun out of the place.
It's that, just down the street, seemingly in polar opposition to what's going on at Parker Square and everything Schwarz and McDowell believe in, there is The Highlands of Flower Mound, a well-to-do strip center that opened in February and is anchored by a Super Target. Across the street from The Highlands, another big commercial development is planned: Highlands Ranch, a 34-acre shopping center built around a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, a Western-themed spot complete with cattle guards and stone-strewn streams. Both projects will add 1 million square feet of commercial retail to the area and continue the big-box retail trend that projects like Parker Square supposedly should curb. It's clear from this that though Flower Mound's city planners appreciate Parker Square, it's not exactly what they're developing their city around. It's just another shopping center.
"We like to encourage the special projects that bring high quality," Lang says. "But that's a very general statement. I mean, you have to really look at each thing coming up...I hesitate to make that general statement, because then it sounds like, you know, we don't want Outback Steakhouse. Well, we do, actually."
It's a mess, really, if you look at it on paper. Even if you look at it in person. The attempts by Frisco's planners and developers to give the new-old city an identity and, just as important, a healthy tax base sound great. Individually. But when you put them together they don't quite fit, as though someone mixed up two boxes of jigsaw puzzle pieces, or stuck a white picket fence around Deep Ellum.
Think about it: A couple of miles away from Frisco Square is the Stonebriar Centre, the biggest, most active mall in North Texas. It's arguably a city unto itself, especially when you factor in all of the ancillary developments that have emerged in its shadow. Next door is a $300 million sports complex that includes the Dr Pepper/Seven Up Ballpark (the David M. Schwarz-designed home of the Texas Rangers' Double-A affiliate the Frisco RoughRiders) and the Dr Pepper StarCenter (home of the Texas Tornado, a Junior League hockey team, and a training facility for the Dallas Stars). Just up the road is a 115,000-square-foot convention center ready to go in April 2005. And just across Main Street from Frisco Square, the Dallas Burn's new stadium and soccer complex (with 17 additional fields) is set to open next year.
This doesn't even include the new hotels and office parks that are in the works, or the extension to the tollway that will open now that the state Highway 121 interchange is complete. Or, for that matter, Frisco Square.
When it is all said and done, an almost entirely new city will stand just to the left of where the old one used to be, and it'll be as big and powerful as any city, outside of Dallas and Fort Worth, in North Texas. Which will make it tough to maintain a small-town environment while incorporating the amenities of a big city, the stated goal of Frisco Square. "We laugh because a lot of people used to consider 121 sort of the edge of the earth," Hanson says. Frisco Square alone will be "one-third the size of downtown Fort Worth," she adds. "You know, it's huge."
This big, ambitious development had its serendipitous birth in the late 1990s. McDowell had started working on a residential development in Frisco; about the same time, the city was trying to decide what it wanted to do with the acreage it had bought and earmarked for its new city hall, how it possibly could lay out a new downtown around the building. City Manager George Purefoy served as a bridge between the separate projects. He had seen what was going on in Southlake and Flower Mound, and he thought something similar would work in Frisco. Together with city planning director John Lettellier, they began preliminary discussions. Eventually, Schwarz was brought in to start working on development standards and site layouts. All of this was strongly encouraged by then-Mayor Kathy Seei.
"The mayor looked at [the sprawl and overdone residential developments] happening in Plano and said, 'I don't want this to happen to Frisco. I want my town to develop differently. And I want to keep some of the values of the original place,'" Schwarz says.
Lettellier agreed. He'd been a city planner in Plano and knew the potential pitfalls that lay ahead for the growing city, how explosive growth can have explosive results. After more than a year of meetings, the concept of Frisco Square was born. Lettellier and the various city offices set about the task of figuring out how they wanted to raise it.
"They were open to the concept of traditional town development--new urbanism. They saw the value in it," Lettellier says of the city council and zoning and planning commissions. "They saw what's happening in Southlake. We visited Celebration in Florida, did a lot of research from these type of developments, and the city was very comfortable in trying to do something like that."
In November 2001, the city officially broke ground on Frisco Square, the $600 million, 4 million-square-foot development that will contain all of the city's offices, as well as a library, church, police station, senior center and dozens of parks and gardens, plus high-end apartments and townhomes. Schwarz came up with the master plan and is designing some of the buildings. With Frisco growing at an exponential rate--according to the U.S. Census, it's the fastest-growing city in Texas and one of the fastest-growing in the country--McDowell's plan was for the 100-year-old city to start fresh. With so many new faces in Frisco, it was a fine time to try, and Frisco Square is the right place to do it.
"The vision is about building community pride and a sense of place," McDowell says. "I believe in building more than just financially viable office and retail developments. If you create the density and project tenant mix that keeps people from retreating to their cars to go to lunch or the dry cleaners, if you provide a venue for people to gather together for special events, then you get to know your neighbors. That's how you create community."
Celebration, the "city" Disney opened for business in 1996, tried the same thing. A residential development 30 miles outside downtown Orlando, Celebration was designed to mirror a pre-World War II small town. It was to be a model for how a town should work, where people knew their neighbors and everything was in walking distance: stores, city services, entertainment, whatever. It would be racially and financially diverse, less a community than another Magic Kingdom.
Celebration turned out to be as white as a sheet of paper and just about as blank. Residents didn't sit on their front porches visiting with neighbors; they sat inside watching television. People still used their cars because they had to: The stores on Market Street seemed to cater more to tourists than to Celebration's citizens. The city was too insulated, and Disney and the "town fathers"--the city's informal leadership committee--were too controlling. As Bill Potts, a retired home builder and father of one of Celebration's disgruntled residents, says at the end of Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town, Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins' 1999 book documenting the community's first three years: "[Disney] may be able to build an amusement park, but they can't build a town." A sense of community developed in Celebration, but it was in spite of the town's planners, not because of them. The same thing could happen to Frisco Square, says writer Alex Marshall.
"Because they're built around the car and they really have to be for people to have access to them, then the normal routine of daily life really doesn't change very much usually," Marshall says. "People usually still have to drive to get to the supermarket. It's very difficult to get any kind of commerce going in these places, because for a store to work, they need exposure to traffic. So, you can't have a town square in the middle of a subdivision be successful commercially. You just don't have the density. You don't have enough traffic, so they tend to be problematic.
"The neo-traditional subdivisions outside of town...I'm pretty skeptical of," he continues. "They tend to say that they are a return to traditional small towns, but I think it's kind of fake. Traditional small towns don't stand for exclusivity or privatization. These subdivisions, they're typically governed by a homeowners' association. That's not a real town; that's a private real estate venture. Basically, they tend to be just another subdivision, but they tend to try to hide that."
Frisco Square is managed by a homeowners' association; it's a selling point, in fact, a way to attract people who want the maintenance-free lifestyle the homeowners' association will ensure. And Frisco Square's price structure naturally guarantees exclusivity: The homes range from 2,900 to 4,200 square feet with prices as high as $500,000. The apartments aren't much cheaper, and with their granite countertops and high-end fixtures, they can't be. Lower-price-point homes are next on the agenda, Hanson says, but don't expect them to be that much lower.
So you won't have to worry about who's living next door to you at Frisco Square. They'll be well-off, upper-middle to lower-upper, just like you. They might even make good neighbors. And McDowell may yet succeed at building a community where he's building his development. Most likely not the one he's selling.
If you want an even better idea of what Frisco Square eventually will be, get back on state Highway 121 and drive another 30 minutes west and south, and you'll end up in Southlake. This is where the model for mixed-use developments exists. Literally. Southlake Town Square is on the cover of the Urban Land Institute's Mixed-Use Development Handbook, a how-to guide for city planners.
It's not Frisco Square, either. Not exactly, not yet. But it's closer to it than Parker Square is: After a protracted dispute with the city and some of its residents, Cooper & Stebbins--the project's developer--is building its first phase of 29 brownstones around Southlake Town Square (35 people are on the waiting list to buy one), with a second phase of 39 following soon after. The number eventually will be 155.
Once the new homes are in place, the development will be much more comparable to Frisco Square, the kind of place where, ideally, you can live, work, shop and play. Right now, three out of four ain't bad.
On a Friday afternoon, Southlake Town Square looks exactly like the photo on the cover of ULI's handbook. The imposing columns of Southlake's red-brick courthouse overlook a cozy park with a pair of fountains and dozens of children at play. A grandmother and her grandson share a snowcone. Another kid shares a scoop of ice cream with his shirt. The demographics are perfect--multiple ages, races, the whole bit.
More so than Parker Square, Southlake Town Square is a real mall, only with a courthouse as the main anchor store. Tenants include The Gap, Eddie Bauer, Bath & Body Works, Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and, of course, a Starbucks. It's slightly upscale, but then, so is Southlake. It's as though someone chopped the top off NorthPark and made it a convertible.
Once again, Schwarz's hand is evident right away: another mess of nostalgic storefronts, separate but equal, different but the same. This is what suburban cities look like, if you forget 60 years of history. Or that none of this was here a decade ago.
Today, it's bustling. You have to circle a bit to find a parking space, and even then, you have to engage in a bit of defensive driving to get it. When you circle, however, the most distressing aspect of Southlake Town Square pops up: The development already has an adjacent strip center, a one-story complex around back called The West Side District. Euphemisms aside, it's a strip mall. But whatever.
"For Southlake it creates a downtown core that we did not have," says Greg Last, the city's director of economic development. Since it opened in 1999, he's given tours to city leaders from all over the country, most recently the mayor of San Antonio. "In order to hold a homecoming parade, we had to go to Grapevine and borrow Main Street. When Town Square was finished, they had their first homecoming parade actually in Southlake. It was phenomenal--people pushing baby carriages and kids in the parade and bands playing and antique cars going down the road."
Southlake had an instant history. Thanks in large part to Schwarz, it doesn't seem so short-lived. This is why many of his critics accuse him of being little more than a nostalgia rapist, pilfering from the past to create his vision. Instead of lending authenticity, they say, it adds the fakeness of which Marshall speaks.
Schwarz believes he's doing things the right way and doing right by the people and cities that hire him. In Frisco, in Flower Mound and here in Southlake, there is a development war going on, and he wants to be on the winning side.
"There are those people who are building big-box retail in a fashion that defeats pedestrianism," Schwarz says from his Washington, D.C., office. "It doesn't even deny it--it defeats it, makes it impossible and really locks you into development patterns that have been postwar development patterns throughout the Sun Belt. And there are those forces that are pushing to look at Texas traditions of towns from the 1890s until some time in the 1940s and say, you know, Texas has a great tradition of pedestrianism and town-building and actually has some of the finest towns in the United States, I think, and trying to build on that."
Barb Cominoli has already drunk the Kool-Aid that Frisco Square is offering, so to speak. The company she works for, Quantum Custom Homes, is one of the companies that has signed on to build homes in the development. Quantum believes in the project so much, it doesn't sell homes anywhere else. Cominoli is, let's just say, enthusiastic.
"That's where we want to be," Cominoli says. "We've decided that we want to be a part of that community, and we've got both feet in there. We're staying for the long haul! It's getting back to where neighbors know neighbors. Kids can play stickball in the street. The neighbors are on the stoop and hi-de-ho and having a barbecue. It's everybody being around in a community, being able to sit in parks together and take long walks to the library, and you can walk to a restaurant and meet your friends and walk back home and not have to keep driving in your car and messing with traffic."
If Marshall is correct, you would have to keep driving. But that doesn't deter Cominoli; if this were a Bond movie, she would be the Oddjob to McDowell's Auric Goldfinger, making sure everything goes according to plan, keeping everyone on message. Except she's not sinister, just committed. Nor does it bother people who have no real business interest in Frisco Square. Residents such as Lisa Feldman, who bought a townhome in December 2002 and is one of what Debby Hanson calls the "true pioneers...willing to live without landscaping and sidewalks because they see the potential."
Feldman is here for "what it will hopefully be in three to five years. I'm originally from back East, and my boyfriend is more of a downtown person, so we were hoping to get the downtown feel but in Frisco and not have to pay the downtown prices."
That this downtown feel is achieved to this point in what is largely a suburban field does not deter true believers like Feldman. One or two days a week, she baby-sits one of the model homes on the property, selling the space to potential residents. At the moment, she has only five neighbors.
If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.
You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) - please keep an eye on your mailbox, we're movin' in!
Hanson and Five Star know that number won't stay so low for long. When things get up and running and people see how it really works, there won't be enough room for all the people who want to live and work and shop and play at Frisco Square.
"I think it will flip-flop depending on the person, but I think you'll get somebody who offices in here and maybe drives 10 or 15 minutes every day and says, 'This is crazy when I could live in Frisco Square and walk to my office,'" Hanson says. "Same for--we have a lot of retailers that would love to live above their retail space, which is a concept that is not unknown in New York or Chicago or any other city. I think it will just really depend on the amount of buildings that are here."
And not necessarily how the buildings look, either. McDowell wants a 1920s-style town center whether it ends up looking like one or not. He just needs a place for the traditions to start.
"Yankee Stadium is not necessarily a great feat of architectural vision," McDowell says. "But if you ask people about it who live in the community, they will tell you that it is. That's because it's been there for so long that they have memories tied to it. That's the business I want to be in."


text:
Scouting combine winners: Tyrann Mathieu begins a big turnaround
NFL teams will generally tell you that players who have strong combine drills just have them going back to the tape. That said, players with great athletic exploits up their stock all the time. You can say all you want about how the "Underwear Olympics" have nothing to do with the actual game of football, but don't tell Vernon Davis and others like him. The San Francisco 49ers star tight end and Maryland alum hit the 2006 scouting combine like a ton of bricks, running a 4.37 40-yard dash at 6-foot-3 and 254 pounds. That workout shot him into the top of the first round, and there's no way he would have gone sixth overall without it.
Yes, the league values football acumen, but it's also about height/weight/speed guys, and the combine is where you'll find them. In addition, there are those players who see this week as an opportunity to freshen up their reputations on and off the field. This year's list of combine winners is headlined by just such a young man.
Tyrann Mathieu, CB, LSU: If Mathieu had put up a Manti Te'o-level combine performance, there was a distinct chance no NFL team would have drafted him at all. You're definitely swimming upstream as an NFL prospect when you get booted off the team for multiple violations of your college team's substance-abuse policy, as Mathieu did before the 2012 season. But Mathieu came to Indianapolis and put up a workout that couldn't have gone much better. Not only did he run a 4.5 40, but he also looked extremely agile in drills. His backpedal-to-turn was smooth, he ran very well in space, and he even showed off a little bit by high-pointing both balls thrown to him. He's a little undersized to be a starting cornerback in the NFL, but I could see a team taking a shot on Mathieu as a slot corner in the third round ... if all the baggage checks out.
[Related: Mathieu starts NFL redemption process with strong combine performance]
"I feel like it has gone good," Mathieu told the NFL Network after his workout. "Everything I have worked for the past two months. To come out here and put it together, be on a football field, I am extremely blessed."
He also talked about his "complicated" past.
"I didn't have everything together back in college. I had everything together as far as football, but when it came to my social life, my personnel life, I didn't have everything intact. I didn't have my emotions intact. Spiritually, I wasn't intact. Once you take football away, you are able to work on the person. These last six months, that is all I had was Tyrann the person. I attacked the person, I attacked my issues. I think that is why I am here at the combine ... Back when I was the Honey Badger, I didn't have everything intact. Going forward, I am going to focus on being Tyrann Mathieu and that is the person I want to control right now."
I've seen a lot of athletes try to put their past behind them with similar testimonials. I think that Mathieu is sincere in his desire to better himself. We'll see how it plays out, but as comebacks go, this was sufficiently impressive.
Sharrif Floyd, DT, Florida: Floyd already was a rising star among those watching college game tape -- at his best, he reminds of a young Richard Seymour with his ability to destroy blocks and hand-fight through double teams. But on the field, Floyd just worked those drills over as if they were some poor second-string tackle. He ran a 4.92 40-yard dash at 6-foot-2 and 297 pounds, and looked good enough in agility drills to solidify his status as a top-5 pick. As much as any player in this draft, the sky's the limit for Floyd.
[Also: NFL scouts blame coaching for Matt Barkley's struggles]
Desmond Trufant, CB, Washington: Trufant started his rise up the charts with a very strong Senior Bowl. There, he showed excellent overall technique in coverage and a nifty knack for jumping routes. The only real question remaining about Trufant was his straight-line speed, and he put that to rest with a workout in which he ran a 4.38 40, the third-best time among defensive backs. Also, he took his technique to the drills in Indy, looking smooth and quick from station to station. If he has an equally strong pro day, Trufant should expect to hear his name in the first round.
Margus Hunt, DE, SMU: At 6-foot-8 and 277 pounds (he looks like he could easily bulk up to 290), the Estonian star knocked it out of the park in Indy. He ran a 4.6 40, and benched 38 times -- proving his unique combination of athleticism and pure strength. Where he needs work is in his ability to get leverage at the line of scrimmage, and this was evident at the Senior Bowl. He was frequently knocked and pushed out of the action far too easily. However, I could see a team taking a second-round flyer on Hunt and working with him on weight and leverage. I shudder to think what he'd look like alongside J.J. Watt in Houston in a year or two.
Ezekiel Ansah, DE, BYU: The combine is tailor-made for players like Hunt and Ansah, raw athletes with quick-twitch fibers who can light up a track. Ansah also struggled in Senior Bowl practices, but went off in the game itself. There are times on tape when he appears nearly unstoppable, and that was the case during his workouts. He ran a 4.63 40, which you'd expect of a former track star from Ghana, and burned the best time in the short shuttle with a 4.26. Don't be surprised if some NFL team falls head over heels for Ansah's athleticism, forgets about the raw aspects of his play, and snags him in the top 15.
Barkevious Mingo, DE, LSU: Speaking of athleticism, Mingo beat out every other lineman, and quite a few people at other positions, with his workout. He ran a 4.58 official 40 at 6-foot-4 and 241 pounds, and racked up very nice numbers in the three-cone and short shuttle. Mingo's numbers at LSU were affected to a point by the Tigers frequently resorting to a "mush-rush" and reads as opposed to pure pass rush, but there's no questioning Mingo's burst. The question for NFL teams is whether he needs to bulk up a the next level.
[Also: Best combine performances ever]
Dion Jordan, DE/OLB, Oregon: Another guy who needed to bulk up, and he did. Jordan arrived at Travelle Gaines' West Hollywood gym after Oregon's season at 228 pounds. He entered Lucas Oil Stadium at 248 pounds, but that extra 20 cost him nothing in speed or athleticism. Jordan ran a 4.6 40 (not bad for a guy standing almost 6-foot-7), and added to what his tape shows regarding his pure speed in space. Jordan was frequently asked to cover slot receivers for the Ducks, and NFL teams will covet his versatility.
Matt Elam, S, Florida: Elam was thought to be the best safety in this draft class, and simply confirmed that with a fine workout in which he also surprised with his speed. At 5-foot-10 and 208 pounds, he ran a 4.54 40, and probably pushed himself into the first round.
More news from the Yahoo! Sports Minute:
Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
• Watch: NBA storylines to watch
• The New York Mets have an interesting new business partner
• Putting Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria's 'facts' to the test
• Michigan State's Chris Norman chooses seminary over NFL

subset: commoncrawl


text:
How will my money make a difference?
Every pound donated to St George's Bristol goes towards one of two areas: the eclectic artistic, education and exhibitions programme, or the vital maintenance and upkeep of the beautiful Georgian building that we call home. Without financial help, St George's could not programme high calibre concerts and events, or tend to the everyday needs of our 200 year old building and gardens. Every year we need to raise a third of our income from voluntary sources. Your financial support helps us book artists and helps us take music making experiences to children and adults in and around Bristol. It also helps with all the costs that go into keeping the show on the road: piano tuning, printing the brochures, fire prevention, security, gardening, cleaning, computer systems, stage lighting … the list goes on.
£10 can provide sheet music for the children of the Cosmos Choir
£25 will pay the travel expenses for a young artist to perform at St George's
£50 covers the cost of tuning the Steinway Grand Piano
£100 helps us provide free tickets to schools as part of our Education and Learning Programme
£250 is the hire cost of a harpsichord or PA system
£500 allows us to continue to develop the young artists of the future
£1,000 can help us produce new education projects
Every donation, large or small makes a difference: Click here to donate online
Thank you for your support – every pound helps.
Make a one off donation by phoning the Development Department on 0117 929 4929 ext 205 (Mon – Fri, 10am – 4pm) or you can send a cheque to 'St George's Bristol'.


text:
Need help? Advice?
10-6 EST, m-f
Got a playroom emergency? The SmartMax Power Vehicles Rescue Team is here to help banish boredom and replace it with good educational fun for your preschooler.
SmartMax magnetic building toys are designed to be both safe and fun for small children: the metal balls are 1.8" in diameter, too large to be hazardous, and the other magnetic pieces are sonic-welded for supreme strength, keeping magnets safely inside. This SmartMax magnetic building set includes wheels and other vehicle components, so kids can build a variety of SmartMax trucks, which are entertaining toys on their own as well.
Playing with SmartMax magnetic toys teaches your child the basics of magnetism, and encourages creativity and problem-solving – for instance, the "warm" colored bars only attract "cool" colored bars, so anything your child builds needs to take this into account. This SmartMax set can build three vehicles at a time; the 26 pieces include 2 medium bars, 1 long bar, 1 ball, 1 lever, 4 wheel pairs, 4 wheel caps, 1 container, 1 ladder, 2 cabins, and thorough illustrated instructions. For ages 3 and up.
WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD - Small parts. Not for children under 3 years.


text:
Photographs capture all aspects of army life
Outstanding photography from Army life celebrating the role of military photographers was recognised today at the annual Army Photographic Competition.
Army photographers deploy as soldiers with rifle and camera, taking the same risks as other infantrymen but also giving the public a unique, up-close view of the realities of conflict.
Away from operations they capture the day-to-day and the high points of Army life, from parades to sporting achievements.
The prizes will be awarded by General Sir Peter Wall, Chief of the General Staff, at a ceremony at The Imperial War Museum


text:
Able Friend Takes Aim at Royal Ascot Opener
The top-rated miler in the world, Able Friend, will take aim at the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-I) June 16 when the prestigious Royal Ascot meet gets off to a flying start with three group I races.
The top-rated miler in the world, Able Friend, will take aim at the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-I) June 16 when the prestigious Royal Ascot meet gets off to a flying start with three group I races.
Following the May 22 deadline for scratches, 16 3-year-olds remain eligible for the Investec Epsom Derby (Eng-I), set for June 6. The classic is Britain's richest race, with a prize fund of at least 1.325 million.
America's dual classic winner California Chrome is among several international stars that have been pre-entered in the July 4 Coral Eclipse Stakes (Eng-I) at Sandown Park.
Richard Hannon will bid for a second British classic success when he saddles both Osaila and Tiggy Wiggy in the QIPCO One Thousand Guineas (Eng-I) May 3 at Newmarket.
"There's a lot for them to consider, but when it comes to racing, the horse's fitness will not be a problem. It is much more down to the way the horse feels." -- Rae Guest on California Chrome.
Defending U.S. Horse of the Year California Chrome had Robbie Mills aboard for the first time April 15 at Newmarket, getting acquainted with the rider who will be his regular partner in the Rae Guest yard.
Great Britain's Thoroughbred Breeders' Association April 13 launched a significant campaign requesting industry support to prevent the decline of the British stayer.
A statement from Perry Martin, majority owner of Horse of the Year California Chrome, regarding a decision to send the 4-year-old colt to compete at Royal Ascot following his runner-up finish in the Dubai World Cup (UAE-I).
Tattersalls has cataloged 145 horses to its Craven breeze-up sale that will be conducted April 14-16 at the company's headquarters in Newmarket, England.
There are 307 horses, including broodmares, fillies/horses in training, weanlings, and 2-year-olds, cataloged for the Tattersalls February sale, set for Feb. 5 in Newmarket, England.
Florida-based bloodstock agent Justin Casse went to 525,000 guineas (US$867,620) to secure group III winner Esentepe, in foal to Frankel, on opening day of the Tattersalls December mare sale Dec. 1 in Newmarket.
The Tattersalls December foal sale closed Nov. 29 in Newmarket with records for total receipts and median price.
A filly from the first crop of the stallion Nathaniel was sold for 300,000 guineas to top the second day of the Tattersalls December Foal Sale as the Nov. 27 session produced gains in gross and average prices.
The Tattersalls December Foal Sale got off to a positive start Nov. 26 with across-the-board increases and a top price of 65,000 guineas for a colt by Bated Breath.
Qatar Racing's Peace and War, winner of the Darley Alcibiades (gr. I), has been injured and will not run in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) at Santa Anita Park Nov. 1.
Beverly D. Stakes (gr. IT) winner Euro Charline will return to trainer Marco Botti in England for a 4-year-old campaign that will include a bid for the $6-million Dubai Duty Free (UAE-I) at Meydan, it was announced Oct. 14.
Godolphin Racing classic winner Encke died the morning of Oct. 14 due to an injury sustained during routine training, according to trainer Charlie Appleby.
G Force rallied powerfully between rivals and collared last year's winner Gordon Lord Byron in the closing stages to capture the Betfred Sprint Cup (Eng-I) Sept. 6 at Haydock.
Lord Lloyd-Webber's The Fugue, a four-time group I stakes winner, has been retired, trainer John Gosden said. The mare earned more than $3 million in a 17-race career.
Someone asked me today to send them a link to the column I wrote five years ago about Yeats' record-breaking fourth Ascot Gold Cup victory. That got me thinking about this year's Gold Cup, which awakened those same feelings.
J. Keeler Johnson handicaps the Prince of Wales's Stakes (Eng-I) at Royal Ascot.
As Frankel's second season at stud comes to a close, Juddmonte Farms reports that the undefeated champion has been represented by 108 foals to date from his highly anticipated first crop.
Three-year-old sprinter Hot Streak looks to be the early favorite in the 17-horse field set for the King's Stand Stakes (Eng-I) June 17 at Royal Ascot.
Classic winners Kingman and Night of Thunder will renew their hot rivalry June 17 at Royal Ascot in the St. James's Palace Stakes (Eng-I) for 3-year-olds.
Sheikh Mohammed's homebred stallion and top miler Mark of Esteem was euthanized following a short illness in England.
Trainer Aidan O'Brien's hopes for a third straight win in the Investec Epsom Derby (gr. I) June 7 look to be riding on regally bred Australia.
Al Kazeem, a triple group I winner in England last year, has returned to training after proving subfertile at stud, according to the Racing Post.
Grade II winner Munnings was represented by his first winner as a stallion when his 2-year-old son Natural Order won at Doncaster Racecourse in England May 3.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has been cleared of any direct involvement in the Godolphin doping scandal by an internal inquiry.
In response to widespread media speculation Juddmonte Group chief executive Douglas Erskine-Crum issued a statement Dec. 4 saying Prince Khalid Abdullah's worldwide racing and breeding operation is not for sale.
Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms announced the retirement of its senior stallion Zamindar, who will be 20 years old in 2014.
The fees for Shadwell's European stallions remain largely unchanged for 2014 but a couple of have relocated within Great Britain.
Conor Murphy, owner and trainer of Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (gr. IT) hopeful Dimension, was born in 1983, just one year before the Breeders' Cup began.
Cityscape, decisive winner of the 2012 Dubai Duty Free (UAE-I), will stand in 2014 at Simon Sweeting's Overbury Stud in Gloucestershire, England, for a fee of 5,000 pounds(about $8,100 in United States funds).
Wertheimer Et Frere has confirmed that Intello, its leading French-trained colt, will take up stallion duties at Cheveley Park Stud for the 2014 and 2015 breeding seasons, and then at the Haras du Quesnay for two years.
Trainer Aidan O'Brien may skip Ascot this weekend if going is soft and head directly to the Breeders' Cup Classic (gr. I) with Declaration of War.
A background in foreign pedigrees and careful study of previous weight assignments helped Anne Eberhardt Keogh choose Sheikh Albadou in the 1991 Breeders' Cup Sprint (gr. I).
The company that owns three of the four racetracks with synthetic surfaces in England said Oct. 9 it will launch the "All-Weather Championships," a series of qualifiers and a championship day April 18, 2014.
Lanwades Stud and Adena Springs are pleased to announce the relocation of Epsom Derby (Eng-I) winner North Light to stand at Lanwades beginning in 2014. His fee has been set at 6,000.
Lanwades Stud and HallMarc Stallions announced Sept. 26 the relocation of leading American sire Leroidesanimaux to stand at Lanwades in Newmarket beginning in 2014.
Multiple group I winner Al Kazeem will retire at the end of this year to stand at the Royal Studs for the 2014 breeding season, as reported Sept. 18 by the Racing Post.
Robin Scully, prominent Thoroughbred breeder and owner, died in his sleep July 12 at his home, Abbottswood, in the village of Stow-on-the-Wold, in the English Cotswolds. He was 89 years old.
Cristina Patino's Snow Fairy, a 6-year-old daughter of Intikhab who won six group I races in four different countries, has been retired.
Shadwell Stud announced the appointment of Rachael Gowland to the position of marketing and nominations manager.
View the sights and races from the Royal Ascot race meet.
Swinging Song became the first winner for dual grade I winner Mr. Sidney when she won the Prix Ginetta at Maisons-Lafitte June 21.
Al Kazeem proved to be a cut above June 19 at Royal Ascot when he burst from the pack and wore down pacesetter Mukhadram to win the Prince of Wales's Stakes (Eng-I), vanquishing favorite Camelot for a second time.
At The Races commentator Matt Chapman previews and handicaps day 2 of the Royal Ascot meet.
View moments in time from the life of trainer Sir Henry Cecil.
In less than a week, 5-year-old Animal Kingdom, winner of the 2011 Kentucky Derby (gr. I) and the Dubai World Cup (gr. I), will start in the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-I) at Royal Ascot.


text:
Despite oft-repeated statements by St. Johns County commissioners that the county needs far more commercial development and far less residential development, the board voted this week to greatly expand Worthington, a Greenbriar Road project, from 38 to 251 homes.
Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson moved to modify the project and allow a larger number of homes. It passed 3-2.
"This is one of the hardest decisions I've had to make," Stevenson said.
The major modification expands an already approved 56-acre, 38-home development by 227 acres sitting just west of Longleaf Pine Parkway.
County documents said, "A 2010 application for a concurrency determination for 251 single-family units was denied, finding inadequate transportation and school capacity."
A staff report said this project "appears to be incompatible with the surrounding area." However, the county's Planning and Zoning Agency passed the new application in a 6-1 vote.
Stevenson cited an improving housing market and the need to "infill" already developed areas as reasons for her vote.
However, dissenting Commissioner Ken Bryan and Vice Chairman Jay Morris cited traffic concerns on narrow Greenbriar Road and an unwillingness to add several hundred units to the county's estimated 60,000 approved but unbuilt homes.
The board heard testimony from Phyllis Abbattiello, president of the Northwest St. Johns County Community Coalition, who said the area was already too congested.
"We want to keep traffic off Greenbriar and County Road 210 and off the (State Road 13) scenic highway," she said. "That's a protected highway. That's why they allowed only 35 homes the last time."
Abbattiello's husband, Albert, chairman of the William Bartram Scenic and Historic Highway Council, asked, "Why in the world would we need to build additional homes?"
St. Augustine attorney Doug Burnett, representing Worthington Developers LLC, said traffic may move better because the developer plans two center turn lanes for its two entrances. Cars traveling on Greenbriar Road will not need to stack up behind vehicles waiting to turn, he said.
Homes in the development will cost somewhere near $327,000, above the average sale in that ZIP code of $280,000.
In addition, the projected prices are far above the "break-even price" of $212,000. The break-even price is when the cost of fire, law enforcement and other community services equals what a homeowner pays in county taxes.
"This project would bring (the county) $2.3 million to $3.4 million in impact fees immediately," Burnett said. "It will also bring the county $95,000 annually over the break-even point."
There would also be amenities such as open space and active recreation areas not offered with the original project.
"You get a much better project through this modification," Burnett said.
Abbattiello told the commission there are five schools in that area.
"The people of the Northwest are tired of (developers) going in to get approval for projects and then saying that these homes are too small," she said. "(The county may be getting money), but think about what we as residents have to pay. We have a lot of houses to sell, and this is not the time. We need commercial."
Commission Chairman Mark Miner said he's often talked about the over-abundance of residential development in the county.
"But I support private property rights. I don't think we should say, 'If this is residential, we should deny it.' This has a positive net cash flow in the long term and short-term job growth. (This application) legally meets the county standards," he said.
Commissioner Ron Sanchez said he voted against the project the first time through because it had no turn lanes or recreational facilities.
"Does this project improve the situation for the people of the county? I feel like it does," he said.
However, Bryan said Wednesday that Worthington has not yet acquired clearance for the extra traffic or approval by the School Board for the extra students that 251 new homes would bring.
When those are obtained, the applicant will have to go before the commission again, he said.
"I also just didn't want to see more residential at this time," Bryan said. "It's just a little too much."


text:
Meek Mill Announces Dreams Come True Tour
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 12:28:07
Meek Mill Videos
Believe it!
Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill will be embarking on his second domestic headlining endeavor, aptly titled the Dreams Come True tour, starting on April 4 at Boston's House of Blues.
The tour will feature surprise performances from artists signed to his Dream Chasers label. Dreams & Nightmares is Mills' latest release.
Tour Dates:
April 4 - Boston, MA - House of Blues
April 5 - Philadelphia, PA - Tower Theatre
April 6 - Silver Springs, MD - The Fillmore
April 7 - New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
April 12 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogart's
April 14 - Chicago, IL - House of Blues
April 19 - Houston, TX - House of Blues
April 21 -Dallas, TX - House of Blues
April 26 - Los Angeles, CA - House of Blues
April 27 - Santa Ana, CA - The Observatory
April 28 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
Listen to Meek Mill "Believe It" Feat. Rick Ross:
Anyone plan to take in a Meek Mill show?
—Maggie Pannacione


text:
Alexander L. Johnston
1 portrait of Alexander L. Johnston
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Alexander L. Johnston
by Daniel John Pound, after George Chinnery
mixed-method engraving, mid 19th century
20 3/4 in. x 14 1/2 in. (527 mm x 368 mm) paper size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Pilgrim Trust, 1966
Reference Collection
Click on the links below to find out more:
Share this
Sitterback to top
- Alexander L. Johnston. Sitter in 1 portrait.
Artistsback to top
- George Chinnery (1774-1852), Painter. Artist associated with 14 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.
- Daniel John Pound (active 1842-1877), Engraver. Artist associated with 92 portraits.
Portrait setback to top
Subjects & Themesback to top
Events of 1830back to top
Current affairsGeorge IV dies at Windsor on 26 June; William IV succeeds to the throne.
Duke of Wellington resigns as Prime Minister to be succeeded by Earl Grey.
'Captain Swing' disturbances among agricultural districts in southern England. Taking their name from a mythical leader, hundreds of labourers break the threshing machines that threaten their winter employment.
Art and scienceLiverpool and Manchester Railway opens; MP William Huskisson is run down by a train and killed at the inaugural ceremony.
William Cobbett publishes Rural Rides; a nostalgic tribute to the English countryside which expresses dismay at the sweeping changes taking place.
InternationalJuly Revolution in France overthrows the Bourbon dynasty. Charles X goes into exile in England and Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orleans is proclaimed King by the Chamber of Deputies who fear European opposition to the declaration of a second Republic.
Tell us more back to top
Can you tell us more about this portrait? Spotted an error, information that is missing (a sitter's life dates, occupation or family relationships, or a date of portrait for example) or do you know anything that we don't know? If you have information to share please complete the form below.
If you require information from us, please use our Archive enquiry service. If you wish to license this image, please use our Rights and Images service.
Please note that we cannot provide valuations.
We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.


text:
Civil Rights in the Age of Obama - Event Audio/Video
Civil Rights Practice Group and The Heritage Foundation
|Civil Rights Practice Group
Listen & Download
[Full Video hosted on Heritage.org]
Some of President Obama's admirers and detractors have suggested that his election as President and the Democratic majorities in Congress may usher in a new civil rights era. Whether that is so, what policies this new era might usher in, and whether those policies are wise, are all subject to a healthy and exciting debate. Congress has already passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and is considering several more significant bills that concern race and gender–the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. More will likely be proposed this session. What effect should policymakers give to the President's campaign promise to move "beyond race?" What does the election of Barack Obama and the strong showing of Hillary Clinton mean for race- and gender-conscious measures to ensure equality are not necessary or justified? Do the new majorities in Congress suggest that the American people want such measures to be extended and expanded to new classes of people? What will the Supreme Court have to say about all this? Several potentially landmark cases are awaiting decision by the Supreme Court. The holdings of these cases, and how the political branches respond to them, are yet another hot topic for debate. This event took place on May 13, 2009.
- Mr. Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity
- Prof. Gail Heriot, University of San Diego School of Law and Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
- Ms. Jocelyn Samuels, Vice President for Education and Employment, National Women's Law Center
- Prof. Theodore M. Shaw, Columbia Law School and Former Director-Counsel and President, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
- Moderator: Mr. Todd Gaziano, Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation and Comissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
The Heritage Foundation
Washington, DC
[Return to the Multimedia menu]


text:
At the Fights
American Writers on Boxing
Edited by George Kimball & John Schulian
Library of America: 517 pp., $35
Part freak show, part sitcom, part mortal combat — ah, yes, behold the world of professional prizefighting, the face-break social network, an ultraviolent art and craft that to some is more subhuman than true sport. Or, as a fictional character unlocked by a key to Rod Serling's imagination once put it, ever so luridly: "Sport? Are you kiddin'? If there was headroom, they'd hold these things in sewers."
Oh, I miss it so.
Not the splatter of plasma and phlegm that would fleck any of us occupying a chair at ringside. Not the...


text: Hello! The reason why I am posting here is because I don't exactly know what my problem is caused by. Yesterday, I followed Surge's method of updating to 4.4.2 with root on my Verizon Galaxy S4. That was successful, and I soon after decided that I wanted to give HyperDrive RLS 16 a try on the 4.4.2 base. I installed HyperDrive, but when when I boot up the phone, I lost all root access, safestrap, and my WiFi will not turn on. I know how to fix the WiFi issue and its an easy fix with root, but the problem is that I totally lost root. When I open up SuperSu it says that the binaries are not installed, and I cannot install safestrap to even flash the Verizon modules to get wifi working. Any help would be much appreciated, and like I said, I do not know what the problem actually is so I asked it in general questions. Thanks in advance!


text: email@example.com (Pete Harlan) writes: > I pointed a gcc-3.4 machine that hasn't been updated in a few months > to your archive, and started by trying to install libc6, which > resulted in this: > > Unpacking replacement libc6 ... > dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.3.2.ds1-20_amd64.deb (--unpack): > trying to overwrite `/usr/lib64', which is also in package base-files > Errors were encountered while processing: > /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.3.2.ds1-20_amd64.deb > E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) You just missed the "everyone needs to update now sice we will break the upgrade path soon" mails a while back. The /lib64 and /usr/lib64 links have been moved from base-files to libc6 and the required hints for a smooth upgrade were only added temporarily. You have to use --force-overwrite now. MfG Goswin PS: going from gcc-3.4 back to pure64 can cause more problems


text:
All transportation services are provided to and from the school entrance.
The Town of Hamden provides bus service to Hamden residents living more than two miles from the school. Residents of other areas enter into private agreements with the bus companies.Connecticut Transit (the city bus) offers youth fare to all SHA students with the SHA personal ID card as identification. Managed Transportation Services, Inc. is available for residents of Cheshire, Wallingford, and Meriden.All Star Transportation serves the valley area, including Oxford, Seymour, Ansonia, Derby, Woodbridge, Bethany, Orange, West Haven, New Haven (Westville section) and Milford.First Student Bus Company, Inc. serves the shoreline areas of East Haven, North Branford, Branford, Guilford, Madison, Clinton, Westbrook, and Killingworth. Transportation is provided for school pick-up in the morning, at 3:00 p.m. and at 5:25 p.m.Managed Transportation Services, Inc. serves residents of Bridgeport, Fairfield, Trumbull, Stratford, Shelton, and parts of Milford.Managed Transportation Services, Inc. serves residents of Waterbury, Cheshire, Wallingford, and Meriden.
Juniors and seniors may drive to school and park in the student lot behind the school. A parking permit must be obtained from the Student Council; the fee is $25. Sophomores who have obtained their license may be granted parking permits if space allows.
Sunday, October 15, 2017 Open House1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 4, 2017Entrance Exam8:00 a.m. - NoonDoors will open at 8:00 a.m.Testing begins promptly at 8:30 a.m.and concludes at noon. Please arriveby 8:15 a.m.
A ministry of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
265 Benham Street, Hamden, CT 06514 P 203-288-2309 F 203-230-9680 © Sacred Heart Academy | Contact Us | Directions | Privacy Policy


text:
HEAT! A Bank Health Assessment Tool
Developments during the global financial crisis have highlighted the importance of differentiating across financial systems and institutions. Assessments of financial stability have increasingly considered the characteristics of individual banks within a financial system, as well as those with significant international reach, to identify vulnerabilities and inform policy decisions. This paper proposes a simple measure of bank soundness, the Bank Health Index (BHI), to facilitate preliminary analyses of individual financial institutions relative to their peers. The evidence suggests that the BHI is useful for a first-pass identification of bank soundness conditions. Automated spreadsheet templates of the bank Health Assessment Tool (HEAT!) are provided for users with access to the BankScope, Bloomberg and/or SNL database(s).
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
|Date of creation:
|09 Aug 2013
|Contact details of provider:
| Postal: International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA
Phone: (202) 623-7000
Fax: (202) 623-4661
Web page: http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm
More information through EDIRC
|Order Information:
|Web: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm
No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:13/177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jim Beardow)or (Hassan Zaidi)
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.


text:
Radiation Therapy Eases Foot Pain
A new study conducted by researchers at Saarland University Medical Center in Germany focused on patients suffering from chronic bone heel spurs. The study showed that radiation therapy provided relief.
With millions of American suffering from heel pain, commonly often diagnosed as plantar fasciitis, this could be a new form of treatment. Plantar fasciitis is a common problem for athletes – with some dealing with it for years and others never beating it.
Plantar fasciitis (PF) is best described as an inflammation of the thick tissue on the bottom of the foot running from the heel to the toes. Those with a severe case of PF often experience extreme pain and it often compromises their ability to walk and stand. It is often most problematic in the morning.
The Saarland study looked at 62 patients followed for one year. Twenty-nine received a standard dose ot radiation therapy, and 33 received a low dose. The radiation therapy used was external bean radiation that delivers radiation only at a specific part of the body.
The patients receiving the standard radiation dose found pain relief to be "highly significantly superior" and of the 29 patients receiving this dose, 80% had complete pain relief. The pain relief continued or improved for as long as 48 weeks after their treatment.
Dr. Marcus Niewald, a radiation oncologist at Saarland said that, "Radiation therapy has been used for its anti-inflammatory effect for more than 60 years." Researchers are, "… extremely encouraged by the results of the study because evidence of improved quality of life for patients in clearly evident with the standard radiation dose."
The study also found no acute side effect or long-term toxicity from the radiation therapy.
The study was published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology.
If you suffer from chronic plantar fasciitis, ask your podiatrist or doctor to research this study and see if it could be beneficial for you.
3 Comments on Radiation Therapy Eases Foot Pain
Thomas on
Tue, 23rd Oct 2012 3:50 am
Brian on
Tue, 23rd Oct 2012 7:53 pm
John on
Sun, 4th Nov 2012 10:04 pm
If you are suffering from chronic inflammation you should do your best to find the underlying cause instead of going for a quick fix, be it radiation therapy or anything else.
I'd like to understand whether the radiation is directly effecting the actual bone spur or somehow reducing the inflammation surrounding it. I'd expect the inflammation to come back after the treatment was stopped, unless the bone spur itself breaks up under this treatment.
I always suggest finding the cause. That's key to any problem, feet or otherwise. Regarding the radiation's effect on the spur, I'd have to get the full study to learn more.
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!


text:
Directed by James Mangold, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller, Larry Bagby and Shelby Lynne.
With Hollywood running out of good stories to retell, real-life biopics are fast becoming the dramas of choice for the big studios. And it's easy to see why: in many cases the histories, usually troubled, of the subjects are well known and there's no problem with creating credible characters. In a little over a year we've had four musical biopics - 'De-Lovely', 'Beyond the Sea', 'Ray' and now the Johnny Cash biopic 'Walk the Line' - all containing triumph, despair and redemption. Of the four, 'Walk the Line' is easily the best; poignant and uplifting without ever being too flashy and driven by two stars who, like the people they play here, seemed unlikely for each other at the outset but turn out to be great together.
Bookended by Cash's seminal concert at Folsom Prison in 1968, 'Walk the Line' traces Cash's (Phoenix) journey from a poverty stricken and tragic childhood through to his musical beginnings and first marriage and on to fame, the downward spiral with pills and salvation with the help of soulmate and wife-to-be June Carter Cash (Witherspoon). We see Cash as both larger than life and the everyman, trying to walk the tightrope between privacy and fame, with his safety net a woman who, like him, was unhappily married to someone else.
Writer-director James Mangold's career has been a difficult one to graph, containing as it does the low-key ('Heavy'), the under-appreciated ('Copland'), the Oscar-winning ('Girl, Interrupted'), the average ('Identity') and the throwaway ('Kate & Leopold'). But while 'Walk the Line' lives up to its title in terms of biopic conventions, Mangold is concerned with the man, rather than the legend and his unfussy direction means that his film is ultimately more affecting.
Many were puzzled when it was announced that Phoenix would play Cash, but in one of those inspired casting moves it becomes impossible to see anyone else in the part. Ditto Witherspoon, an actress who's always had a lot more to her than some of her choices would suggest and who co-creates a chemistry here that captures a relationship better than most films. Your admiration for the duo grows even more when you realise they both sang the songs onscreen and if 'Walk the Line' sometimes has a little too much music when it could've done with a little more drama (Patrick as Cash's aloof father deserved far more scenes) it's a minor point in a film whose lessons are worth hearing.
June Carter Cash died of complications following heart surgery in May 2003. Less than four months later Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes. On the liner notes to his compilation 'Love' in 2000, Cash wrote of his wife: "Never has there been a deeper love than my love for her. At times it was painful, but we shared the pain, so it was just half painful." This film is a fitting tribute to them and it.
Harry Guerin


text:
Co-produced by none other than Kanye West, we come across a new track by Daft Punk featuring Jay Z, titled "Computerized." The newly surfaced track supposedly did not make the cut for Random Access Memories or Magna Carta… Holy Grail.
UPDATE: According to the comments below, Kanye West was not involved in the track. We will keep you posted on any changes.
Listen to the track here below.


text: I've been trying to understand why VM can't in 8 weeks get my Triumph to work more than occationally, and I believe that Sprints LTE upgrades here in Minneapolis have effectively ended my VM EVDO service . Since VM doesn't have a LTE phone, only WIMAX, there's not even a phone upgrade to buy. I'm finding more and VM customers having huge service quality declines as well. Comments?


text:
No one likes going to the hospital, but it would be hard not to leave with a smile after seeing this medic.
A video posted online — titled "Rapping Staff Sergeant" — appears to show a medic give a little girl some instructions regarding her new leg cast in a unique manner: through a rap.
"Rules to follow about your cast, rules to follow to make the cast last," he starts off rapping.
"If the cast get wet, here's what to do. Take a blowdryer on a low setting, like one or two. Then dry the cast off, not too hot like the rockets we blast off," the rapping staff seargeant continues.
Since the video was posted online yesterday, it has gone viral, amassing more than a quarter-of-a-million views on YouTube.
[sharequote align="center"]"Man, I wish this dude is my doctor."[/sharequote]
"This is brilliant," one individual commented.
"Man, I wish this dude is my doctor," echoed another.
Watch the Viral Video:
Follow Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) on Twitter


text:
Sean Tuohy eBooks
eBooks found: 1
In a Heartbeat
Sally Jenkins & Leigh Anne Tuohy & Leigh Anne Anne Tuohy & Sean Tuohy
Henry Holt and Co., July 2010
Format: ePub
eBookMall is a recognized leader in eBooks. eBook downloads in PDF and ePub formats.
Choose from 600,000+ eBooks and get a Free eBook download now!
Copyright © 2000-2017 eBookMall.com This website is subject to copyright laws and may be covered by other intellectual property.
All rights reserved.


text:
(Tune: "Immortal, Invisible")
Words by Gary Shepard
We gather this morning to worship and praise,
The God of all glory, the Ancient of Days.
None other is worthy but Jesus alone
God's Lamb once provided, His blood has atoned.
From sin and from darkness, He brings out His own
Through preaching the gospel to them He makes known,
The riches of glory and grace by His cross:
Eternal possessions which cannot be lost.
Praise be to the Father who chose us in grace.
Praise be to the Son who has died in our place.
Praise be to the Spirit who gave us new birth.
Praise be to the One God of heaven and earth.
With all of our hearts does the Lord bid us sing
Come humbly before Him , thanksgiving to bring.
All others are idols, He lives, God alone
By grace He has saved us and made us His own.
Today's Speaker: Brother Randy Wages will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God's word.
Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM.
Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM –WISK.
Web Sites: Visit our web sites at: Reign of Grace: www.rofgrace.com
Sermon Audio: www.Sermonaudio.com\reignofgrace
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reignofgrace
Birthdays: Richman Margeson – Jan. 20th , Bill Sparks – Jan. 22nd , Tim Hall – Jan. 26th
All of God's gracious dealings with His chosen people are from everlasting because He is "the everlasting God" (Genesis 21:33) whose "mercy is from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 103:17). Indeed, since it is written that Christ is "the everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6), then He must have everlasting children for whom He has everlasting affection. "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). Here is love without beginning, ending or cause. It is evident that the everlasting Lord loved His everlasting children with an everlasting love for He chose us unto an "everlasting salvation" (Isaiah 45:17) in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). View the "everlasting covenant" (Hebrews 13:20) of grace and see in that blessed contract God's everlasting concern, care and provision for His beloved people. He set apart His Son to be the Mediator and Surety of that very covenant and committed His elect and all of their concerns into "the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27) of their almighty Savior. Behold the Son of God dying on the cross, enduring infinite wrath so that God could save sinners, not at the expense of His justice, but with its full blessing. The message of the good news of His glorious person and finished work is therefore called, with good reason, "the everlasting gospel" (Revelation 14:6). According to God's everlasting purpose, Christ died and arose to enable God to be both just and Justifier. We are assured that by His justice-satisfying, guilt-removing, transgression-finishing death, He saved His people from their sins and brought in "everlasting righteousness" (Daniel 9:24). In time, the Lord's redeemed, reconciled and justified people are regenerated by the Spirit and brought to believe on Christ, and they are assured that in Him they already have "everlasting life" (John 5:24). Though we are still a sinful people, yet the Lord has given us an "everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:16). We are comforted in knowing that our everlasting salvation was conditioned solely upon Christ and His faithfulness to do the work committed to Him. When the Lord calls us home to glory, we will then realize the fulfillment of that glorious promise, "And so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:11).
--- Pastor Jim Byrd
"One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His temple." (Psalm 27:4) As we begin another new year, let us not make useless resolutions we all know we will not keep. Let us, however, as children of God, sinners saved and given all the blessings of eternal life by His grace in Christ, resolve to "seek after" Christ and the things of God more than we ever have. Let us resolve to love Him and His people more and to know Him and His Word more. Let us resolve every day to give Christ all the glory and praise He deserves as He in sovereign grace and mercy has freely given us all of salvation and preserves us unto the end. "The beauty of the Lord" is found in Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate, and in His accomplished work of redemption to secure the forgiveness of our sins by His blood and our justification before God by His righteousness imputed. We are accepted in HIM, and He has given us spiritual life to desire His glory and praise. He is our beauty, and therefore, let us resolve to seek Him more, to know Him more, to trust and follow Him more. Let us all pray that God Who has given us this holy desire to cause this desire to grow so that we not only resolve to seek after Him, dwell in His house all the days of our lives, behold His beauty, and inquire in His temple, but that we follow through with our resolve. Let us pray to our God for such an intense desire to do these things that we cannot help but act upon it to the praise of the glory of His grace in Christ our Lord and Savior.
--- Pastor Bill Parker
"Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." Luke 21:28
The time of Christ's second coming approaches, and it befits His disciples to think of that event and iligently prepare for it. But if we do not witness the descent of our Lord in the clouds, death will soon come and usher us into His presence; and before that we may be exposed to many and painful troubles, so that the direction given by our Lord to us as His disciples may be just suitable, "Then look up!" We are entering upon a new year. We shall have new toils, new trials, new temptations, and new troubles. But whenever they come, let us "look up!" Look not upon or within ourselves, but upon Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Look not to others for wisdom, understanding, peace, and comfort, but to His Word, for all these blessings come in believing and resting in Him. LOOK UP! (Copied)


text:
CAIRO, Ga. - Strolling among the stacks of lumber at his sawmill, Ryan Lee points to a section of an ancient cypress tree that was cut down more than a century ago and to heart-pine lumber that still bears the marks of a 19th-century logger's ax.
Print-ready version
Send to a friend
Subscribe to the Banner-Herald
E-mail the Editor
Discuss in Forums
"This wood lets us connect with the past," he said. "It's something that was alive centuries ago."
Along with regular lumber, Lee's mill supplies cypress and pine from deadhead logs - those that sank in rivers while they were being rafted to ports and sawmills during the heyday of Southern logging in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Wood from the sunken logs, revered for its tight grain and array of colors ranging from blond to caramel to black, is up to 10 times more valuable than conventional wood. It is used to make upscale paneling, flooring and furniture.
However, retrieving these logs from river bottoms has been illegal in Georgia since 1998 because of legal and environmental concerns, forcing suppliers such as Lee to buy wood in other states, such as Florida and Louisiana.
But that's about to change.
Over the objections of anglers and environmentalists, Georgia lawmakers earlier this year approved legislation authorizing underwater logging for two years on navigable portions of the Flint and Altamaha rivers, which both wind mostly through South Georgia. If there are no problems with the logging, the law might be extended.
Republican state Sen. Tommie Williams of Lyons sees underwater logging as a way to pay a final tribute to the backbreaking work of the old loggers, including four generations of his family, who felled trees with axes or crosscut saws and hitched them to mules or oxen to haul them to the rivers.
The logs came from century-old longleaf pines that stood in the South's primeval forest and from 600- to 1,200-year-old cypress trees that grew in isolated swamps, such as the Okefenokee.
"It's really a treasure," Williams said. "The quality of the wood and the uniqueness of the wood is something we can't duplicate. There really aren't any virgin forests left."
Williams' ancestors lashed the logs together in rafts and floated them down the Altamaha to the port at Darien, where ships awaited in the harbor.
"In its heyday, they say you could walk for miles on the river on rafts waiting to be loaded," he said.
Loggers along other Southern rivers, such as the Flint, used the same technique to get their logs downstream.
An estimated 3 percent to 5 percent of the millions of logs sent down the rivers sank to the bottom before they reached their destination. These deadheads, also known as "sinkers," remain well-preserved on river bottoms.
With passage of the deadhead logging bill earlier this year, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources began developing regulations to protect the rivers, recreational users of the rivers, and the state, which technically owns the submerged logs.
The department plans to begin accepting applications from loggers in January 2006. Applicants will have to post a $50,000 bond to cover damages and they'll need a $10,000 license. A proposal, not yet approved by the state Board of Natural Resources, also would require loggers to pay the state 20 percent of the logs' value to compensate for the loss of state-owned property.
With such stringent and costly requirements, Williams said he'd be surprised if there are more than three or four applicants.
Each license will cover only a two-mile stretch of a river. Deadhead logging still will be prohibited in areas where it could cause contamination, endanger fish or conflict with the rivers' recreational use.
Environmentalists oppose the work, citing concerns for spawning fish, water quality and the legality of disposing of state property at less than market value.
"We have consistently said this is a bad idea economically," said Deborah Sheppard, executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper, a Darien-based river watchdog group. "It's a bad idea environmentally. This is the nursery grounds of the river. To create a business that benefits a few ... certainly is not in the public interest."
Williams said Georgia's deadhead logging law is patterned after Florida's program, which is in its sixth year. "The folks in Florida have come up with a safe way to do this," he said. "I didn't see a reason, as long as we could protect the environment, that we shouldn't do it."
Lee said his company, Riverwood Flooring and Paneling of Cairo, has been pushing the idea for nearly three years and already has a small barge with a winch to lift logs to the surface. But to attach cables to the logs, Lee would dive down to the logs in the Flint, which is infested with alligators, cottonmouth snakes and snapping turtles.
"This is not a job for the faint of heart," he said. "It's physically hard and demanding. Not everybody wants to do a job where every time you go to work, you could die. You're playing pixie sticks with 20-foot logs weighing 3,000 to 5,000 pounds. You can get squeezed."
But he thinks the rewards will be worth the risk.
"It's virgin-growth timber," he said. "There's a certain mystique to it."
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


text:
Hi, another question again, pls help!!!
Let r be a primitive root of the prime p with p congruent to 1 (mod 4). Show that -r is also a primitive root.
Thanks for your help!!!
What is the order of ?
Assume, and arrive at contradiction.
We have,
If, is even then we can drop the negative sign,
If, is odd then some difficultly arises.
So we cannot drop the negative sign,
Multiply through by ,
Since, odd we have even.
Thus, we can write,
We see that is a quadradic residue of .
Hence the Legendre symbol,
Since the Legendre symbol is multiplicative,
We know that,
Then by Euler's criterion we have,
But, is a primitive root
And, .
Thus, we have another contradiction.
Thus can never be odd.
That means the only possible choice is .


text:
John Fraher and Simone Meier
Monday, Oct 13, 2008
The U.S. Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood financial markets with dollars, backing up government efforts to restore confidence in the banking system.
The ECB, the Bank of England and the Swiss central bank will offer unlimited dollar funds in auctions with maturities of seven days, 28 days and 84 days at a fixed interest rate, the Washington-based Fed said today. The Bank of Japan may introduce "similar measures." The dollar declined and some money-market rates fell.
Policy makers from the Group of Seven nations pledged at the weekend to take "all necessary steps" to stem a market panic after the MSCI World stock index plunged 20 percent last week. Central banks last week cut interest rates in tandem for the first time since 2001, the U.S. plans to buy $700 billion in distressed assets from banks and in Europe, the U.K. is leading a push to keep lenders afloat with taxpayers' money.
(Article continues below)
"By providing unlimited dollar funds they are acting on the back of the G-7 plan to ensure the system is fully liquidized," said Lena Komileva, an economist at Tullet Prebon Plc in London. "We're going to see even more liquidity provided and more aggressive rate cuts are coming."
`Funding Stresses'
The dollar dropped after the announcement, falling as much as 0.9 percent to $1.3671. The cost of borrowing in euros for three months declined to 5.32 percent today from 5.38 percent, according to the European Banking Federation. Stocks rallied worldwide, with the MSCI World Index climbing 2 percent.
This article was posted: Monday, October 13, 2008 at 4:07 am


text:
REJUVENATED Essendon forward Scott Gumbleton says unfinished business he has at Windy Hill outweighed the lure of lucrative offers from rival clubs.
Gumbleton was linked to the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle last year during the AFL trade period.
But the 24-year-old Bomber turned his back on long-term offers, signing a one-year deal to stay at Windy Hill.
Gumbleton, plagued by chronic back problems, has played just 29 games in four seasons.
"A few clubs thought I might not get an opportunity at Essendon (brimming with tall options forward and back)," the 2006 No.2 draft pick told SEN this morning.
"I wanted to stay at the club, they've been good to me.
"It crossed my mind a little bit but in the end I didn't want to leave… I wanted to stay here with all my mates, I felt like I had to finish what I started at the club and that's what got me over the line."
Gumbleton made a barnstorming return kicking four goals in Saturday's 37-point win over St Kilda.
He clunked 12 marks as the Bombers' primary marking target inside-50 after Michael Hurley left the field with a leg injury.
Gumbleton will be joined by either Stewart Crameri or boom Bomber forward Joe Daniher in Thursday's Anzac Day blockbuster against Collingwood.
Originally published as Gumby keen to pay Dons back


text:
The Red Fox
- Birthplace: Ukraine
- Birthday: 1992-09-05
- Hair Color: Red
- Height: 5'8 (173cm)
- Bust Size: Medium
- Measurements: 35/24/35 (89/61/89)
- Aliases: Micca (Errotica-Archives), Michelle H (Metart), Marga E (Femjoy)
I like nature and the planet Earth. There are so many amazing things in this wonderful world. I like traveling and I want to smell different smells. I want to see different kinds of trees, flowers and plants. When I spend a holiday traveling, I always take a camera with me and photograph everything that interests or pleases me: the sights of a city, views of mountains, lakes, valleys and the ruins of ancient buildings.


text:
Balls looked very round and full of cum. What a job she did on his cock WOW
her name ??
why is he always wearing his clothes? pathetic
She is gorgeous. i love latin women!
Wow! She is beautiful!
He is always wearing his clothes because the girls are rentals and he don't want to waste time. so he makes the video short Lmaoo
Some errors occurred, please try again later


text: It seems to me that the Adaptive framework[1][2] is well-suited to STM transactions. Consider this snippet: > expensive_transaction :: STM Int -- does a bunch of work > > example :: TVar Int -> STM Int > example t = (+) <$> readTVar t <*> expensive_transaction If the TVar passed to example is rapidly changing (perhaps it represents the current time), then this transaction will starve; it never gets a chance to complete, even if the values used by expensive_transaction aren't changing at all, we still re-evaluate the entire action each time we "retry" this transaction. But STM has a wonderful property: what we need to commit a transaction is just the result value and a transaction log; both of these depend only on the values of TVars read by that transaction. So, if "expensive_transaction" doesn't refer to the TVar "t", then even if "t" is rapidly changing, the transaction log generated by "expensive_transaction" must not change, and we can just re-generate the part of the transaction log for "readTVar t" and recompute the (+). This gets even better when considering big processes that are blocked by an explicit "retry"; if some change in input is just going to cause the transaction to retry again (and go back to sleep), we'd like that to happen as quickly as possible. Has anyone looked down this path? It seems quite promising to me. -- ryan [1] http://hackage.haskell.org/package/Adaptive [2] Acar et al, Adaptive Functional Programming, POPL 2002 http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/old/752721.html


text:
King's Lynn incinerator: Saddlebow inquiry opens
The public inquiry into plans for a controversial £500m waste incinerator proposal in King's Lynn has resumed.
The plan is backed by Norfolk County Council but is opposed by West Norfolk Council. In a poll 65,000 residents voted against the plans.
Corey Wheelabrator, the consortium behind the plans, opened proceedings at the West Norfolk Professional Development Centre earlier.
It is anticipated the inquiry will last until 19 April.
Hundreds of people attended the first day of the inquiry last Tuesday.
Lawyers for the four main parties - Cory Wheelabrator, Norfolk County Council, King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council (KLWBC) and the campaign group King's Lynn Without Incineration (KLWIN) - made their opening statements.
Corey Wheelabrator and the county council are for the incinerator, KLWBC and KLWIN are against the plans.


text:
Hallmark Channel marched its way to an expansive theatrical-acquisition deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution.
The multiyear agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, encompasses 39 feature films, highlighted by the U.S. television premiere of March of the Penguins.
March of the Penguins -- the Academy Award-winning documentary that chronicles the innate life-affirming journey of the Emperor Penguin across Antarctica -- will make its debut on Hallmark sometime during the upcoming holiday season, according to network officials.
The deal, the network's largest with Warner Bros., also gives Hallmark the rights to ancient-world action picture Troy, Miss Congeniality, The In-Laws, Kangaroo Jack, Phantom of the Opera, The Bridges of Madison County, City Slickers, Little Giants, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Felicity: An American Girl Adventure and Samantha: An American Girl Holiday.
"This movie package is the next major step for us as we continue to offer an unparalleled viewing destination that appeals to the contemporary family, and it is a key element in our goal to become the most-watched cable network," Hallmark Channel senior vice president of acquisitions and programming Scott Anderson said in a prepared statement.


text:
Fergie and Josh Duhamel have yet to announce their baby's gender — but the singer's band mate apl.de.ap might have let the cat out of the bag.The Black Eyed Peas star accidentally let slip the sex of the couple's future addition to Life & Style, and referred to the baby as a SHE!
"Uncle apl.de.ap always gonna be around. She's probably going to be…." he told Life & Style on Saturday at the Time For Hope Gala, before trying to cover up his words, "Oh wait, he or she, is probably gonna be on tour with us and I can't wait."
PHOTO: How Pregnant Fergie Is Preparing for Baby
He adds, "Fergie's been wanting this and she's a great woman and she's going to be a great mother, too."
It was previously thought that the couple were expecting a little boy after Josh referred to the baby as a "he" in March.
EXCLUSIVE: Pregnant Fergie Talks Rock 'N' Roll Style
Fergie first hinted that she was pregnant via twitter Feb 18. Her rep later confirmed to Life & Style that the singer was expecting.
"Josh & Me & BABY makes three!!! #mylovelybabybump," she wrote along with a childhood photo of Josh, a superimposed childhood photo of herself and a cat.
Josh & Me & BABY makes three!!! #mylovelybabybump instagram.com/p/V4enzQEDJs/ twitter.com/Fergie/status/…— Fergie (@Fergie) February 18, 2013
Josh & Me & BABY makes three!!! #mylovelybabybump instagram.com/p/V4enzQEDJs/ twitter.com/Fergie/status/…
PHOTO: Josh Duhamel and Pregnant Wife Fergie Sport Matching Baby Bumps
This will be the first child for Fergie, 37, and her hubby, 40, who married in 2009 after dating for five years.
"It's very exciting," Josh gushes to Life & Style. "Seeing that ultrasound is unlike anything you've ever seen. You're like, 'Wow, it's mine.'"


text:
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
New Try at our Purposes and Principles
I have liked our current purposes and principles, and while I agree that such statements should be revised from time to time, I don't like this revision. One reason I don't like this revision is that I don't like the way the purposes and principles have moved into a creed-like place in our life together. People are taking them way too literally. I heard it just yesterday: "Our purposes and principles say we are for Peace and Justice. Therefore YOU SHOULD support (our idea of how to gain these two things.)
The Purposes and Principles have taken over RE in the same, concrete way. Ugh.
Given that background, I have to say that I don't like the basic format of the Commission's work. It has given us too many more words to make concrete in the "principles" section, and it has collapsed the "sources" section into a paragraph of prose (verbose prose at that) which is not suitable for use in liturgy. That will mean that those italicized principles will be all the more elevated and concretized in our life together.
It also elevates our paranoia about "cultural misappropriation" to by-law level and seems to permit others rather than ourselves to decide what is appropriate and respectful. I can tell you that there are millions upon millions of Christians who would say that our use of any kind of communion service is disrespectful to their doctrinal Christ, and that any prayer which does not end in the name of Jesus is an insult to the word prayer. These bylaws would allow them to criticize us and give us no way to make our own decisions. Even worse, they would allow some us to criticize others. I'm all for exercising sensitivity to other's sensibilities. But my experience with discussions of cultural misappropriation leads me to believe that this "sensitivity" is mostly used amongst us to distance ourselves from spirituality and dis those spiritual leaders who take the risk of introducing us to spiritual practice. With a bylaw like this, we will reduce ourselves again to classical music, intellectual sermons, social action and a moment of silence as our only legitimate shared spiritual practices. It just won't do.
And there's the statement that the highest purpose of our congregations is to "worship together to create beloved community" (sorry, that's not my primary goal and I think it is a very dangerous one)
It's been hard enough navigating the shoals of congregational life around seven principles. (see above). Navigating around seven principles, cultural misappropriation, and beloved community is not going to make us healthier.
6 comments:
- ogre said...
I'm waiting. I'm with you, and I was predisposed to be enthusiastic about the whole scary revision project.
I bumped into the misappropriation part and it rang funny... but I was busy looking at the rest and the concern didn't stick. I think you're right, it doesn't belong as a bylaw concern. Unleashing the police of a very amorphous sensitivity with a bylaw stick to beat those less appropriately sensitive would be a Bad Move.
Have you sent your concerns in to the appropriate committee? I think they are worth sharing.
Have you read Mr. Crankypants' version?
- PeaceBang said...
Thanks for this, Christine. I linked to you over at my place.
- fausto said...
The think that most grated on me was the use of the word "heretic". It seemed entirely gratuitous. And it also seemed to tacitly acknowledge the validity of the dominant religious opinion of us through the centuries -- that our beliefs are, not to beat around the bush, just plain wrong. What's the purpose of that?
I agree with CC that Dan Harper's revision is more inspired and inspiring.
- mjae said...
One thing I do like about the proposed revisions is the explicit acknowledgment of ongoing multiculturalism as a good and necessary thing to promote.
Our current ones always struck me as wishful thinking at best and white liberal blindness and disrespect at worst.
Still, not much in the italicized principles changed. So other than adding explanatory paragraphs and way long prelude, did anything significant CHANGE?
- Kelsey Atherton said...
My response to your response (boy, this is getting awfully meta) can be found here:
thought-provoking, certainly