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I have gone into great detail to back up my assertions and until someone can actually make a cogent argument against any of my points I will stand by my points.
Are you referring to superior coaching like not playing Rose and Boozer for almost entire 4th against us? BTW, didn't we beat the Bulls twice this year so far?
KBlack -- rebounding is a problem (which has been helped with D'Antoni playing Mozgov more often), but defense is where we are seeing are greatest downfalls. When our offense stutters, you get this sinking feeling that we won't be able to close out games because we rarely get consistent stops (especially against the better teams).We DO play similar defense to Atlanta on the whole. Are we better? No. But we aren't being blown away on the # of points per possession we give up, it's relatively close between a large chunk of teams in the middle...there are 7 teams sort of bunched at the top, a bunch of teams in the middle, and a number of teams bunched at the bottom. We are in the middle with ATL. It's 3 points per 100 possessions, we play similar defense per possession to ATL. The real problem is rebounding, we aren't even doing the BASICS when it comes to rebounding, which I see as a problem in personnel.
The Knicks can play better defense then they are now, but its not emphasized.
Originally Posted by Knicksin60
They tailored the gameplan to the roster, not the other way around.
Guess if I was simple in the mind...everything would be fine.
As for Free Throws...well, they can be one of two things: Free Throws, or Foul Shots. A team that takes Free Throws gets free points. A team that takes Foul Shots gets points wiped off the board that they should be getting. The year Dallas was really good they brought in a free throw coach, the only team in the league to do it. Coincidence that they finished top team in the league that year? Maybe, but probably not.
I would bet that if I took the W-L record of teams that outrebounded and shot a better free throw percentage than their opponents, it would be insanely high. That is what a lengthy study would do...just use it to show that rebounding + free throw percentage are up there as the most important factors in determining win/loss.
Originally Posted by Knicksin60
Then I see (most) games where its like they forgot how to play defense all together. Guys get into the lane way too easily, one guy rotates (late), and then no one else rotates to cover his man. Just sadness defined.
I grew up with the mid-90's Knicks. I grew up on a fundamental basketball. I grew up with a back-to-the-basket post presence. I know that is not what we have, but we need to at least defend. We need to play tough on both sides of he floor, but because of our style of play, I think our players are just too tired to play defense many games. That's why we don't see it as often (an especially as of late).
The All-Star Break is well needed at this point.
But we do the exact opposite. It's not only about how many FTs you take per game (those numbers could get misleading with a guy like STAT on the team) but you should probably try to use more of the shot clock and keep the possibility of getting to the line open...early shots kills both of those tactics. Offense should be inside out, and defense should be outside in. But instead we look for the early outside shot, and we let everyone penetrate from the outside to make attempts around the basket, and every once in a while our guys will but their athleticism on display and block a shot. But the opposition is getting to the spot they want, when they want to, and they're allowed to do what they want to.
Guess if I was simple in the mind...everything would be fine.
Those two points do not portend to anything having to do with Mikes philosophy. Are you saying we should not have picked up Amare or Felton? Were those pickups a result of obtaining the best players available or some attempt to placate D'ants system?
Further, we traded David Lee for 3 DEFENSIVE players in an attempt to sure up our D.
Azbuikie - potential all-star wing and elite perimeter defender. (when healthy)
Turiaf- Heart, hustle, defense and rebounding. (when healthy)
AR- potential is that of a two way player that can guard any position, alter shots and grab boards.
But how could this be!? D'ant only wants offensive players on his team as you assert yet we picked up 3 defenders...
Just to reiterate another one of my many points that you seem hellbent on ignoring evidenced by this latest post:
Jeffries, in fact, presents a strong counter-argument to those who contend that DAntoni cares only about offense. Jeffries was easily the Knicks least skilled offensive player. Yet he started 37 of 52 games this season and was sixth in minutes per game (28.1). He led the Knicks in charges drawn.[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]I think that Mikes a realist, Jeffries said. Defending, like anything else in the NBA, is a talent level. And you cant have people that are not great defenders and expect them to be great defenders. Just like you cant have people that arent great scorers and expect them to be great scorers. He put me out there to be a defender and he puts guys out there to be scorers. He does focus on defense, but if you dont have defensive players, then youre not going to be a great defensive team.
Just the facts folks!


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Good social skills are essential. The understatement meter in my pocket just exploded, but seriously, good interpersonal communication skills are primarily the oil which lubricates relationships.
When the giant standing next to me at the counter of the local takeaway place delivered his order over the top of mine and then said he was next, I realised two things immediately. One: the man had poor interpersonal skills and two; I had inadvertently jumped the queue. I apologised and made a quip about how I had never seen a line at this particular fast food venue. (In fact, people typically stand parallel to the counter and take note of who was already there when they arrived.)
The man's response to my apology was delivered in a gruff and aggrieved tone. "Just don't jump the queue mate. I don't want to argue about it."
"I don't want to argue about it" is in the same category as statements beginning with "to tell the truth" and "I don't want to say I told you so...". Like the positive onset with an obvious inflection broadcasting, a big "but' will follow.
Whether the big man with serious indignation at the take way joint was naturally rude and ungracious, or whether he had merely exhausted his reserves of bonhomie at the end of a bad day, I do not know. I've been unjustifiably short with people too on occasion, but I reckon a sincere apology ought to extinguish the flames of ire. Most people have varying degrees of serious drama and affliction in their lives. Why bother straining at gnats?
It's pretty easy to be nice, even to people who aren't kind to you. It is not difficult to back down and walk away. The offended behemoth and I left the car park of the takeaway shop at the same time: I was on foot, and he was safe in his world on wheels. He might have looked at me, or he might have simply been checking for oncoming traffic, but, in any case, I threw him another smile. His stony face was the epitome of recalcitrance. As he drove away, I wondered if he was a blogger like me.

subset: commoncrawl


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My Nonprofit Reviews
Review for Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries Rehabilitation Center Inc, Cincinnati, OH, USA
I am the Shelter Case Manager with Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Cincinnati. I have for many years referred families to the different services that the Ohio Goodwill provides. The clients I've referred have always been met by professionals who greet them with kindness and a knoweledge of resources within Goodwill but other community resources as well. They offer a wide range of services which include Veteran services, housing, employment assistance, disabilities services and so many more. Without the partnership we have with the Ohio Goodwill the families would have a much more difficult time reaching their goals of employment and housing. The empolyee's that I've worked with over the year's have been very approachable and willing to partner to meet the needs of the people we both are serving.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
serving the population that I myself serve.
The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...
professional and knowledgeable.
If this organization had 10 million bucks, it could...
serve more and help enrich the lives of so many more.
How frequently have you been involved with the organization?
About every month
When was your last experience with this nonprofit?


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Beyond the barbecues, fireworks and patriotism that accompany midsummer celebrations, Americans celebrate national independence every Fourth of July. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is commemorated. Those who fought and died for the freedoms enumerated in that document are remembered. It's a great time to ask: Would I fight for freedom and liberty? Would I die for these ideals?
Many have. As Americans travel this weekend -- whether it's an Alaska "staycation," a trip to the Lower 48, or even somewhere else in the world -- make time to pay tribute at monuments and edifices to those who fought and died for the freedoms so often take for granted.
Here in Alaska, two sites commemorate battles of World War II: The National Historic Area in Dutch Harbor and Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park in Kodiak.
In Alaska
The Aleutian World War II National Historic Area is administered by the Unalaska village corporation, Ounalashka Corp. in affiliation with the National Park Service. Find the visitors center in the Unalaska airport's Aerology Building, which was built in the 1940s as a weather station. Many of the exhibits came directly from area residents or from World War II veterans. Check out the extensive underground network of fortresses at nearby Mount Ballyhoo. And while in Unalaska, be sure and visit the Museum of the Aleutians, which offers exhibits, collections, lectures and guided field trips memorializing the long, rich history of Aleutian Islands region civilization.
In Kodiak, volunteers constructed the Kodiak Military History Museum at Fort Abercrombie. Located inside a World War II-era bunker, the museum features an extensive collection of gear and fascinating memorabilia, including vehicles, telecommunications gear, uniforms, newspapers, flags and more. The museum itself is situated at a high point overlooking open water, adjacent to a huge gun battery used to defend the island.
Interested in pre-American Alaska? Visit the Sitka National Historical Park. This site marks a weeklong battle in 1804 between Russian traders and the Alaska Tlingit, more than a half-century before the Alaska territory was purchased by the U.S. from Russia. Two miles of trails lead visitors through lush Southeast rainforest to a clearing near the site of the battle. Tlingit and Haida totem poles line the trail. Visitors can also learn more about the learn more about the Russian colonial history of North America at the Russian Bishop's House, constructed in 1843.
In Hawaii
It was more than 25 years after my first visit to Hawaii before I took my family to Pearl Harbor Historic Sites in Honolulu, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The highlight of a visit to Pearl Harbor must include a trip to the USS Arizona Memorial. Make reservations in advance. The death toll stood at 1,177 after the attack. The memorial, reached by taking a short cruise from the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, spans the mid-portion of the sunken battleship. At the time of our visit, our kids were young and spirited. But the overwhelming atmosphere of sacred reverence was pervasive. Everyone was silent as we quietly explored what is best described as "a sunken tomb."
Alaska Airlines offers a late-summer special for travel between Honolulu and Anchorage. Take advantage of a $455 roundtrip, nonstop fare for travel between Aug.8-21, 2012, and visit the national monument.
On mainland
I recommend a visit to the National Mall in Washington, DC. The National Park Service refers to it as "The Nation's Front Yard" and it's a fitting description. Even though I lived in the Washington area for three years and have visited since, I still have not seen all of the exhibits. It just takes time to soak it all in!
Many Anchorage residents and Alaska tourists visited the Delaney Park Strip last week to see the Moving Wall, a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The project, administered by Vietnam veterans, offers a prelude to visiting the original memorial on the National Mall.
Other National Mall memorials to visit include the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the World War II Memorial.
You can spend days and days exploring the Mall and still not see it all. Alaskans may find interesting the newest Smithsonian addition, The National Museum of the American Indian, which pays tribute to America's First Peoples. And then there are the monuments to U.S. founding fathers, including Jefferson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Further abroad, I look forward to visiting the beaches of Normandy, France. My grandfather worked with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower leading up to D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Allied Forces stormed French beaches. More than 9,000 Americans are buried in Normandy.
The American Battle Monuments Commission opened a visitor center at the Normandy American Cemetery in France, 63 years after D-Day, with a specific mission: to "complement and enhance the experience of visiting the cemetery."
By relating the global significance and meaning of Operation Overlord, the center pays tribute to the values and sacrifices of the World War II generation. After experiencing the cemetery and the center, visitors will have a greater appreciation of those participating in the Normandy invasion, the achievement of America and her Allies in conducting the greatest amphibious invasion in history and the importance of honoring our war dead.
The quickest, least-expensive tickets to Europe are on Condor. Fly nonstop through Oct. 9, 2012 for as little as $858 roundtrip between Anchorage and Frankfurt, Germany.
Scott McMurren is an Anchorage-based travel marketing consultant who has lived in Alaska for three decades, spending much of that time traveling the far-flung corners of the state. Visit his website at www.alaskatravelgram.com or follow him on Twitter for breaking travel news.


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Yay!!!! Okay so we have had this idea since last Halloween but were too lazy and slow to get it together. So this year it finally happened! I ordered these zentai bodysuits from Hong Kong in September and then we went from there. I will post the "entry" pictures and then go on to explain the rest! I wish the pictures showed up as good of quality as they do on my computer but oh well.
Storm (me), Mystique and Phoenix
We painted our eyelids to look like yellow and white because we both wear prescription and just too expensive plus they drive my eyes crazy.
They began as these (the black and blue ones from e-bay):
Then I made the little X's on my costume from craft foam and painted it with Silver Metallic craft foam paint (I didn't even know it existed!). The belt is made of the same black fabric as you can see in the cape picture below.
The Mystique costume is the one that took a long time to do. The scales are made of scrapbook paper spray painted blue. In all I think it was over 2 and a half hours of cutting, 7 hours of gluing and an hour to do hair and makeup. If you look closely in a couple of the pictures we even glued the paper to her face and airbrushed over them to make it scaly. It was sooo cool in real life!
Phoenix was made of the little boy's devil costume, and the logo was made of a black vinyl material spray painted gold. The boots and gloves were spray painted the same colour. The sash was just gold material from Wal-Mart.
A few making-of shots (I kept forgetting to take some!):
My cape that my boyfriend's mom helped me make. It was attached with the snap buttons and snapped onto the gloves i was wearing too. The black part is actually an old bra sewn under some weird shiny black fabric (shown above cape). The cape part is silver satiny material:
and some extra fun shots:
That's all folks!


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travel emergency kit
Whether you are piling in the car for a road trip, catching a flight to the beach, or boarding a cruise ship to Greece, it is important to be prepared for emergencies that may occur. A travel emergency is the kind of emergency that might catch you off guard. You are busy sipping pina coladas on the beach when in blows a hurricane. Or your are in Thailand and that spicy food would go good with some heartburn medication you left at home. Perhaps you are in Paris and accidently slice your hand on an Eiffel Tower postcard. Car breaks down. Credit card declines . . . you get the picture. A lot could go wrong. What you need is a Travel Emergency Kit! Here are a few suggestions for what to keep in your kit so when accident strikes you are prepared.
It's always a good idea to keep some cash on you when traveling. Relying solely on credit cards and traveler's checks may end in you being stranded without a means of exchange. Some travel agents suggest you carry enough cash to buy an alternate plane ticket and to carry two different denominations. Make sure to include small bills and coins for tips and trading.
You will want to keep several ID documents in your travel emergency kit includeding your passport and driver's license. It's a good idea to make a copy of all these docs and keep them in a different place from your passport just in case you lose the originals.
First Aid
A simple first aid kit is always worth stashing in your travel kit. A simple sanitation wipe can help prevent infection from an accidental cut or scrape. I suggest you include the following items in your first aid kit: Band-Aids, sunscreen, painkillers and prescription medications, laxatives and anti-diarrhea medications, gauze, latex gloves, and antibacterial wipes.
You never know when you may need an extra outfit on vacation. Perhaps your luggage was lost but luckily you have an extra set of clothes in your carry-on. Maybe you left the resort and got stuck in a rainstorm, but you are not stuck with drenched clothes because you brought some extras.
Other supplies
No one wants stinky pits from a 12-hour layover. Don't forget to include travel-sized soap and toothpaste along with deodorant, a toothbrush, washcloth, toilet paper, and feminine sanitary supplies in your kit. No access to electricity for several hours? Packing a USB battery for computers or a battery pack for phones can help you avoid dead computers and phones. Other items that my be helpful include: a flashlight with batteries, a whistle, two-way radios, an empty or full water bottle, water purification tablets, and snacks.
Keep in mind where you are traveling. If you're going on a road trip, your kit should include car stuff (road flairs, a spare tire, a jack, etc.). If you're traveling to a country with spicy foods, think about stomach medications. A trip to Indonesia may require you carry your passport, but a trip to North Dakota may require you to include an emergency sleeping bag. Travel safe!
Want more tips on how to prepare for emergency? Check out these posts:
Emergency Kits For Your Children {FREE DOWNLOAD}
72-Hour Kits {FREE DOWNLOAD}


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Hi guys
I have one video that has probably been recorded in camera sephia mode and thus it has brauinsh tone.
Is this reparable in software? I tried with avysinth ColorYUV and MSU old color restoration i will post samples but not good.
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Not with very good results
The principle is similar to colorizing a black and white sourc
That's what i get almost faint colored video
thanks pois
to bad the cameraman recorded in sephia some parts of the wedding video
this is what i got so far
Not counting the sepia tone itself (note the correct spelling), if there is any REMAINING color in the shot, it can be enhanced. However, I know of a number of devices which drop ALL color prior to adding the sepia, so with those kinds of shots, you would be stuck in the same way that people with Black & White movies are when attempting colorize a video.
And that kind of work is probably too much effort that it is worth!
For the former, though, you would just increase the saturation's range (e.g.: your sat goes from 0 - 20%, so you increase its "contrast" to be 0 - 75%). This can be done with many tools, though I would recommend AVISynth if you're up for scripting.
Quick test in GIMP:
(RGB Curves + Saturation boost + more RGB Curves)
There is some colour present... but because it's at such a low level on the tape it's largely drowned out by chroma noise.
AviSynth NR filters can probably come to the rescue here (I don't use it so someone else would have to advise).
A sample of the actual vid, rather than a cap, may help as well.
ColorYUV(cont_u=-256, cont_v=-256), Tweak(sat=0) or GreyScale() will all give perfect greyscale.
Something roughly like intracube's adjustments, but just with ColorYUV:
ColorYUV(off_u=8, off_v=-17) # remove sepia ColorYUV(cont_u=1000, cont_v=1000) # increase color saturation ColorYUV(cont_y=100, gamma_y=100, off_y=-12) # adjust levels, gamma
Last edited by jagabo; 3rd Jun 2013 at 17:28.
Yes, it might ok if a strong chroma noise filter is applied after . But with spots that bad, sometimes there are huge gaps or "blobs" that appear with strong chroma noise settings in place of the colored spots
I had assumed wrongly that this was black and white sepia (no color remaining from original source) ; that type is almost impossible to improve short of lots of manual recolorization
I captured the file it is in the original recording. The tape it self is very unplayble except on ag1980 on wich machine it is recorded. Then i use this avisynth script to correct drop outs that ocur in the video
Load_Stdcall_Plugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\yadif.dll")
Yadif(mode=1, order=1)
Then i do denoising with neat video and cameracolor denoise ( it helps alot with color shift or bluring) in vdub and then encode
Some unprocesed videos :
For the purposes of clarification, are these clips after that script or before ?
The reason I ask is because I can no longer detect any color.
For the purposes of clarification, are these clips after that script or before ?
The reason I ask is because I can no longer detect any color.
The second image saturated without nr and with nr
Last edited by mammo1789; 3rd Jun 2013 at 19:32.
Also note that one size doesn't fit all here, you'll have to go on a shot-by-shot basis. Some of your clips really have no useful color information -- it was shot under dim flourescents with an older camera.
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Sakura xD
Canvas Draw Created Jan 20, 2013 640 x 460px Unless noted Copyright 2013 MaryCute.
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pencildream Apr 06, 2013
nice work!
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You want to talk about the Boston Red Sox? The Boston tea party? The Boston massacre? Then talk among yourselves.
I want to talk about the big kebab. It was the biggest donner in Lincolnshire, according to Ali Dogan, owner of the Boston Kebab House. It swallowed up 104kg of meat, and should have made 2,500 portions - enough for all the hungry people who spill out of the town's pubs and clubs on a Saturday night.
But when four men came to lift the giant on to its spit, it was too fat by far. So what did Ali do? He swallowed his ambition and trimmed 11kg off the thing. Which still left enough for 1,900 portions.
Whatever next? Well, here's 'an upright object that has been curtailed, mutilated or otherwise reduced in size'. Still talking about Ali's monster kebab? No, no. We've moved on - over the bridge and across the grey-green muddy river with its sheet-piling and paddling seagulls. We are in the market place, and we are considering a definition of the word 'stump'.
Curtailed? Mutilated? Yes, I know they've got more big-name stores here than you ever dreamed of seeing this close to the Wash. But look away for a second and cast your greedy eyes upwards. See that soaring church tower? See the great lantern on top? Puts you in mind of Bruges or Ghent, yes? Something glimpsed at the back of a van Eyck (through the window, between the mother and her baby).
They call it the Stump. And do you know why? No, and neither does anybody.
People offer all sorts of explanations. It took 70 years to build, says one. So for a lifetime at least, it must have looked like a tree stump from out there where the fens lie flat and low. It was supposed to have a spire on top, says another. So 'stump' was a jibe when the spire failed to materialise. The fact is, though, that the delicate stonework was never designed to support a load.
If you ask me, it's yet another example of comic understatement, as practised throughout the eastern counties. You Bostonians, rich off your sheep and your shipping - that's quite a tower you've added to your old church. 'Tower? Well, it's been crying out for a stump at one end or t'other.'
There's an old gentleman inside, minding the door to the staircase. The left door is for going up, the right for coming down. And once inside, I see the sense in that. The walls of the tight stone tube are shiny with the rubbing of shoulders. How many shoulders since 1450, when work began? Let's add them up.
In 1954, there was G Brooks, and G Brooks loved J Cochrane true. J Godden came in 1956, and in 1965 it was Mick, Deena and Babs from Sheffield. Shawn B and Joan P from 'Skeg' climbed thus far in 1981, and a decade later, there was Lee who loved Ruth.
It ought to be spooky in this narrowing well shaft. But how can I be afraid where so many have giggled? There must be thousands of names here. I am ascending through a historical document, a vertical visitors' book. Somebody ought to make a study of them.
As the years fall away, so the inscribed signatures rise up through the social strata. In May 1819, A Helmes could take time over his seraphs. In 1760, 13 years before the tea party, M Snell knew how to curl his sixes and sevens. And in 1698, Thomas Thew might well have known the founders of that city across the water.
It was in 1630 that seven ships sailed west under the command of the Rev Isaac Johnson, and such was the preponderance of Bostonians among those on board that they gave their town's name to the capital of Massachusetts. Others were to follow, preachers and governors.
And yet 10 years earlier, it had been in this ancient Lincolnshire port that the Pilgrim Fathers themselves were locked up for their puritan beliefs. From up here, beneath the stone lantern but still as high as the great pylons that fling power cables across the river Witham, you can see the old Guildhall where they stood trial. It's a museum now, for this wonderful town has come to terms with this dark hour in its past.
And that's putting it mildly. Looking down on the speckled rooftops, I can make out the Pilgrim College and the Pilgrim Hospital. There's Pilgrim Boats and Pilgrim Decor, Pilgrim Footwear and the Pilgrim Dental Lab. I'm not sure if I can see Pilgrim Technologies or Pilgrim Mowers, but I know they are down there somewhere, along with Pilgrim Frozen Foods, Pilgrim Press, Pilgrim Books and the Pilgrim Veterinary Surgery. There is indeed a tide in the affairs of men.
The great snaking river is almost empty as I make my way back across the bridge. Ever since I arrived, the water has been draining back into the Wash, leaving a voluptuous trail of old hulks, held tight by the mud that glistens like raw meat.
Ali Dogan has something more modest on his spit this evening. But it will doubtless be welcomed later by pilgrims from miles around who are already homing in on the Stump for a good night out.
The writing on a fire door bears testament to their twice-weekly migration. 'Keeley and Anne-Marie and Elton, Jed and Ashley was ere,' it says. 'Kicking it down in Boston town.' Next stop: Cookham


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Articles from RotoWire's fantasy archives that mention Dan Jennings's name.
August 3, 2017
Mound Musings: Trade Deadline Repercussions
Brad Johnson examines some of the more significant pitching trades, like A's starter Sonny Gray, who goes to the New York in a move that could make the Yankees the AL East favorite.
March 3, 2016
Team Previews: AL Central
Jack Moore provides in-depth previews for all five teams in the AL Central. Can Eric Hosmer lead the Royals to a third straight pennant?
February 18, 2016
Team Previews: NL East
Can Yoenis Cespedes power the Mets to another division crown? RotoWire's Erik Siegrist tackles all five teams in the NL East.
February 2, 2016
Collette Calls: AL Closers in Waiting
Jason Collette looks at the stats to break down each American League bullpen to find the likely next man up for each team this season.
July 7, 2015
In Some Depth: Off the Bench
Ryan Eisner picks an all-star squad of players that started this season out of the starting lineup.
July 1, 2015
Thursday Lineup Card: Look To Deal Clippard?
Tyler Clippard is a free agent in 2016 and if the A's don't get back into the playoff race soon, GM Billy Beane could sell Clippard off to the highest bidder.
June 22, 2015
Tuesday Lineup Card: Pencil In The Eraser
June 7, 2015
Monday Lineup Card: New Closer in the Emerald City?
The Houston Astros called up top prospect Carlos Correa on Sunday, but an AL West reliever deserves your attention as well.
May 24, 2015
NL FAAB Factor: Not a Sorry Charlie
Clay Link runs down the potential FAAB pickups in the NL and finds a serviceable option in Charlie Morton, who returns to the Pittsburgh rotation this week.
May 23, 2015
Sunday Lineup Card: Grander Performance
Veteran outfielder's solid start powers the surprising Mets.
May 18, 2015
MLB Barometer: Coming Back to Earth
Vlad Sedler's teams are off to a hot start, but are they as good as they've looked so far?
February 20, 2015
White Sox Team Preview: Phase Two
The White Sox made big strides last season, then were big players this offseason to give Jose Abreu more help. Will it be enough to contend in the AL Central?
September 1, 2014
Tuesday Lineup Card: Call-Up Day
As usual, Sept. 1 features a list of prospect and non-prospect call-ups a mile long -- with some noteworthy names mixed in.
August 31, 2014
FAAB Factor-NL: Soler Power
Jorge Soler and Javier Baez are two of the reasons why the Cubs' future is bright. Jan Levine suggests that you break the bank to get Soler if you can in your leagues.
August 30, 2014
Sunday Lineup Card: Finding Affordable Relief
Davis offers creative alternative to chasing saves.
August 22, 2014
Saturday Lineup Card: A Case For Hellickson
Clay Link looks at all of the day's injury news, some closer situations from around the league and explains why you should consider the Rays' Jeremy Hellickson.
August 14, 2014
Friday Lineup Card: Aoki Is A-OK
One of the hottest players in the game right now is likely available for a free agent pick up...
August 12, 2014
Wednesday Lineup Card: Pining For Pineda
Michael Pineda, out since late April due to a suspension and then a back injury, is finally set to make his return to the mound Wednesday.
August 8, 2014
Saturday Lineup Card: Worley of a Pickup
Pirates starter Vance Worley has picked up his game on the mound in recent weeks, making him a viable option for fantasy owners.
August 3, 2014
FAAB Factor-NL: Cardinals Reshuffle
John Lackey and Justin Masterson are now Cardinals. Jan Levine tells you how much to bid on them and the other players with new roles following the trade deadline.
August 1, 2014
Saturday Lineup Card: Solarte Sizzles Again
Yangervis Solarte continues slugging for San Diego after his trade from the Yankees.
July 6, 2014
FAAB Factor-NL: Buy the Belt
Brandon Belt highlights and extensive list of NL players returning from the DL this week. Jan Levine explains the free agent ramifications of his return among others this week.
June 29, 2014
Monday Lineup Card: Live And Let Dayan
June 19, 2014
Friday Lineup Card: Starting Pitching Value In The Cubs' Rotation?
There's one Cubs pitcher that's worth owning...
June 18, 2014
Thursday Lineup Card: #LaStellar
Tommy La Stella is a #LaStellar value with an increasingly prominent role in the Braves' lineup.
May 24, 2014
Sunday Lineup Card: Hammer and Chisenhall
May 14, 2014
Thursday Lineup Card: A New Day Rising?
May 12, 2014
Tuesday Lineup Card: No Way, Jose
Young Marlins ace Jose Fernandez surprisingly hit the DL on Monday and appears to be headed for season-ending Tommy John surgery.
May 3, 2014
Sunday Lineup Card: Keeping Up With Garrett Jones
June 2, 2013
FAAB Factor - NL: Chaos In Dodgertown
Yasiel Puig could get the call from the Dodgers if Carl Crawford ends up on the DL. Jan Levine breaks down the roster shuffling with the Dodgers and other big moves in the NL this week.
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For the AJAXians and Web 2.0 citizens amongst you, the wonderful peeps at the Googleplex have done it yet again. Those of you familiar with the concept of NOT reinventing the JavaScript wheel should already be (if not should be) reaping the benefits of the great JavaScript libraries out there. My personal weapon of choice is JQuery (for which you can even get intellisense for in VS2008 these days, check out Scott Gu's blog even if you are not interested in JQuery intellisense, it's probably the best ASP.NET blog out there).
Anyway, I digress, one of the problems with these libraries is that they often change frequently and while we all try to keep on top of the changes and new builds even the best of us can miss one. Not only that, having to host the libraries in your projects and then changing code to support a new release can mean that users may still have cached versions of the old JavaScript files stuck in their temporary internet files causing JavaScript errors and in the worst case rendering your AJAX masterpieces unusable.
Enter the Google AJAX Library API
The guys at Google have reached out to the major stakeholders in these libraries and are now hosting the different builds of the Libraries for direct loading from google servers. They have committed to maintaining the older versions of these libraries too so there is no chance you can find yourself a couple of JavaScript files less than an application (nice nerdy euphemism there). The cache headers are also set correctly, so this means that you will not have any cached JavaScript issues either.
Setting it all up
Setting it up couldn't be simpler:
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
// Load jQuery
google.load("jquery", "1");
Yes that really is it! For the performance connoisseurs out there, you can choose to add this at the end of your page so the scripts load last (provided nothing is required in the page load).
Plus you can add as many libraries as you like using google.Load (go for it load the whole lot!)
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
google.load("jquery", "1.3.0");
google.load("jqueryui", "1.5.3");
google.load("prototype", "220.127.116.11");
google.load("scriptaculous", "1.8.2");
google.load("mootools", "1.2.1");
google.load("dojo", "1.2.3");
google.load("swfobject", "2.1");
google.load("yui", "2.6.0");
For more information see the complete API documentation at google:
Google AJAX Libraries API
Happy scripting!


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The federal Transport Minister is asking for a review of the decision to shut down incoming North American flights at Pearson International Airport this week, and is expressing concern about the reliability of air transportation.
But the head of the agency that manages Canada's busiest airport is standing by his decision to temporarily halt incoming flights this week – stranding thousands of travellers – saying he made the call after close consultations.
Howard Eng, chief executive of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said he halted North American flights into Pearson late Monday night after first consulting with a senior member of his staff, airlines and Nav Canada, the country's air navigation provider, about safety concerns over operating in cold, icy and windy conditions.
"I gave the green light to proceed," Mr. Eng said in an interview on Thursday, speaking publicly for the first time since the shutdown.
Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has called on authorities at Pearson to conduct a review, saying she hopes it will lead to improvements. "There is no question that safety is a top priority," Ms. Raitt wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail on Thursday, "but reliability of our transport system is important as well."
The GTAA, which manages Pearson, instituted a Tier 2 ground stop at 11 p.m. on Monday, preventing North American flights from arriving at the terminal. Since lifting the ground stop at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the GTAA has shouldered much of the blame for its response to the deep freeze in a country where cold winters are a fact of life. Other major North American airports facing similarly frigid weather did not take such drastic measures, although thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled elsewhere in Canada and the United States.
Mr. Eng contacted Ms. Raitt on Thursday after reading her comments in The Globe online, and pledged to gather everyone in the same room – the airlines, the GTAA, Nav Canada – to talk about what they could have done better. Everything will be on the table, he said, including how the GTAA communicated with the public. For its part, he said, the GTAA plans to publicly release its "action plan."
Mr. Eng was forced to manage the problem and try to "stabilize" Pearson airport from afar. He was in Edmonton for business meetings when he imposed the ground halt, he said, and decided his time would be better spent by remaining there and communicating with staff by phone. He arrived back in Toronto on Thursday.
While Mr. Eng remained behind the scenes, public relations staff at the GTAA communicated with the thousands of passengers stranded at the airport. "We may change the process," he conceded.
Mr. Eng has extensive experience managing airports. He was appointed to the helm of the GTAA in March, 2012, after 17 years at the Hong Kong International Airport, where he was a senior manager. He earned just over $700,000 in 2012, according to the GTAA's disclosure records.
He likened the disruption at Pearson this week to the major typhoons he experienced in Hong Kong.
Here in Canada, the structure of the GTAA and the agencies that run other major domestic airports was born of a compromise in former prime minister Jean Chrétien's government, said former federal transportation minister David Collenette. Some wanted airports privatized, while others, Mr. Collenette included, wanted them to remain public assets.
Ottawa turned the country's major airports over to non-profits to cut expenses and government liability, a decision that was part of a broader move toward deregulation that began in the 1980s and continued under the Chrétien government.
The non-profit model, Mr. Collenette contends, is the "best of both worlds," since it frees airports from political interference, allowing them to make decisions based on their own best interest without having to please politicians, while simultaneously ensuring that all money the airport raises is reinvested in improving the airport. Pearson was able to borrow billions to improve the airport, he said, because lenders knew there was no risk of government interference.
Mr. Collenette points to the numerous expansions and improvements at Pearson and Vancouver International over the last decade as proof that the non-profit model works.
The governance model has, however, created frictions. Some airports, for instance, paid for new terminals by increasing fees, a move that angered airlines. Mr. Collenette said, it might be time to review the structure. "I still think that's a debate that's worth having."
"It was '96 when the National Airports Policy came in, that's getting on almost 20 years and maybe it's time for parliament to look at it."
With reports from Jane Taber and Brent Jang


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By Tracy Sebastian on Sun, 09/09/2012
Bigger viewing screen, most sources agree that the iPhone 5 will have a 4" display with a widescreen 16:9 format making the device longer by about 1/2 an inch. A taller device may mean a taller home screen allowing for 5 full rows of apps.
It will have less glass, making the display more vivid and thinner by .44 millimeters.
The new battery is thinner and features a higher capacity of 1440 mAh. (The iPhone 4S has a capacity of 1430 mAh) It also has a higher voltage and watts-per-hour.
Bottom line: the new iPhone is going to last longer than previous models.
The thinner glass and thinner battery will make for an overall thinner device going from 9.3mm to 8mm.
The new sim card has gone Nano, 40% smaller than the micro sim card that the current iPhone uses, freeing up space for more goodies.
The placement of the headset plug has been relocated to the bottom. There is space for it because the charging dock will go from a 30 pin port to a 19 pin port.
What does the smaller port mean? A new type of charging cord and older docking chargers and peripherals will not longer work. Rumor states that only Apple will sell a converter for about $10 and extra charging cables for $19.
Along with the audio jack being moved to the bottom, Rumor is that Apple will include a new style of Ear Buds with the device from a supplier in Vietnam.
The new iPhone 5 will be 4G LTE capable world wide - but carriers only offer 4G LTE service in certain areas.
Verizon currently has 371 cities in the US.
AT&T has 40 cities right now and 40 more coming by EOY.
Sprint has 19 cities.
T-Mobile has 0, but plans to add some in 2013.
What does that mean? That if you are in a city that has 4G LTE, you will get those speeds. If not, you will get 4G or less.
Location, Location, Location.
iOS 6 Updates- Not Rumors
The biggest changes will be in the software update. iOS 6 will have some major changes to current features and will be adding some new ones. These updates have already been announced by Apple.
One of the biggest change is to maps. Apple will no longer use Google maps, they will be doing their own sourcing. The new features will include visual and spoken turn by turn info as well as real-time traffic updates.
A completely new app will be Passbook. This feature will allow you to keep all your electronic boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons and loyalty cards in one place.
Other changes include better Facebook integration with Photos and Contacts.
Photo Streams are easier to share.
FaceTime will work over cellular networks, not just wifi.
New "Phone" features include "Decline with Message", "Remind Me Later" and "Do Not Disturb".
Siri will be upgraded and improved, as well as Safari, Mail, Find iPhone and Accessibility for those with sight, hearing and mobility disabilities.
Adding a new feature to the Find iPhone function is Find My Friends. This will make it easier to share locations with friends and family. You can also get location-based alerts - like when your kids leave school or arrive home.
Release Date Rumors
Master your iPhone in one minute a day:
Sign up to iPhone Life's Tip of the Day Newsletter and we'll send you a tip each day to save time and get the most out of your iPhone or iPad.
When will the iPhone 5 ship? Fed-Ex has limited employee travel and cancelled some of their training classes to prepare for a "Surge Volume" Event from September 21-24. In the past, it has taken 2-3 days to ship from China, to Alaska, to my home.


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Dangerous Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory PV
Likely to cost you some ¥6,000. You have been warned.
Don't watch this Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory promotional video if you were hoping to save your hard-earned cash this July.
You have been warned.
The video shows off Victory at its finest, with a variety of attack options courtesy of the over 800 included cards. Get to the end, and you'll also get a glimpse of the new adventure mode, where you create and control your very own avatar. Look carefully, and you'll see some of the Wii-mote waggle controls during battle.
This port of Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Legend II hits Wii on July 15.
Total 35 Images, Use click action to expand


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Jeremy Hobson: Well here in this country, there's a report out this morning that shows a huge gap between the retirement benefits that states have promised to the workers and the money that's actually been set aside to pay for them. The Pew Center on the States says in total states are more than a trillion dollars short.
Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.
Nancy Marshall Genzer: We all have unpaid IOUs. Right now I owe our bureau chief, John Dimsdale, two bucks. He knows I'm good for it. But if you're a state and you've promised pension and health care payments to millions of workers, things can get ugly.
Susan Urahn is managing director of the Pew Center on the States.
Susan Urahn: So the gap between the promises that states have made for their employees' retirement benefits and the money that's set aside to pay for them has worsened significantly in just one year.
That year? 2009, the height of the financial crisis. Tax revenues withered, and so states' investments. How do they dig themselves out? Pew research director Kil Huh.
Kil Huh: Twenty-nine states made changes in the last three years to their retirement plans by either increasing employee contributions or reducing benefits in some way.
Or state legislators can pass tough laws requiring their states to set aside enough money for all their obligations. So far, only three states have done that.
In Washington, I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.


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'Snowball effect' of drink-driving
The "snowball effect" of getting a drink-drive conviction has been highlighted in the Government's latest THINK! campaign.
Millions of people could lose their jobs if they were unable to drive to, or at, work through being caught drinking and driving, the campaign, launched today, shows.
People who drive as part of their job are particularly vulnerable but someone with a conviction could also be denied access to millions more jobs which are eligible for criminal records checks.
These jobs include professional driving jobs, teachers, care workers and jobs in banks and finance.
Any employer can ask to see unspent criminal convictions and research shows that three-quarters of employers admit to taking a criminal conviction into account during the recruitment process.
Launching the "snowball effect" drink-drive campaign Transport Minister Robert Goodwill said: "For many people Christmas is about spending time with friends and family and celebrating, but if drivers have a tipple they should not get behind the wheel.
"Just one drink can put you over the limit and the consequences are devastating. Not only will you be cuffed and put in a cell, but if you're convicted you will lose your licence and, as this research shows, you could even lose your job."
AA president Edmund King said: "Drink-drive convictions have dramatic and traumatic snowball effects. One third of people will lose their jobs and experience years of hiked insurance premiums.
"A snowball might melt away quickly while the effects of a driving ban last way beyond any winter thaw. If you are going to drive - don't drink. If you are going to drink - don't drive."


text: I remember the first time i saw Fantasmic. I thot it was soo awesome. So the next day we went to MGM and saw Mickey, in his Fantasmic (Sorcerer's Apprenctice) outfit. And i gave him a huge hug and kiss and then started dancing with him, yes, dancing, saying how much i loved the show, making gestures and everything...oh did i mention this was in front of like 100 ppl and my mom was taking PICTURES!!!! hahaha, i'll never forget that trip!


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It's about time we listened
With only 2% of all news stories in 13 major South African newspapers featuring youth voices, it's time we not only listen, but create spaces for youth to be heard.
By Yumna Martin and Mike Rahfaldt
It's a crisp, winter afternoon in Lebowakgomo, a township outside Polokwane. A group high school learners sit in a circle, shooting questioning glances at one another. It's just about time to wrap up the final day of a training workshop aimed at giving young people the tools and skills to produce their own radio shows.
At the end of each day, the youth reporters-in-training are asked to reflect on their experiences. The first time 15-year-old Thoriso Tladi was asked to speak in front of the group she was close to tears. For her, it was a terrifying and unimaginable act—one that many young people dread. But not for long. After a week of radio training, Thoriso wasn't afraid to talk. In fact, she was eager. She used every opportunity to make her voice heard. She said that the radio training built her confidence, and encouraged her to express her opinion: "It was really nice that we got to share our ideas with each other and expose our talents."
Thoriso is one of 15 youth radio reporters trained by the Children's Radio Foundation at community radio station Greater Lebowakgomo FM. In partnership with UNICEF South Africa and Limpopo's Department of Education Girls/Boys Education Movement clubs, the weekly radio show offers a platform for young people to share their views about what is happening in their community. The youth are taught how to research, debate, create and structure stories, interview, and learn how to turn these elements into radio broadcasts.
After a week of training, the young reporters in Lebowakgomo were ready to produce their first show for broadcast on the radio station. They chose to speak about gangsterism in their local schools. In their 30-minute broadcast, the group shared youth views about how gangs affect young people's chances of getting a good education and they interviewed the local police captain and a former young gangster. They asked nuanced questions from their own perspectives as young people.
Analysis of the General Household Survey shows children account for 37% of South Africa's population, yet they seldom make the news. Media Monitoring Africa's research on how children are portrayed in 13 major South African newspapers revealed that children's voices were heard in only 2% of all news stories monitored in 2010. Many journalists argue that children are difficult to access. The practical, ethical and legal framework in place is there to protect young people from exploitation, but is often seen by journalists as an impediment to getting a child's point of view. When children's views do feature in the news, they are rarely given the opportunity to express themselves at length.
Initiatives like Greater Lebowakgomo FM's youth radio show allow young people to create content that brims with honest, authentic feeling – that is about young people, for young people, and created by young people. It allows listeners to hear directly from youth about the issues that matter to them. Sustainable long-term youth media projects break the traditional media stereotype of framing youth as victims, and balance out the all too dominant adult point of view. They create a space where young people can speak freely, and where their peers and the wider community can share, listen, and learn in meaningful ways.
Training young people in media requires more than just teaching technical skills. Before you can teach children to produce their own media content, a safe space needs to be created where they feel free to express their thoughts and opinions and where their contributions are seen as relevant and valuable. Confidence and communication skills are developed at the same time. 15-year-old Mashoto Mphahlele experienced that in the workshop: "For the first time in my life, I feel myself, I feel like I can express myself, and really get out of my shell."
Actively engaging youth in media and giving them space to be both producers and consumers of media plays a key role in realising the rights of children and putting these rights into action. It encourages youth to not only question, reflect, listen, and learn in front of the mic, but to do the same in their classrooms, homes, and larger community. Diane Dikobo, a 16-year-old participant expressed this need: "The workshop … was a platform to show us what we can do, and to teach us how to improve on things we thought we couldn't do. The shows will also be a way to show other young people that they can talk about these issues too."
Children are not simply characters to be used to substantiate news. They experience many issues featured in the media and fill diverse roles in their communities – offering valuable perspectives and experiences. It's about time we listened.
Yumna Martin is a Trainer and Producer for the Children's Radio Foundation, and Mike Rahfaldt is the Executive Director. This children's participation initiative is featured in the South African Child Gauge 2010/2011, which was released by the Children's Institute, University of Cape Town.


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Book Group Service
KitKeeper is MCPL's new online software that allows book groups to browse and select, with the help of branch staff, titles owned by the Library. Book titles are grouped into 'Kits,' which hold 10 copies of each title. The list of titles in the Book Group collection can be viewed online to illustrate the type of titles and kits the library has to offer.
- Branch and community book groups that hold meetings inside the Mid-Continent Public Library service area can reserve 'KitKeeper 1' titles.
- Out-of-District book groups are limited to 'KitKeeper 2' titles.
Please contact firstname.lastname@example.com or 816.503.4164 if you have any questions or concerns.


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Way back in the 1990s, in the days of Tony Lockett and those loveable, freewheeling Swans, Friday night games were must-be-seen-at events for cross-promoting soapie stars and other Sydney C-listers. An occasion that frequently produced achingly close finishes and rafter-raising theatrical flourishes.
There were good reasons, until last year, for the Sydney Swans removing themselves from what AFL commentators describe, with the reliable repetition of Adam Scott's backswing, as ''the big stage of Friday night football''.
Traffic squeezed around Moore Park tighter than Warwick Capper's shorts, particularly when there was an NRL game or rugger at Allianz Stadium. The preference for more family-friendly Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon timeslots. The (unspoken) avoidance of an inevitably one-sided TV clash with the NRL's high-rating Friday nighters.
Tonight, wearing metaphorical top hat and tails, the Swans are back treading the boards. Ready to demonstrate they have the most competitive outfit since the back-to-back grand final teams of 2005-06. And, as importantly in a market they now share with an impertinent western Sydney rival - as well as a large array of NRL, rugby and soccer franchises - that they boast the most entertaining team since Plugger, Paul Kelly and an eclectic cast of charismatic offsiders forged a place in Sydney's heart.
''Entertainment value'' is not something you would expect the now somewhat buttoned-down Swans to acknowledge. With surviving members of the original ''Bloods'' still a prominent part of the line-up, the values that brought the club a long-awaited premiership remain the standard.
Victory forged through a tough, worthy but dour playing style; as well as an introspective, media-shy culture; was its own justification. Whatever side you took in the great ''Ugly Football'' debate, the 2005 premiership flag is the proof of the pudding.
So why would coach John Longmire - Paul Roos's long-time assistant - mess with a legacy he helped create? Especially when you have hard nuts such as Jude Bolton willing to donate a vital organ every time they enter the fray.
Still, whether it is the product of imaginative recruiting or a more attacking game plan, there is something more charismatic about the Swans who enter tonight's match against Geelong with an 8-3 record. Partly, it is the endearing, heart-in-your-mouth eccentricity of rugby converts Lewis Roberts-Thomson and Mike Pyke. Partly, it is Shane Mumford, a smiling bear renowned for his appetite for the game - and just his appetite. Partly, it is the defensive bravado of Leo Barry's worthy successor, Ted Richards, and athleticism of the thoroughbred colt, Sam Reid.
Mostly, it is the electric Lewis Jetta, who combines the Speedy Gonzales pace of early '90s cult figure Jamie Lawson with the agility of retired champion Michael O'Loughlin. Less than a season after those who now expect pimple-faced recruits to make an instant transition from PE class to the Brownlow red carpet were willing to write off Jetta, the 14th pick in the 2009 draft, as a disappointing bust.
Why is it important for the Swans not to merely beat the reigning premier, but also earn points for artistic merit? Because winning a premiership helped consolidate their place in Sydney, but it did not necessarily improve it. Memberships and crowds flattened in subsequent seasons despite routinely competitive performances.
In that regard, I would argue that - coming off an admittedly dismal base - the class of 1996, which created the club's now baked-on core support of about 20,000 match-attending fans, did more for the club than the relatively introverted premiership heroes of 2005. That eccentric defender Adam Heuskes wearing a feather boa on the front page of the Herald on the day of the grand final was somehow more, well, ''Sydney'', than the yoga-oriented, cliche-sprouting, gut-busting team led by Brett Kirk.
Winning speaks loudest. But perhaps this Swans team will have both the talent and charisma to exploit any subsequent success at the box office. Maybe it will be a team that does not merely appear on the big stage, but which dances.


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Obama: Vets' treatment 'defining issue'
WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday treatment of military veterans "is the defining issue of our time" and will require "making responsible choices."
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama reminded listeners of his trip to Afghanistan this week and said while the "enormous sacrifices of our men and women in uniform are not over," many troops are or will soon be coming home. He said "after more than a decade of war, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home."
"As a new greatest generation returns from overseas, we must ask ourselves, what kind of country will they come back to? Will it be a country where a shrinking number of Americans do really well while a growing number barely get by? Or will it be a country where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules -- a country with opportunity worthy of the troops who protect us?"
Obama recounted the benefits of the GI Bill and the nation's history of turning out an educated workforce -- which he called "a story of success that every American had the chance to share in, the basic American promise that if you work hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement."
"Keeping that promise alive is the defining issue of our time," the president said. "But it means making responsible choices.
"I don't think we should prioritize things like more tax cuts for millionaires while cutting the kinds of investments that built a strong middle class," he said.
"That's why I've called on Congress to take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the other half to rebuild America," Obama said.
"Because we've got more jobs to create. More students to educate. More clean energy to generate. More entrepreneurs with the next great idea, just looking for their shot at success. We've got to invest in things like education and medical research. We've got to build newer, faster transportation and communication networks. And we've got to secure the care and benefits our veterans have earned, so that we serve them as well as they have served us."
Assad's support in Aleppo at risk
DAMASCUS, Syria, May 5 (UPI) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad appears at risk of losing a base of support in Aleppo after government forces opened fire on protesters there, observers said.
Activists said four people -- a couple and their young child and a 16-year-old -- were killed Friday in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, The New York Times reported.
The protesters in Aleppo were demonstrating against the closing Thursday of the 60,000-student Aleppo University by security forces.
At least four students were killed in the violent closing, including one who was allegedly thrown from the window of a high-rise dormitory.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had continued to receive support in Aleppo while losing support in other cities, the Times said.
The firing on civilians in Aleppo violated the cease-fire brokered by the United Nations and the Arab League and showed Assad does not plan to abide by the cease-fire plan, analysts said.
"This proves that [the Assad regime is] not about to allow that kind of assembly in the future," said Andrew J. Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Syria. The Assad government, he said, viewed Aleppo to be "one of the trigger cities. They're very scared about Aleppo. That's a real weakness for them."
The Times said the number of daily deaths appears to have declined since the cease-fire took effect in mid-April.
The United Nations has about 50 cease-fire monitors in Syria and plans to send up to 300 by the end of the year.
The cease-fire will take time to take hold, Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for Kofi Annan, the special envoy who negotiated the plan, said Friday.
"The Annan plan is on track, and a crisis that has been going on for over a year is not going to be resolved in a day or a week," he said.
Mohammed, 4 others to be arraigned
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, May 5 (UPI) -- A dozen family members of people who died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks are in Cuba to witness the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, U.S. officials said.
Mohammed and four others charged in the attacks are to be arraigned Saturday at a U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Family members of some of the victims was flown to Cuba under military escort, the Defense Department said Friday.
Mohammed, the confessed mastermind behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, and four alleged co-conspirators are to appear before a military commission. They are accused of planning and executing the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., resulting in the deaths of 2,976 people.
The defendants will hear charges against them and have a chance to enter a plea.
Mohammed and the other four defendants are charged with terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war.
If convicted, the defendants could be sentenced to death.
Boris Johnson wins in London
LONDON, May 5 (UPI) -- Boris Johnson won a second term Friday as mayor of London, defeating former Mayor Ken Livingstone by 3 percentage points.
The count from Thursday's voting was a lengthy process because the second choices of voters who chose one of the five other candidates had to be factored in, and some paper ballots that were inadvertently put into storage without being counted had to be dug up, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Johnson's victory, while narrow, was one of the few for the Conservative Party in local elections. The Labor Party picked up about 800 local council seats.
Livingstone, nicknamed "Red Ken," said he is leaving politics. He predicted Johnson will be the next Conservative Party leader.
The election was a humiliation for the Liberal Democrats, allied with the Conservatives in government. The party's local representation is at its lowest point ever and it ran behind the Green Party in the London mayoral contest.
Some Conservatives suggested Prime Minister David Cameron should make a right turn, The Independent reported. Eleanor Laing, who represents Epping Forest north of London, said the prime minister should pay attention to "Conservative MPs who represent the real people of this country" and not to "Liberal Democratic intellectual urban elite with the student politics ideas of reforming the constitution and taking forward green policies."
Among smaller parties, the election was a disaster for the British National Party, which lost all six council seats it was defending. Lady Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative co-chair, suggested that the Euro-skeptic United Kingdom Independence Party or Ukip, has replaced the BNP on the extremist right.
The local elections are usually seen as a test of how well parties will do in the next general election. But Conservative leaders pointed out that Labor, under Prime Minister Tony Blair was crushed in local elections in the late 1990s, only to smash the Conservatives in the 2001 general election.


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Brown Deer Schools - starts with D
The 50States Brown Deer school directory. Find Brown Deer, Wisconsin school addresses, phone numbers and other school info.
Go To: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Dean El
Students/Teachers: 329 / 22
Grades: 2 - 5
8355 N 55th St
Brown Deer, WI 53223


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Photo by Debra DiPaoloFUROR, TUMULT, MADNESS: ALL CALLING CARDS FOR rhythm & blues tenor-sax originator Big Jay McNeely, a man who exudes uncommon power. Known during his 19491955 peak as "The Go Go Go Man," "The Deacon of Tenor Sax," "King of the Honkers," "Pied Piper," even "Big Jay McSquealy," he found his mutinous brand of R&B derided by jazz critics as freakish, the work of a deranged exhibitionist, but his audience response was unprecedented. As Ebony magazine reported in May 1953: "A young white lad got so hepped up over Big Jay's music that he jumped out of a balcony onto the main floor where he miraculously landed without hurting himself and went into a riotous dance. In Redondo Beach . . . last summer, a teen-aged white girl was sent into raging hysterics by the violent sounds of Big Jay's horn. She did not recover her balance until her boy friend had slapped her face vigorously about a dozen times."
The exotic sway McNeely held over a crowd was so notorious that his managers once circulated a tale that he'd been hauled before a psychiatric board of examination. The reality was just as far-fetched: wild crowds of black kids, drape-shape pachucos and white teenagers all going nuts at Big Jay's shows at the Shrine and Olympic auditoriums. "He'd play 'Dirty Boogie,'" fan Chris Strachwitz recalls of McNeely's early-'50s gigs, "and the kids would be unzipping their flies." After McNeely began to draw armies of white youths -- who, according to one local paper, invariably began "acting like Watusis" -- he was forbidden to perform in most of Los Angeles County. Even today, says promoter Ronnie Mack, when Big Jay plays at Mack's Barndance, the girls lift up their shirts and flash him.
The 72-year-old musician, born in Los Angeles on April 29, 1927, has some tales to tell. Mohair tuxedos. Green, red and yellow suits so garishly colored "they glowed in the dark." After seeing a stripper adorned in fluorescent paint, McNeely had his saxophone coated with the stuff. He was famed for an almost hypnotic effect, sometimes playing the same song for an hour straight. For McNeely, there were no rules. He was one of the first to walk the bar, to lie on his back kicking and honking, to stroll right off the stage and onto the street, wailing away. (In San Diego once, the police nabbed him in midchorus, and, he recalls, "The band was still playing when the cops phoned to tell them where I was!")
"I was from a very poor family, and we needed money," McNeely says. "I'd started off playing jazz with Sonny Criss, he had a little band, but then I went and studied with Joseph Cadaly at RKO studios, he played first-chair saxophone in the RKO orchestra. Studied a little bit of theory, harmonics, and got so legit that I felt like I was playing cello on the saxophone." His RKO training placed the cherry on top of McNeely's musical confection; he'd been bebopping throughout high school, and had occasionally recorded and jammed with the Johnny Otis band at South-Central's Barrelhouse. When he was approached by Savoy in late 1948 with an offer to make his own record, all of these experiences collided, with phenomenal results.
"I had no idea what I was gonna do," he says, "but I went to see Pete Canard, he had a little record shop down on Compton Avenue, talked to them, and they gave me a record by Glenn Miller ['Nothing but Soul'] that had that sock cymbal on it -- chh-chh, chh-chh-chh -- so I developed the number from that. I went into the studio and forgot all about the training I'd had for a solid year and just went completely in the other direction."
McNeely's debut release, "Deacon's Hop," with the saxophone alternating a glorious mix of drawling tease and gutbucket abandon, was an artistic and commercial ideal and launched the honking-sax craze, a direct outgrowth of Illinois Jacquet's frantic mid-'40s soloing on "Flying Home." "Deacon's Hop" reached No. 1 on the R&B charts, swiftly giving way to hits like Paul Williams' "The Hucklebuck" (which knocked "Deacon's Hop" from the No. 1 spot after two weeks) and Hal Singer's "Cornbread," a radical handful of instrumentals that inspired a gaggle of insta-honkers (Los Angeles' Joe Houston and Chuck Higgins among them). After Big Jay, Louis Jordan and T-Bone Walker seemed hopelessly tame.
For a guy with a hit record, McNeely played it extremely cool: "I didn't go on the road at the time," he says, "because Bardu Ali, who was with Johnny Otis, told me what it was like -- how these gangsters treated black artists. They'd buy 'em a Cadillac and sign them for a huge percentage of their money, but when the party's over, they stole all your money, you find out nobody paid the income tax and you end up broke. So, because of that, when I was No. 1, I didn't work at all!"
At home in L.A. in 1949-50, he was packing them in. For Big Jay, "It was tremendous. At the time, people were so prejudiced, they couldn't understand why the white kids responded the way they did, and there'd be Mexican kids by the thousands watching us jam. People thought the kids must all be on drugs, and it got to the point where I was blocked out of Los Angeles -- either the cops would come and shut us down or they wouldn't give me a permit."
Big Jay became too hot to handle where other headliners were concerned, as well. "I was supposed to go on the road with Johnnie Ray, who was a big hit," he says. "His manager had made a bet that I couldn't break up the show, so I went on the very first show and broke it up -- the police said they were going to stop the whole thing!" McNeely was bumped off the tour. Then, "I was supposed to go with Nat Cole; they figured they could get me to start some excitement. When I was just a kid, Nat came out to the garage one time, saying, 'You guys sound great, you'll make it some day,' but the one time I did go with Nat Cole, I opened the first show and he said, 'You'll never work with me again.' That really did surprise me -- and he meant it, too."
Meanwhile, McNeely was grinding out a series of electrifying singles on various independent labels: "The Goof," "Nervous Man Nervous," "Teen Age Hop," "Let's Work," "Beachcomber," the sultry "Strip Tease Swing," and perhaps the most breakneck example of saxophone pyrotechnics in history, the supremely manic "3-D." By this time, Big Jay was one in an ever-growing guerrilla army of wild saxophonists. Still effectively hobbled at home, he â took his blowtop assault across the country -- where it only grew wilder.
"The first time I ever laid on the floor, I'll never forget it," he says. "You know, the blacks didn't like you laying on the floor -- they thought that was degrading -- but they were the ones that caused me to lay on the floor. It was in Clarksville, Tennessee, and we had a hot band, great piano player, but the people didn't respond to anything we played. At intermission, I said, 'I don't know what I'm going to do.' Went back out, got down on my knees -- nothing happening. I thought, 'Well, there's nothing else for me to do except lay on the floor.' Laid on the floor, man, and they went crazy. I got to Texas and tried it, went over big, go back to California, the kids went crazy about it. And then all of 'em started laying on the floor."
THE HONKER'S RAW TYPHOON OF SOUND and untamed performing style took R&B to such a vivid extreme that he not only evoked outrageous audience response, but also served as a sort of blank cultural screen upon which were projected all manner of weird interpretations, calumny, resentment and psychologizing. The poet Amiri Baraka passionately wrote of the "secret communal experience" shared by the honkers and their audiences as a "Black Dada Nihilismus," while journalist Leonard Feather dubbed them "extrovert moderns" and sniffed about their "deliberately vulgar tonal effects."
Many jazz musicians were repulsed by the honkers' hijinks, too. But not all: "I was working in New York at Birdland," says McNeely, "and Charlie Parker, who I was very close to, would come up and talk. I knew them all very well -- when I was a kid I was just bopping my way through everything. And the other jazz guys would look at me and all they could think was, 'Why are they talking to this guy? All he is, is a honker, playing one note!' But Sonny Criss, all the L.A. guys, had respect for me, even though I was doing something else. But they knew me -- I grew up with them." (Criss and McNeely went to school together; his friendship with Parker started during Bird's eight-week engagement at the Hollywood club Billy Berg's in 1946.)
Tensions from the jazz set toward McNeely were rivaled by some of his infamous ongoing disputes with other honkers. "I've had a couple of incidents with Joe Houston, it's really sad," McNeely says. "A lot of them can't honk, and that's why they decide to be crazy. I'm playing soul, and that's not just honking. They don't have the soul, so when they try to play a note, it sounds so phony. And even the guys who really listen and try to do what you're doing, they'll play a real stiff reed, and when they play high notes it's very piercing to the ear. I can stand right in front of you and play three octaves up and it's just like I'm playing in the middle of the saxophone, because I'm using a very soft reed -- it's like the difference between riding in a car with 50 pounds of air in the tires and riding in a car with 25. I can stand right in front of a guy at a table and scream, and they don't jump out of their seat! You get the other guy, and it sounds like a car with squealing brakes.
"People think you're just walkin' through the room honkin', layin' on the floor screamin', but when I play they have to say, 'This guy has got quality.'"
THAT QUALITY HAS CARRIED McNEELY comfortably through five decades; ironically, his biggest hit, 1959's "There Is Something on Your Mind," was a moody vocal ballad, but he remains a major overseas draw, still makes records, and at his appearances still effortlessly manifests the tumultuous turmoil that put him on the map. The entire presentation is a painstakingly crafted mixture of specific musical technique and calculated rabble-rousing.
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"When you want to create excitement, you repeat a phrase over and over and over," he explains, "but as you repeat this phrase, there's different ways: Sometimes you use vibrato, sometimes you don't. When you use a real fast vibrato, then the note has a different connotation, all right? Certain low notes bring out certain characteristics in a person, high notes bring out other characteristics. A-flat is probably the best key, because you can get your low notes, you've got the middle range, then you go up another octave or two and you've got the whole range of the saxophone. A-flat has the groove, it brings out the darker side.
"But the reason I'll play high notes is because I'll watch people's clothes, the way they dress, their shoes. If I see a person in a $200 suit, I'm not gonna scream and holler, I'll play it lower -- to meet their characteristics, to make that cat groovy. Then if I get somebody dressed a bit different, then bam! I throw in high notes and low notes, and it creates excitement with them, and the other people sitting around them who maybe won't even move, they get this radiation and they begin to move. So you get everybody in the house movin' -- this is what you have to do. People don't know what it is, but when they hear it, they know. To me, it's soul."
Check out Jim Dawson's book Nervous Man Nervous: Big Jay McNeely and the Rise of the Honking Sax, 1994, Big Nickel Publications, Milford, NH.


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April 6, 2011
A man police say grabbed paper towels from a maintenance cart at a rail station in Atlanta and used them to blow his nose wound up in jail.
A police report says a man identified as Alfred Murphy grabbed the towels at a MARTA station Monday afternoon, and a transit system police officer told him he couldn't do that.
The report says Murphy said he was entitled to them because he'd paid his fare.


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The University of California, San Diego is planning a campus teach-in in the wake of a student party that used a ghetto theme to mockingly commemorate Black History Month.
The chancellor's office says Wednesday's teach-in will discuss the importance of mutual respect.
The off-campus party on President's Day outraged some of UCSD's black students, who comprise only 2 percent of the student population.
The party was condemned by the school and a fraternity. UCSD officials are investigating whether anyone can be disciplined.
Tensions were raised last week after a student media outlet with a reputation for being offensive made fun of the issue on student-run TV. That prompted a freeze on funding for student-supported media pending a review.


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FREE EXCERPT: Setting a Show Poodle Trim on a 7 Month Old Puppy (Part 1 of 2-part Series) - 55 minutes
Complicated subject matter is transformed into easy-to-understand, step-by-step visual instructions. This video is packed with great grooming tips. No matter what type of pet you are working on, a show dog or a simple stylized pet in your salon, this lesson has techniques you can apply today.
As she works over this young dog, Piña uses a combination of straight and curved shears plus long blenders to get a velvet finish. When she finishes the top knot, she shares a number of show ring secrets to get the perfect, 'natural', look. Piña is comfortable teaching high-level styling techniques yet does it in such a way, anyone can understand. Whether you're looking to hone your skills for show ring styling, or just starting out, this video lesson we'll set you up to succeed.
In this video you will learn:
- What creates elegance in any dog.
- What shape are you trying to achieve the rib cage.
- What visual image are you trying to create with the rear legs.
- How to pull the entire dog together as she works section by section.
- The secret to get beautiful top knot on a show dog.
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Irina Pinkusevich
Pina is a National Certified Master Groomer with National Dog Groomers Association of America. She has just starting her apprenticeship to become a national Certifier with NDGAA.


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NYT: One in Five New York City Residents Living in Poverty
From NYT:
Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession.
From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades.
Many New Yorkers were spared the worst of the recession, but the median household income has since shriveled to levels last seen in 1980, adjusted for inflation. Household income declined among almost all groups — by 5 percent over all since the beginning of the recession in 2007, to $48,743 in 2010.
Manhattan continued to have the biggest income gap of any county in the country, with the top fifth of earners (with an average income of $371,754) making nearly 38 times as much as the bottom fifth ($9,845).
Poverty among children under 18 rose 2.9 percentage points to 30 percent. The rate also increased for every other group except people 65 and older. Single mothers, blacks and adults lacking a high school diploma fared worst. Among Hispanic single mothers in the Bronx, the poverty rate was nearly 58 percent.
The bureau's 2010 American Community Survey paints a disturbing portrait of the city. More New Yorkers depended on some form of public assistance than in 2009, and a record 1.8 million residents — nearly one in five households — are now relying on food stamps. Fewer people had health insurance, home ownership declined and housing values plunged; 44 percent of renters were diverting at least 35 percent of their income for housing.
Unemployment rose one percentage point, and more people gave up on finding work, which may be one reason college and graduate school enrollment soared by about 50,000. More living quarters were crowded — from 7.9 percent of all houses and apartments in 2009 to 9.1 percent last year.
Though the poverty rate in the city rose faster than it did nationwide and the Bronx remained the poorest urban county in the country, New York still had a smaller proportion of poor people than many other major cities, including Miami, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Boston.
An influx of immigrants pushed the city's foreign-born population to near-record highs (more than three million, and 37.2 percent). Their ranks swelled by about 50,000. Half of New Yorkers 5 and older now do not speak English at home.
The city's poverty rate had remained about 18 percent since 2007 before climbing from 18.7 percent in 2009. The poverty rate was 20 percent in 1980, 19.3 percent in 1990 and 21.2 percent in 2000, after the dot-com bubble burst.
The 2010 federal poverty threshold for a family of three was $18,310.0 views


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Goodbye everyone. I have played the game for a final time last night
No hard feelings, no anger just lots of sadness, but this is it.
Been fun for close to 4 years but life has dealt me something not so nice that I have to deal with for some


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Pressing engagements
These are difficult times for us all, Diary notes soberly. But perhaps none more so than for the organisers of this year's Press Gazette awards, Fleet Street's annual bout of drink-fuelled fisticuffs interspersed with random acts of prize-giving. The timing of this year's event - 18 March - is causing headaches for those behind the shindig. 'We've tried to book the likes of Paxman or Humphrys to present the awards, but none of them will come because they're convinced that it's the day war is going to break out,' an organiser tells Diary. 'We turned to Angus Deayton, but he said he'd rather feed himself to rats than appear before the press.' Tony Hawks, this could be your lucky day.
Same old story
Another Tuesday and another brilliant Sexpress exclusive. The first edition front page screamed: 'Beckham set to walk out on United'. This was changed to the more prosaic 'Beckham: Will he stay or will he go?' by the third edition. Despite the somewhat indecisive line taken by the later edition, the Express backbench still deemed it worthy of the tag line 'exclusive'. Typically understated stuff from the world's greatest newspaper.
Kaufman's big chance
Oh, the delicious irony of it all. On Tuesday, Associated's grandest fromage, Paul Dacre, descends from his Dark Star to present himself before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Paul will be discussing the finer points of privacy and media intrusion, but how easy a ride the big man will be given is open to question. Chairing the committee is one Gerald Kaufman and a popular target for the paper's sketch writer Quentin Letts. In the past, Quentin has been overly vexed by Kaufman's sartorial elegance, prone to refer to the politico as 'safari-suited' and not shy of suggesting that Gerald's whistle and flute had been 'hit by an atom bomb'. If this was not enough of an incentive to get our Gerald sharpening his knives this weekend, Diary recalls how he was given an ultra important brief by Mr T Blair only three years ago. It was Kaufman's job to publish a weekly Mail Monitor, rubbishing anti-Labour stories published in Dacre's organ. Sadly the Mail Monitor died after only a few months chiefly, because in the words of one top media pundit, 'it was crap'. Whether Gerald's antipathy to all things Associated has diminished will be revealed on Tuesday.
Pedalling nonsense
As ever, Times' columnist Andrew Pierce had the inside track. Last Wednesday, under the headline 'Wheels of fortune', the paper carried a picture showing Madonna (above right) cycling around Los Angeles. With laser-guided logic, Andy argued the picture proved Madge is staying in Britain after all, despite numerous reports to the contrary. 'Clearly,' Andy opined, the material girl is 'getting in a bit of practice for our beloved congestion charge. Since the star's London home is near Marble Arch, on the edge of the charging zone, two wheels may be more appealing than four.' Andy mate, she's worth £235m. Why don't you just say 'And here is a gratuitous pic of a celeb riding a bike' (see above).
Hair today...
Mark Thompson, C4's head honcho, makes no secret of his desire for the broadcaster to be innovative, to break the mould and refresh the viewers other channels cannot reach. So Diary has high hopes for its groundbreaking documentary 'Hairy Women' to be screened later this month. Let's hope it's as good as Channel 5's documentary 'Hairy Women' shown in December.
Nice one, Bash
No wonder Martin Bashir decided not to attend the Brits last week. The poor chap is probably squirming with embarrassment after US television stations showed an alternative view of Mart's interview with Wacko using footage taken by the singer's entourage. Highlights included Jackson complaining the media always asked him questions but then did not put them in the coverage.
To which Mart bravely insisted: 'We are not going to do that.' Bash'im then goes on to say: 'You are such a natural father to your children it makes me want to weep.' He then asks lyrically: 'Why do people want to judge you when all you have done is bring the world some of the most beautiful music it has ever heard?' At the end of one interview, Bash goes over to Jackson, takes both his hands and says reverently: 'That was great, thank you. That was really, really special.'
Now, if Panorama has got any old unused footage of the Diana interview, we could be in for a treat, although tragically Mart may never work in journalism again.


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Yes you can still be sued. You should go to any court dates or you will automatically lose your case. Do a Google search to find out what the "Statute of Limitations to be sued for debt" is in your state. Even if the debt is beyond the SOL for your state you will still need to appear in court. Also, make sure that the paperwork you got is legit as many debt collectors will try to scare you into paying with fake court papers. You can contact the courthouse and find out if they have a case for you. If you find any funny business going on from the debt collector contact an attorney that handles FDCPA cases. Do some reading on the FDCPA (fair debt collection practices act).
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Bruce Temkin, in a recent blog entry entitled "What is Loyalty? And is it Dead?" defines loyalty as 'the willingness to consider, trust, and forgive.' The psyche of consumer loyalty applies true across all verticals, however certain industries will drive escalated degrees of loyalty in different touch points across a varied timeline, i.e. the contact center is a higher driver of loyalty on the macro level in the telecom environment than a retail chain. That's not to say that the contact center cannot be a strong driver of loyalty in the retail environment - a great experience over the phone can dowonders for loyalty-driving - however the basis for consumer loyalty relies more on the in-store experience and the product since more consumers are making judgements on these factors. I am loyal to Starbucks because they provide me the same cup of coffee in Boston as they do in London, because the in-store experience will be consistent, and because I know they will deliver it efficiently with a smile on their face. Due to an iOS Mobile Passbook issue, I did have to call Starbucks recently. I was on hold for half an hour and the CSR took about twenty minutes to resolve my problem. However, I am such a sucker for Starbucks and I know I don't have to contact the company all too often, and that it won't affect my next cup of coffee, that it had pretty much no effect on my loyalty to the company.
How about my telecom provider to which I hold no loyalty? My cable and internet have always worked and I've never had a problem with the product. However, I have had billing and moving issues in the past that have led me to their contact center. Their awful, awful contact center. Because I have had such painful experiences with their contact center, it has driven my loyalty to said cable company significantly downward. If they were great experiences, I'm sure it would be the reciprocal effect.
I'm making this delineation to better support my claim that an IVR or Virtual Assistant can have an impact on customer loyalty. If your contact center plays a large role in your customer's perception of your brand, the experience must be flawless. In automation, this means efficiency - as defined as the combination of ease of use and speed. If you're using traditional IVR, the saying goes, "the best IVR is the one the caller doesn't remember" and I abide by that. If you're using more advanced technology,such as Virtual Assistant applications, you have a greater opportunity to impress callers with sophisticated, brand-reflecting automation that can enhance the sales or customer care experience.
If you make the automated experience seamless, callers will be more willing to purchase, will trust your company, and if your caller is frustrated, the automated part of the call won't increase their frustration levels, as it often does.
For more information on how Hyatt is using Virtual Assistant technology to boost reservation sales and reduce operating costs by 33% per call, download our new whitepaper, "IVRs Take on New Tasks."


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How To Recognize Ragweed
One part of the Ragweed plant produces clouds of pollen that is the bain of allergy suffers. Learn what part of the plant it is!
Ragweed is an annual weed with a branched, leafy stem. It can grow up to 5 feet tall and has deeply divided leaves. The stems are four angled and appear hairy. The leaves are green on the outer surface but gray and hairy underneath. Ragweed can be found on roadsides, in waste areas and in fields throughout the United States and southern Canada. Although it has been introduced to the northern central and western parts of the country it is not as common in these areas.
The flower heads on ragweed are numerous. The male heads appear to be nodding and are born in long flower spikes at the top of the branches. They produce clouds of pollen. This is the part of the Ragweed plant that has been the bain of allergy suffers. Much of the yellow pollen found in thin layers on automobiles and in other outdoors areas is produced by the male part of this plant. What is known as ragweed season is the time when most of these plants are sending out great clouds of pollen. Although this creates a beneficial situation of pollination for other plants, in many humans it creates the itchy, red, watery eyes and fits of sneezing. The female heads are borne in tight clusters in the upper leaf axils.
Other species of ragweed includes Giant Ragweed which has similar flowers but is about twice as large as common Ragweed. The leaves on the Giant Ragweed have three lobes. Another species, Western Ragweed, is a perennial plant that spreads. This variety is more common in the west and has hairy divided leaves.
Due to the wide variation in climate and geography in North America, the area and habitat in which this plant can be found is an important clue to its identity. Ragweeds flowering period in most areas usually occurs from August until the first frost. It is possible that knowing when the plant is sending out it's pollen in the area where one lives, might aide one with controlling the hay fever reaction caused by this the plant.
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These "Sassy Plaid Papers" are part of my Devoted to You Collection and are wonderful to use to expand your layout options. 300 ppi for quality print results. Contents: 8 12x12 papers; 300ppi Personal Use and Scrap for Hire friendly. This kit is part of my Collection, it may be purchased individually or for best value, purchase the entire Devoted to You Collection.