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"The Walking Dead: Assault" Game Launches For iOS Devices
Official Press Release
Skybound and Skybound Asia, in collaboration with UK-mobile game developer, Gamagio, announce the release of a new game for Apple-brand mobile devices based on Robert Kirkman's record-breaking comic book series and bestselling graphic novels, The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead: Assault can be downloaded at 12:01 AM on Friday, November 30 from the iTunes App Store to a desktop, iPad or iPhone, all for a limited launch sale price of $1.99. The price will increase to $2.99 shortly after launch.
The Walking Dead: Assault, like the comic book series first installment, Days Gone Bye, begins at the moment when disoriented Sheriff Rick Grimes awakens in the hospital without knowing how he got there. The player is transported to those first isolated moments to revisit the early days through Atlanta, the campsite, and all the fan's favorite locations, surrounded by danger in all directions.
Players assemble and upgrade their ultimate team of four, chosen from The Walking Dead favorites: Rick, Lori, Carl, Glenn, Shane, Andrea, Carol, Sophia and Dale. Players utilize the characters' unique abilities to fight their way through the undead hordes while completing bonus objectives and challenges to unlock exclusive content from The Walking Dead including artwork, wallpapers, behind-the-scenes trivia, and Game Center achievements. The game allows players to collect future episodes that parallel the ongoing comic timeline. Players can join The Walking Dead universe and prove their skills to other players with Game Center leaderboards, four levels of difficulty and endless possibilities for challenges.
The Walking Dead: Assault features authentic locations from comic book series all visualized in a 3D art style based the comic series iconic look. Playing as their favorite characters from the books, users can trigger distractions including flares and car alarms in order to keep their team safe from walkers, all while utilizing intuitive controls designed for iOS. The Walking Dead: Assault features a Universal App allowing a one-time purchase to run on all of the purchaser's Apple mobile devices. The game is optimized for the iPhone 5 retina display and is automatically enhanced for iPad.
Can you survive The Walking Dead: Assault? Now is your chance to prove it. The Walking Dead: Assault is produced and published by Skybound, Skybound Asia and developed by Gamagio Ltd.
For more information or support, visit TheWalkingDeadAssault.com or @playwalkingdead. For information on The Walking Dead comic book series and graphic novels, visit Skybound.com or @skyboundent.
About Skybound
Skybound is the home of Robert Kirkman's creator-owned work including his Eisner Award-winning comic book series, The Walking Dead, long-running Invincible, all-ages Super Dinosaur, Thief of Thieves, and Clone as well as Witch Doctor, Guarding the Globe, and The Astounding Wolf-Man. Since its inception, Skybound has created television shows, merchandise and a wide spectrum of platforms, games and entertainment events (The Walking Dead Escape). Skybound's successes include the comic behind the hit Emmy®-winning television show, AMC's The Walking Dead, the highest-rated basic cable drama of all time in the U.S, also an international success in 122 countries and 37 languages. AMC is developing Thief of Thieves as a potential series. Skybound/Kirkman frequently top the hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. Your destination for all news and merchandise from Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead and all Skybound titles is www.Skybound.com.
About Skybound Asia
Skybound Asia was founded in 2011 by Skybound Entertainment in partnership with Figo Fuad and James Lockard of The Moving Images Company. Based in Singapore, Skybound Asia focuses on developing Skybound's titles, including record-breaking series The Walking Dead, in Southeast Asia through the development of mobile apps, merchandising and conventions. The establishment of Skybound Asia marked the first time an independent creator established an arm in Southeast Asia.
About Gamagio Ltd
Gamagio is a London, UK-based independent developer of mobile and social games. It was founded in 2011 by Head of Studio Ian Bell and Development Director Andy Garton as the social & mobile sister studio to Slightly Mad Studios , developers of the award-winning Need For Speed: SHIFT and SHIFT 2 Unleashed titles and WMD community-powered title Project CARS. The Walking Dead: Assault represents the fourth title to be released by Gamagio. www.gamagio.com @gamagiogaming
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is welcoming the passage by the U.S. Senate of an immigration bill that could offer a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants. But it also expressed concern that some of the security measures that form part of the reform could affect the relationship between the two countries.
The Foreign Relations Department said in a statement Thursday that approval of the bill could offer a chance for millions of Mexicans living in the United State to improve their lives.
It added, however, that some of the measures "move away from the principles of shared responsibility and neighborliness."
The bill includes adding 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents, doubling their number along the border with Mexico, and completing 700 miles of fencing.
It now goes to the Republican-controlled House.

subset: commoncrawl


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Being creative, promoting nature in quarries and winning up to 30.000 €? This is a package deal you can make by participating in the Edition 2018. Choose your stream, your category and submit your project proposal by 20 November 2017 on this website.
Either join the research stream….
The research stream focuses on scientific projects that increase knowledge of mining ecology and lead to improved biodiversity, landscape, or water management. It is open to academics, scientists, experts and NGOs. You just have to decide which of the following three categories fits better to your idea:
- "biodiversity management"
- "habitat & species research"
- "beyond quarry borders"
Choose the quarry for which your idea fits best and submit your project idea by 20 November 2017 at the latest. A national jury will then select the three best project proposals in this stream to take part in the next phase of the competition. If you are one of the selected ones, you have the opportunity to carry out your research between 1 January 2018 and 20 September 2018. During that period, you can interact with other participants, too and use social media to inform others about your project. At the end of the research period, you have to submit a final project report in English. After reviewing all the submitted reports, the national jury will award the two best projects, with either 5.000€ or 2.500€.
…or become part of the community stream
No worries, if you are not an expert in biodiversity or a scientist but still want to raise awareness and help educate about biodiversity in quarries. The community stream is the ideal chance for everyone to participate in this competition! We invite individuals, students, school classes, NGO's and local communities to submit their project ideas in one of the following categories:
- "biodiversity & education"
- "connecting quarries and local communities"
- "student class project" (for primary and secondary students only).
The procedure is the same as described in the research stream – as is the prize money!
Competition on an international level
Regardless of your placement in the national competition, your completed project will automatically compete for the International Quarry Life Award and will be separately assessed by an International Jury! So, without further work, you´ll have the chance to win even more money! The best project in each of the six categories will receive 10.000€ each. The best project overall will receive no less than 30.000 €.
Join us! And make nature the biggest winner!


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• ACOUSTIC HAPPY HOUR: Thursdays at the 710 BEACH CLUB, 710 Garnet Ave. 5 p.m. 21 and up. www.710bc.com.
Multi-instrumentalist Stefanie Schmitz performs at Café-Bar Europa on May 20. Adept at saxophone, clarinet and percussion, Schmitz can be seen around town with various combos, including Brazilian folk group Choro Sataque, though here she'll be accompanied by a few musical friends. Performing mostly instrumental jazz with improvisational touches, Schmitz and company provide an excellent soundtrack to a nice afternoon out at this intimate location. Because of the setting, the material tends toward the low-key side, but it's still engaging, with Schmitz' emotive playing sure to please jazz fans and diners alike.
• STEFANIE SCHMITZ: Tuesday, May 20 at CAFE-BAR EUROPA, 873 Turqouise St. 4 p.m. 21 and up. www.theturquoise.com/wordpress.
Rockabilly fans won't want to miss Karling & The Kadavers at Tio Leo's on Saturday, May 24. Looking like a cross between Wanda Jackson and Betty Page, Karling and her band excel at vintage sounds circa the 1950s, full of strum and twang, rock 'n' roll and fun. The band's musical stories are all spelled out in its song titles, like "Thinkin' of Drinkin'" and "Crazy Mabel," both of which do capture a wonderful retro sound, though the attitude and spirit is timeless. They may be a good listen, but make sure to bring your dancing shoes. This is a group that will get your feet moving from the first beat.
• KARLING & THE KADAVERS: Saturday, May 24 at TIO LEO'S,
5302 Napa St. 9 p.m. 21 and up. Cover TBD. www.tioleos.com.
San Diego's music community has a lot of respected jazz players, but few are as beloved as saxophonist Joe Marillo, who performs at Dizzy's on Saturday,
May 24. The occasion is Marillo's 82nd birthday, with a performance by Joe and his Quintet featuring pianist Reka Parker. Affectionately known as the scene's "Godfather," Marillo has released several great recordings. But his greater impact has been on the live club circuit and especially as a music teacher, where he has mentored and taught hundreds of students over the decades. This concert is a great opportunity to hear music from one of our town's living legends. Stop in and wish him a happy birthday.
• JOE MARILLO: Saturday, May 24 at DIZZY'S, 4275 Mission Bay Drive. 8 p.m. $15. www.dizzysjazz.com.
One of the hardest-working bands in San Diego, Sister Speak performs at Humphreys Backstage Live on Friday, May 30. Fronted by gifted songwriters guitarist Sherri-Anne and drummer Lisa Viegas, with award-winning guitarist Tolan Shaw and bassist Jacob Miranda rounding out the combo, the band is perennially on tour, forever crafting and road-testing material. Their indie rock touches on folk, with a highlight being the superb harmonies between Sherri-Anne and Shaw's voices, as heard on their new album, "Rise Up For Love." Sister Speak is starting to tour further afield, with the immensely talented quartet earning some well-deserved praise from coast to coast.
• SISTER SPEAK: Friday, May 30, at HUMPHREYS BACKSTAGE LIVE, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island. 5 p.m. www.humphreysbackstagelive.com.


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Hi everyone,
This question or favor i'm asking is very argumentative and could very soon turn into a flame. Well here it is: I'm always using my brother's laptop for work and fun. I'm going to school for Computer Engineering and i'm thinking of taking some Network Security classes too. My brother decided to challenge me to figure out his password on the laptop. He has a Sony vaio, WINXP. THe password he placed on it pops up as soon as u turn the computer on. *not at the winxp screen*. I guess i'm litterally asking you how to hack my brother's computer. I dont expect many of you to take me seriously or honestly but I had to take the chance. He offered me 500 dollars if I guess the password. For security purposes, I ask that you not post the answer, or solution to my problem in this post but instead PM me. I kindly ask you not to neg me to death because i really enjoy being here and trying to help others while learning myself. If you dont want to help me or cant help me, please kindly say so without punishing me. I've been with AO for a while now and I understand that this kind of questions is not taken very favorably here for obvious reasons.
Thank you for your time.


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Boost User Experience While Doubling Number of Desktops
Optimize Return on Investment
Industry Leading Components used for All-Flash Virtual SAN
How is VMware Virtual SAN All Flash Storage Used in the Enterprise?
VSAN All Flash Storage allows users to:
This all flash Virtual SAN Ready Node solution features new 12Gb/s SAS RAID controllers, SanDisk® 12Gb/s SAS SSDs, and Dell's PowerEdge 13G family, which improves performance up to 50% over other platforms. This combination of hardware delivers a powerful, scalable storage solution for VSAN environments.
Network connectivity is provided by Arista 7280SE switches, the industry's first 100GbE Top of Rack switch. Built for storage networks, the 7280SE series provides a combination of deep buffers, up to 72 10GbE ports and an extensive list of features.
VMware Virtual SAN software provides the software-defined storage tier for VMware vSphere environments. VMware Virtual SAN is a hypervisor converged storage solution that creates a flash optimized, highly resilient shared datastore. It optimizes the I/O data path to maximize throughput and minimize latency. Also, because it is embedded within the VMware ESXi kernel, Virtual SAN lowers costs and offers superior performance when compared to traditional SANs or external devices.
This solution is built using SanDisk Lightning Gen II 12Gb/s SSDs, which provide sustained performance over a wide range of write intensive, read intensive, and mixed-use applications. With proven endurance and superior reliability, these are ideal for demanding VDI environments.
Figure 1: 750 VM Result with Office Worker – VSI Index Average
Figure 2: 851 VM Result with Task Worker – VSI Index Average
Architecture Details
Figure 3: VSAN Reference Architecture
|Hardware Details
|DELL R730s
CPU = 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2690 v3 (24 Cores & 48 Threads)
Memory = 384 GB
|SSD Drives
12G - SAS drive for caching
12G - SAS drive for data
|Disk Controller
|Avago 3108 (PERC H730P Mini Controller)
|Ethernet Switch
|2 Arista DCS-7280SE-72-R 10G switches (Used in Pre-GA vSphere 2015 Test Results)
In the testing, VSAN Observer was used to determine the overall performance of the reference architecture under heavy VDI load. Unsurprisingly, both disk throughput and IOPS increased as the VDI load increased, but the overall solution was able to handle the load and deliver significant performance gains over other architectures. With an average latency of 1ms, IOPS reached a peak threshold of 18k. The maximum throughput was about 100KB/s. There was no memory congestion throughout these tests.
The VSAN all flash reference architecture is able to deliver significantly higher performance for virtual desktop deployments than legacy disk based solutions. This solution is able to support not only a significantly higher number of virtual desktops, but each individual desktop is able to operate with higher performance to deliver a superior user experience.
1. IDC, U.S. and Worldwide Server Installed Base 2007–2011 Forecast, Doc #207044, May 2007
2. IDC, Virtualization and Multicore Innovations Disrupt The Worldwide Server Market, Doc #206035, March 2007
3. Source: VMware
Of u nu een Fortune 500 bedrijf bent of een starter met 5 werknemers, SanDisk heeft oplossingen die u zullen helpen het optimale uit uw infrastructuur te halen.
Of u nu een paar eerste vragen wilt stellen of er aan toe bent om een SanDisk-oplossing te bespreken die speciaal aansluit bij de behoeften van uw organisatie, het SanDisk-verkoopteam is er om u te ondersteunen.
Wij beantwoorden uw vragen graag. Vult u dus het onderstaande formulier in, zodat we aan de slag kunnen.
Hartelijk dank. Wij hebben uw verzoek ontvangen


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The ideal way to celebrate King�s life is through service
A special event Sunday will celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday will be observed Monday as a U.S. Federal holiday.
The Kinston/Lenoir County NAACP will hold its annual Martin Luther King Celebration starting at 2 p.m. Sunday, with the traditional ceremony and walk from the Kinston Courthouse steps to the United American Free Will Baptist Tabernacle in Kinston on Dr. J.E. Reddick Drive.
A program celebrating the life and legacy of King will follow at the Tabernacle starting at 3 p.m. Program speakers will include Elder William Hudson of Mt. Calvary FWB Church in La Grange, Dr. Jan Laughinghouse of Bennett College in Greensboro, and other community leaders.
Music will be provided by the Dorothy C. Pitt Chancel Choir of Emmanuel Hill Memorial FWB Church, and ecumenical friends will reflect the themes represented by King in his efforts to make justice and equality a reality for all.
King was the chief spokesman for non-violent activism in the Civil Rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. Striving for peace, inclusion and harmony among all people, his words and example have inspired generations, and his legacy continues today.
The Rev. Veronica Jackson, Religious Affairs director for the Kinston/Lenoir County NAACP, reminds the community that the ideal way to celebrate King�s life is through service.
�Service is a way to transform Dr. King�s life and life�s teaching into a community action that helps solve social problems. It may be service that meets a tangible need or a need of the spirit,� Jackson said.
�In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a National Day of Service and we were encouraged to make it �A Day On, Not a Day Off.� Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems and moves us closer to Dr. King�s vision of a beloved community,� Jackson added.
Everyone is invited to attend this celebration of one of the most outstanding leaders of our time.


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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (R)
Cast: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Eric Balfour, Andrew Bryniarski
Release Date: October 17, 2003
Runtime: 1 hr. 30 mins.
Genre: Horror
A tale of five 20-somethings whose free spirited road trip becomes a terrifying descent into madness. When they find themselves isolated in a rural Texas community, they fall into the clutches of a monstrous clan of Texas cannibals and find themselves being whittled away by the chainsaw-wielding Leather face.
A story of five 20-somethings whose free-spirited road trip across the Lone Star state runs headlong into madness when they encounter a bizarre family and a chainsaw-wielding man known as Leatherface.
No pun intended, but this remake of Tobe Hooper's low-budget 1974 cult horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre cuts straight to the chase and goes right for the jugular. The result is a horror movie bloodbath with jolting scares guaranteed to shock moviegoers out of their seats and onto sticky theater floors. Like the first, the remake is set in the early 1970s and follows five friends on their way to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas after making a drug buy in Mexico. Their fates are forever changed when they pick up a hitchhiker who commits suicide in the back of the van. In desperate need of a solution to the dead girl in the car, the quintet stumbles upon a dilapidated house in a rural Texas community inhabited by Thomas Hewitt (Andrew Bryniarski) and his strange extended family. Hewitt receives the group, led by Erin (Jessica Biel), revving a chainsaw--and suddenly their aspirations go from catching a performance of ''Free Bird'' to leaving the house with their limbs intact. This is supposedly based on the true story of Plainfield, Wisconsin's, cannibalistic grave robber, Ed Gein, which is precisely what makes this film so entrancing. If horror movies are designed to brutally assault not only the victims on-screen but also its viewers, then TCM succeeds.
Biel, 21, first impressed viewers on the WB series 7th Heaven with her portrayal of Mary Camden, the eldest daughter of a progressive minister. As Erin in TCM, Biel emerges as a strong lead and it's refreshing to see a horror movie heroine who never twists her ankle in a pivotal chase scene, doesn't scream unnecessarily and knows how to hotwire anything on wheels. This role should definitely prepare Biel for her next project, playing vampire hunter Abigail Whistler alongside Wesley Snipes in the upcoming Blade 3. While Biel carries the film, there are also some decent performances from Eric Balfour (levelheaded Kemper), Mike Vogel (Andy, the drunk), Erica Leerhsen (slutty Pepper) and Jonathan Tucker (STD statistic-spouting nerd Morgan). They all have clichéd characteristics that serve to create tension and each rises to the occasion in their limited screen time. At 6'5'', Bryniarski (Scooby-Doo) is tailor-made for the role of the enduring yet no less frightening Leatherface. There are also some smaller performances worth noting from R. Lee Ermey (Willard) as the demented Sheriff Hoyt and Heather Kafka as the trailer park baby-thief Henrietta.
Music video helmer Marcus Nispel chose a doozy of a film for his directorial debut. Director Hooper's '74 slasher pic influenced a slew of contemporary horrors, including House of 1,000 Corpses, Jeepers Creepers and Wrong Turn, and it remains to this day a highly romanticized and over-analyzed film. Some, for example, maintain that Hooper's TCM was a sociopolitical allegory of post-Vietnam America. But although Nispel's setup is practically identical to Hooper's, there is no profound message here. Scribes Scott Kosar and Eric Berny do slip in a psychological explanation for Hewitt's wrath by giving him a skin condition that left him without a nose and ostracized as a child, which is why he collects body parts and makes masks out of his victims' faces--hence the nickname ''Leatherface''--but in the end it's just an entertaining slasher pic. Half storytelling, half mood, music intensive and richly atmospheric, TCM has great visual appeal, although some of it is undercut by some of producer Michael Bay's trademark bullet path shots. Nispel's music video background is pervasive in the film's visual, MTV-style narration, which is fitting for a film aimed at the 15- to 25-year-old TV watching audience.
Bottom Line
Get ready to be brutalized! For those looking for a heart-stopping horror flick, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Marcus Nispel's directorial debut, is well worth the price of admission.
A tale of five 20-somethings whose free spirited road trip becomes a terrifying descent into madness. When they find themselves isolated in a rural Texas community, they fall into the clutches of a monstrous clan of Texas cannibals and find themselves being whittled away by the chainsaw-wielding Leather face.


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Within 6 months, Dr. Blodgett saw:
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YOUR SAY: I am compelled to write a response to a recent article about abolishing porn in Toowoomba.
Now it's not like I openly oppose the idea, but I see this as a symptom of a much larger issue that is creeping into our society on a large scale.
The protest held by City Women Toowoomba again painted that narrative of the poor modern woman being objectified.
The original article mentioned a story of a woman whose partner was "addicted to porn, and was abusive".
Now these are two completely different things.
Men around the country are beginning to feel the effects of this type of "PC culture" and it is way more harmful than some people's perceptions of objectification.
Men young and old are being painted as horrific creatures that have nothing but hate and violence, and this is even present here in our local region.
This event in itself seems to be nothing more than an attack on men to make them feel bad for looking at pictures of consenting adults.
But we must look past porn. It always has been and always will be a taboo. Let's look at the domestic violence awareness campaign here in town.
Oh wait, that isn't domestic violence, it's "violence against women and children", implying that men are immune from such horrific crimes but are the only perpetrators of it, when recent studies by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that up to half of victims of domestic abuse are in fact men.
You want to see who the victims of this culture are, look at the youth suicide rate in Australia, it is horrendous.
But what is worse than the figure itself is that young men are five times more likely to commit suicide and you cannot tell me that demonising men has nothing to do with this because I was nearly part of that statistic.
All media or any form of information we read is based on the fact that men are horrid, violent, abusive, disgusting, sexist, misogynists.
I do not see myself doing any of these things and yet I am still tarred with the same brush as rapists, child abusers, and spouse abusers.
- Hundreds take anti-porn pledge in Civic Square
- Porn debate sparks flood of hilarious memes
- Mayor leads anti-porn crusade targeting 50,000 men
We have worked hard over the last 40 years to balance the forces between the sexes and it's all being undone by victimising people into the belief that their entire gender is disgusting.
The council of Toowoomba region should face the issues reaching to the wider community.
If you want to stop the objectification of women, why allow a strip club to move in on a major street? Or allow one of the few legal brothels in Queensland be built here?
Instead of chasing after this silly red herring, fix our roads, fix the blunder of a dam on Kitchener St that still floods the road every time it rains.
That's what you were elected for, and on these counts you fail as a collective.
S GANNON, Toowoomba


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JD Sports Forum! / Re: Jedidefender Fantasy Football 2010« on: December 29, 2010, 06:34 PM »
Thanks everyone. Was definitely a shocking and unexpected victory. Hell, I wasn't even expecting to get out of first round, let alone win 3 straight. I'll be the first to admit that my team was hardly one of the better ones in the league entering the playoffs (the 8 seed was certainly fitting) but, as it's been stated here before, it's all about luck, especially once the playoffs start.


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Kiva.org has announced its first partnership in Cameroon, with the microfinance institution GHAPE:
Overview: GHAPE is a registered non-governmental, not-for-profit and apolitical organization dedicated to poverty alleviation in Cameroon, West Africa. GHAPE believes poverty is one of the oldest diseases known to mankind, and that it is a "germ" caused by the vast greed of this world. Bernadette A. Ngoh founded GHAPE in October 1998 in order to help fight this disease and improve the plight of the world's unfortunate class, "the poor."
GHAPE's mission is to make credit accessible to the bottom fifty percent (50%) of those living below the poverty line. By providing credit that can be used for investment in income-generating activities, GHAPE works to improve its client's quality of life and, in doing so, make the world a better place. All of GHAPE's activities are geared towards sustainable poverty alleviation.
Client Assessment:Targeting the poor remains a central issue in poverty alleviation policies and programs. In seeking to serve the poorest of the poor, GHAPE has developed the Basic Needs Test (BNT), a poverty measurement and targeting tool used for screening eligibility into GHAPE's programs. The BNT is constructed under the premise that the basic needs of life - food, water, shelter, clothing, lighting, health and education - are universal. The BNT is adaptable to the realities of each community GHAPE serves, and it is designed to reflect the gravity of each basic need component. The application of the BNT is also participatory.
Program Design: The problems facing the poor, especially poor women and young people, are multiple and interrelated. Because of this, GHAPE has developed an innovative poverty alleviation package, Empowerment Credit (EC), which contains the fundamental empowerment resources required to fight abject poverty. Included in EC are trainings (business development service), credit and social education. To guarantee sustainability and maximize GHAPE's scarce resources, this package is administered sequentially, and it simultaneously meets the current and emerging needs of borrowers.
The attributes of GHAPE's EC program design are simple and straight forward:
Program Reach: GHAPE Loans have been disbursed to over 1160 borrowers, and amounts range from $30 to $800. Repayment rate has remained 100% since inception. Loans have been invested in groceries, food cultivation, vegetable gardening, poultry, pig and goat farming, tailoring, embroidery, restaurants and mobile snacks vendors.
Program Impact: The impact of GHAPE clients' business investments on their families and communities is overwhelming. After receiving capital, many of clients change their dress, visit the hospital more, increase the quantity and quality of their meals and find employment. GHAPE clients also empower their children by spending time with them in their businesses, teaching them life skills, learning culture with them, and sharing wisdom and folklore.
Echoes reaching GHAPE's office also state that women borrowers have reported more control over their sexuality as they are no longer forced into prostitution by fear of their children starving or being driven from classes. They also able to tell their husband "No" or "Not convenient now". For once poor women are taking seats around policy tables in families, quarter and village levels. Borrowers are also requesting bigger loans for expansion and diversification.
GHAPE and Kiva: The demand for GHAPE services has continued to increase. Today GHAPE is faced with many challenges such as inadequate credit funds, training materials and computers, poor accounting software, no website and no motor-bikes to enable us reach the geographical hard to reach areas. GHAPE's partnership with Kiva, however, is a powerful step towards becoming a stronger and more sustainable organization


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Hallelujah, Washington has finally heard the people's cries for jobs! In an urgent bipartisan push, Democrats and Republicans have joined hands across the aisle to pass the JOBS Act. In this time of "The Great Hurt" — with widespread unemployment, middle-class incomes tumbling and the price of gasoline skyrocketing — we can all applaud our stalwarts in the capital city for meeting the No. 1 need of America's hard-hit economy: deregulating Wall Street.
Huh? I thought this was a jobs bill?
We'll get to that, but first (as always) Wall Street bankers must be served. Yes, them. The same priests of unmitigated arrogance who caused the disastrous financial crash that continues to rumble across our land. The same Wall Streeters we bailed out with trillions of public dollars. That Wall Street is now sulking and skulking around the U.S. Capitol, insisting that it is an economic victim, held back from its profiteering potential by government regulations to protect the public from finaglers and fraudsters. "Free Wall Street," is their cry!
Clucking with sympathy, Congress' tea party Republicans have rushed to the side of these poor, rich financiers, pledging to unshackle them from "burdensome" regulations. Serving Wall Street is not all that popular these days with voters, however, so the Repubs and their Democratic allies have committed their own fraud in order to pass this bill, deceptively titled it the "JOBS Act" (even though it doesn't actually create any jobs).
Then they pushed it in the name of small businesses (even though they quietly defined "small" as a billion dollars a year in sales). In fact, the accent on the JOBS acronym should be on "B.S." Will it surprise you to learn that the word "jobs" isn't even included in the title? Instead, JOBS stands for "Jump-start Our Business Start-ups."
Alarmingly, the so-called "onerous" regulations that Congress eliminated primarily are the extremely useful financial disclosure rules passed a decade ago to prevent another Enron scandal.
The GOP House even tried to free financial hucksters from having to tell potential investors the names of the executives running the company and — get this — from providing such essential investor information as a description of what the company does and accurate accounting of its financial condition!
The last thing our economy needs is an open invitation for a new crop of Enroners to be unleashed to defraud the public — but that's the first thing that Washington agreed to do. It's a disgrace.
While the law was rushed to passage without any public hearings in the name of hard-hit American workers and small business, all of the benefits go to corporate and financial hucksters who begged Congress to roll back financial disclosure and anti-fraud rules that were designed to protect investors, consumers and taxpayers. It's just another "tinkle-down" economic scam written by and for Wall Street fraudsters. The law makes it easier for them to raise cash for their new business schemes by deceiving investors about the risk of loses, the true financial condition of the enterprise and the amount of capital being raked off by executives.
"Free us from those pesky old regulations," demanded the hucksters, "and we'll attract speculators for corporate startups that (if they succeed and don't set up operations offshore) could possibly, someday create a few low-wage American jobs. But don't hold us to that job thing."
Sure enough, Washington's Wall Street-hugging politicos did not. Instead, they merrily passed a bill upping the likelihood of more financial swindles without even getting a promise from the swindlers that America will get some good jobs in return. The JOBS Act should be called the ROBS Act.


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April 09. 2014 10:03PM
Federal data shows which doctors reap Medicare millions
By SHARON BEGLEY and M.B. PELL
— In 2012, south Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen received $20.8 million in Medicare payments, the highest amount the government health plan for the elderly and disabled paid an individual provider that year, according to a Reuters analysis of federal data released Wednesday.
A California laboratory received $190 million, the most Medicare paid a single entity in 2012.
Family physician Tatiana Pavlova Greenfield, who practices in Maryland, may have received an average of more than $86,000 per patient that year, according to the Reuters review, and $3.3 million in total. That compares to an average of $2,200 per Medicare patient in 2012. Asked for comment, an employee at the office where Greenfield worked said she "had left the country."
After decades of litigation and over the strenuous objections of the American Medical Association, the leading U.S. doctors group, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made public for the first time how much Medicare pays individual doctors and other providers.
The massive data release, totaling nearly 10 million lines, also includes which medical services each of more than 880,000 physicians and other health care providers nationwide billed Medicare for in 2012. In a sign of the disproportion in payments, 344 of those clinicians each received more than $3 million from Medicare Part B.
"While the data are not perfect, this is a major milestone in health care transparency," said cancer surgeon Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, whose 2012 book, "Unaccountable," argues for making public more information on doctors and hospitals.
Waste and fraud
In addition to allowing patients to see which doctors perform a particular procedure most frequently often a proxy for expertise in rare and difficult surgeries such as colon operations — the data are expected to offer a road map to where waste and fraud are most rampant, not only in the Medicare program but throughout the American health care system.
"If you see that a doctor is doing a procedure hundreds or thousands of times that should be done only on a small number of patients, you wonder," said Dr. John Santa, medical director of Consumer Reports. "Are they committing fraud by billing for something they're not actually doing, doing unnecessary procedures because they're greedy, or do they practice someplace where so many people need the procedure?"
CMS urged the public, press and academics to use the data to answer such questions. "We want the public to help us, we want the press to identify outliers in spending," Jonathan Blum, CMS's principal deputy administrator, told a press conference on Wednesday.
$77 billion paid
Medicare paid physicians, physical therapists, nurse practitioners, chiropractors and other individual providers $77 billion in 2012. About two-thirds of Medicare's total $540 billion in payments that year went to hospitals and most of the rest to prescription drugs.
Outpatient office visits were among the most commonly billed services, accounting for 18 percent of all Part B spending in 2012, or $14 billion. Part B covers physician, therapist and lab services ranging from eye exams and physical therapy to knee replacements, cataract surgery and CT scans for 35 million beneficiaries.
A small number of extremely expensive procedures account for an outsized fraction of Part B spending. Medicare paid $956 million for 144,000 injections of the Roche drug Lucentis for "wet" age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease. That works out to 1.2 percent of total payments for 0.4 percent of beneficiaries. Medicare also paid $13.6 million for only 530 procedures in which men with prostate cancer received the controversial treatment Provenge, made by Dendreon.
'Complicated' cases
The data released on Wednesday include the names and addresses of physicians who submitted claims to Medicare in 2012, along with the codes for the approximately 6,000 services Medicare covers. It lists the number of times providers billed for each service, the average submitted charge and how much that deviated from the national norm.
The billing information is expected to indicate which physicians, therapists or others claim an inordinately high number of complicated cases. If a case is particularly complex, Medicare allows them to add a "modifier" to the code they use for billing and claim higher reimbursement.
"You'll be able to see back surgeons whose average bill is $50,000 because they say almost all of the spinal fusions they do are more complicated than the usual, and others whose average bill is $5,000" because they rarely classify the procedures as extra-complicated, said Santa.
That alone is not evidence of fraud, experts warned. But it can warrant additional scrutiny.
Last December, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, CMS' parent agency, found that 303 clinicians each collected more than $3 million from Medicare Part B in 2009, triggering "improper payment reviews" for 104. Those reviews identified $34 million in overpayments. Three of the clinicians had their medical licenses suspended; two were indicted.
Although CMS has had the data all along, outside health care experts are eager to scrutinize it, said healthcare analyst and Medicare expert Cristina Boccuti of the Kaiser Family Foundation. One thing they will look for is high-volume doctors. If some providers are billing for many more services per patient than others in the same community, she said, it could indicate overtreatment.
Consumer groups and media outlets have been trying to get the Medicare physician data since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. In 1979, the AMA and the Florida Medical Association convinced a judge to keep federal officials from releasing the data on the grounds that doing so would violate physicians' privacy. Last May, however, a judge in the District Court lifted the ban.


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Dave Maass
Dave Maass is a muckraker/noisemaker on EFF's activism team, covering issues related to police surveillance, free speech, transparency, and government accountability. In addition to deep-dive investigations, Dave coordinates crowdsourced public records campaigns, advocates on state legislation, and compiles The Foilies, EFF's annual tongue-in-cheek awards for outrageous responses to FOIA requests. He sometimes represents EFF in digital rights-themed cosplay at Dragon Con, and he recently edited EFF's first science fiction collection, Pwning Tomorrow. Contact him with questions or information on police technology (e.g. license plate readers, biometric identification), prisoner rights, freedom of information laws, or any other inquiry about EFF activism.
Download high resolution photo.
Before joining EFF, Dave wrote for alt weeklies in every state along the southern border, reporting on everything from Texas death row to San Diego Comic-Con. He has moderated dark-horse presidential debates on public access TV; organized digital media on barely legal road rallies; performed spoken word on a British art-rock tour; revealed human-rights abuses in Ghanaian refugee camps; and uncovered embezzlement that ultimately put a New Mexico elected official behind bars.
His investigative reporting on incarceration in San Diego County was honored with the Youth Law Center's Loren Warboys Unsung Hero Award and the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement's Contribution to Oversight Award. He has also won top honors from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the Society of Professional Journalists San Diego Chapter. In 2017, Dave was a recipient of the First Amendment Coalition's Free Speech and Open Government Award alongside EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch and the ACLU of Southern California's Director of Police Practices Peter Bibring. He also served on the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force from 2016-2018.
The city council of San Diego created "Dave Maass Day" on February 13, 2013 in sarcastic recognition of his commitment to annoying politicians and filing records requests. He still celebrates it.


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Nov. 14 program at Mount St. Mary's Hospital
Mount St. Mary's Hospital and Health Center will feature a free educational program with Mary Ellen Willen Nov. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 249 to share diabetes management and lifestyle strategies based on extensive training and her personal experience living with diabetes. Willen is a member of the A1C Champions Program, supported by Sanofi, which is a patient-led approach to diabetes education. A1C Champions know first-hand the challenges and obstacles to maintaining control of their diabetes.
Among the topics to be covered include achieving good glucose control; learning about effective self-management; developing a balanced, healthy lifestyle; planning and prioritizing diabetes management; overcoming fears surrounding diabetes; and finding resources for diabetes support
November is Diabetes Awareness Month. It is estimated nearly 26 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, including an estimated 7 million who remain undiagnosed. At the same time, about 40 percent of those diagnosed with diabetes did not achieve the blood sugar control target of A1C <7 percent recommended by the American Diabetes Association The A1C test measures average blood glucose levels over the past two- to three-month period.
For more information or to register for the Nov. 14 program, call Debra Hoffman, Mount St. Mary's certified diabetes educator, at 716-298-2297.


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Caroline Lee Hentz, 1800-1856
The Planter's Northern Bride.
Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, c1854.
[Spine Image]
Planter's Northern Bride. BY Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz
Return to List of Illustrations for The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee HentzReturn to Menu Page for The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz
Return to Library of Southern Literature Home Page
Return to Documenting the American South Home Page


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Kos Climate & Weather
Kos Climate and Weather
The Kos climate is typical of the Greek islands and ensures hot, dry summers and mild winters. In July and August temperatures are at their hottest and range from 82ºF (28ºC) during the day to 72ºF (22ºC) at night. It can get substantially hotter than this during heat waves though. Rainfall is almost non-existent in summer but showers can be expected between October and March. If heat bothers you or you are not used to it peak summer is not the best time to visit Kos, but it is the most popular time and the island gets extremely crowded with jam-packed beaches. If you want to avoid the worst of the crowds and the most oppressive heat, we think the best time to visit any of the islands is in late spring or early autumn. May is a lovely month on Kos with the island feeling fresh and lush after its recent spring awakening, and the seas are getting warm enough for swimming by this time; September is also very pleasant with the ocean as warm as in summer and all the fruit ready for harvest. Winter is the clear loser in the seasonal contest but some visitors, intending to explore the archaeological and historical wonders of the island, do enjoy this cold but uncrowded and cheap period.
Become our Kos Travel Expert
We are looking for contributors for our Kos travel guide. If you are a local, a regular traveller to Kos or a travel professional with time to contribute and answer occasional forum questions, please contact us.


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Moderators: Three Stars, dagny, pfim, netwolf
The Snapshot wrote:Don't stay in NYC. The Hotels are either expensive or sketchy.
opie22002 wrote:Thanks all. So would you suggest staying in Newark and just taking the train to the WTC?
darkstar57 wrote:I live in hoboken, i would recommend the hoboken/jersey city/Weehawken because it will be cheaper for a hotel room plus the food and other stuff is way cheaper and the hoboken accessibly to NYC is esp great.
I will point out the pens have stayed at the W in hoboken in the past. i ran into a few pens eating at one of the sushi restaurants the night before one of the games last year
NJ5934 wrote:I too would suggest staying in Hoboken. Head into Newark early, grab some dinner in the Ironbound, get the game in and then head back to Hoboken for the nightlife. Minimal driving and there are a ton of great affordable restaurants in the Ironbound, which is still a safe place to park and walk in Newark. Have fun.
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Horoscopes for week of September 14, 2006
As I meditated on your horoscope, I was driving a rented Ford Taurus 90 mph south on California's I-5. "Give me omens about what Tauruses need to hear," I asked the Fates. Moments later, a red Infiniti car whizzed by me on the right. The aroma of pig manure from a nearby farm pervaded the air. On the CD player, devotional musician Krishna Das launched a hair-raising hymn to the Goddess. Orange brush strokes appeared in the dusky sky over scissor-shaped mountain peaks, making me feel as if nature had painted a gorgeous canvas for my personal enjoyment. Here's how I interpret this lush symbolic offering: As you're gliding along, a message from eternity will speed by you from an unexpected direction. Fertility will be abundant in your life even though it may be pungent. You'll have rousing contact with a boisterous, masculine form of spirituality. Nature will offer you a gift--a beautiful secret just for you.
Of all the objects in the world that are made of 22-karat gold, a bathtub in Japan is the biggest. Weighing in at over 300 pounds, it's in the Funabara Hotel a hundred miles south of Tokyo. I suggest you regard it as your personal symbol of power in the coming week, Gemini. It will remind you to stay true to your task, which is to cleanse yourself extravagantly as you purge your heart of all motivations that aren't pure gold.
Those of us born under the sign of Cancer the Crab are sometimes pathologically self-sufficient. We can dole out love in abundance but be conflicted about asking for and accepting the love we need. Keep that warning in mind as you meditate on the following advice: It's high time to love yourself more and better--to experiment with new strategies for taking care of yourself, nurturing your creativity, and providing yourself with pleasure. Just don't let this honorable work blind you to the gifts that other people want to bless you with.
Every year 1.5 million Turkish students take a day-long college entrance exam. It's a grueling maze of complicated yet often inane questions--an absurd attempt to quantify intelligence with a one-size-fits-all standard of measurement. Three quarters of all students fail, and thus face the prospect of unemployment in a country where only higher education guarantees a decent job. This year a lone rebel rose up in defiance against the oppressive tradition. Sefa Boyar announced he'd strive to give the wrong answer to every question on the multiple-choice test. Naturally, he had to study hard to make sure he wouldn't accidentally get a few right answers. Be inspired by Boyar, Leo. Resist or subvert the soul-shrinking hocus-pocus of a bunch of humans acting like machines. Unlike Boyar, do it in a way that enhances your chance to achieve success on your own terms.
There was one main reason why America's founding fathers gave Thomas Jefferson, not Benjamin Franklin, the job of composing the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They were afraid that Franklin, a compulsive teaser and trickster, would slip jokes into the document. In my opinion, we Americans would have been better served if Franklin had been chosen and allowed to mess around. After all, even the most profound commitments and weighty situations benefit from the leavening power of humor. Keep that in mind during the oh-so-serious games that are ahead for you, Virgo.
"The time has come to declare the war on terror over," wrote James Fallows in September's The Atlantic. "Al-Qaeda's mistakes, and our successes, have sharply reduced the terrorist network's ability to harm the United States. Its threat now rests less on what it can do itself than on what it can trick, tempt, or goad us into doing. Its destiny is no longer in its own hands." In a similar way, Libra, one of your personal enemies has mostly lost the power to hurt you. Its remaining threat resides in what it can trick, tempt, or goad you into doing. To say safe and sane, all you have to do is refuse to get sucked in by your weakened enemy's ruses.
In his book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud , historian Thomas Lacquer suggests that the clitoris may have been unknown to male anatomists until 1559. In that year, Renaldus Columbus, a professor at the University of Padua in Italy, announced his discovery of the "seat of woman's delight," and declared his right to name it the "sweetness of Venus." I predict that you will soon ferret out and begin to share in a treasure that, while not quite as momentous as Columbus', will nonetheless fill you with glee--even if its value has always been known to its original finders.
According to visionary astrologer Elias Lonsdale, the age-old war between good and evil is over. His shocking conclusion: Evil lost. It will take a while for its malignant dominance to ebb away, and the transition time may bring apparent setbacks, but already the momentum has shifted. The forces of good are in ascendancy, and will steadily build a new order in the coming decades. Is Lonsdale's perspective true? I personally don't have the wisdom to be able to confirm or deny it. But I do know this: The age-old war between good and evil within you is over, and evil lost. From now on, the forces of beauty, truth, love, and justice will grow in power.
When playing the card game known as bridge, you're fortunate if you're dealt no cards of any particular suit. It allows you to use the trump suit to win tricks. There's an analogous situation in your life right now, Capricorn. A lack of a certain resource can work to your advantage. It will allow you to be a free agent, an X-factor, a wild card. You'll be able to capitalize on loopholes that aren't normally available to you. Luck will come to you through what you're missing.
Last May, workers cleaning up garbage on Britain's highest mountain made a startling find. There at the top of Mt. Ben Nevis was a piano. How did it get there? Three years earlier, hikers in Indiana's Yellowwood State Forest stumbled upon an equally inexplicable anomaly: a massive boulder lodged in the topmost branches of an 80-foot-tall chestnut tree. These are your metaphors of the week, Aquarius. I bet that you too will find seemingly out-of-place things in high places. Don't dismiss them with a flick of your rational mind. Give them a chance to change your thinking about the nature of reality.
Millard Fillmore was President of the United States from 1850 to 1853. He was the last holder of that office who was neither a Democrat nor Republican. Let's make him a symbol of freedom from the rigged con game that is America's two-party political system, as well as an inspiring image for those of you who aspire to rise above every either-or dichotomy. Fillmore will be your mascot as you declare your independence from the dualistic ways of thinking that threaten to ensnare you. He'll be an emblem that rouses you to transcend the simplistic arguments spewed by fanatical devotees of the Us Versus Them racket. Escape the vise, Pisces.
|Missed a week? Check the horoscope archives.
© 1995-2013 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved


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September 2007
A Letter Is Not Always Enough: Pursuing Additional Outreach for Comprehensive Coverage
While parent notices may and do succeed in informing parents about their public school choice and SES options, it is inevitable that these notices will not meet with success in every instance, and that there will be parents of eligible students who remain unaware of their options. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that parent notices, by themselves, will not result in a general awareness of public school choice and SES among the greater parent community. For these reasons and others, it is clear that additional efforts to reach out and inform parents are almost always needed. In fact, federal regulations take this into account, requiring that states, districts, and schools provide parents whose children attend schools in various stages of the improvement process with information on their options through additional broader means such as the Internet, media, and public agencies serving these students and their families.
Following are some parent outreach activities and strategies that districts may consider to complement their notices and to help ensure that parents are educated about their public school choice and SES options. What follows is not intended to cover the topic of outreach exhaustively. Some of the activities and strategies discussed are more costly and/or labor-intensive than others, and districts should give some consideration to their means and staffing needs when developing any additional outreach plans. That said, districts should recognize that there is no universally effective strategy or "magic bullet" when it comes to reaching out to parents, and should consider undertaking as many outreach efforts as possible. Districts that engage in multi-faceted, comprehensive parent outreach campaigns are generally more successful in informing parents and the community about public school choice and SES.
For more information on additional outreach, see: Public School Choice Non-Regulatory Guidance, D-2,3; Creating Strong District School Choice Programs, pp. 7-16; BuildingChoice.org; Supplemental Educational Services Non-Regulatory Guidance, E-2; and Creating Strong Supplemental Educational Services Programs, pp. 23-30. The links to these resources are provided in Additional Resources at the end of this handbook.


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Take The GRAMMY Magazine Survey
What kind of music listener are you? What is the primary reason you attend concerts? Which social network do you use the most? Is the music industry headed toward a period of growth?
The music world is a more dynamic mix of hopes, dreams, ideas, and concepts than ever before. Take our GRAMMY magazine survey and share your opinions and discover those of the community. Complete the short survey and unlock special bonus video content from our 20/20 Foresight panel. Results will be published in the fall issue of GRAMMY.
The 20/20 issue of GRAMMY magazine is available now. The issue includes thought-provoking features, interviews and insightful predictions that explore the future of the music industry, in addition to a look back at the forward-moving Recording Academy, the latest Academy and Chapter news, an interview with GRAMMY-nominated artist Janelle Monaé, and more.


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Marisa Thomason said she was shocked when she heard her name announced as the 2011 Fayette County Fair queen. But those who know her well were probably not at all surprised.
During the recent Kaskaskia River flooding, Pauline Weaver Tackett was reminded of her childhood days, when families lived in the river bottom south of Vandalia.
Jeff Stone grew up in Vandalia, attended Bible college after graduating from Vandalia Community High School, and was later called to Israel to teach in a Christian school.
Some folks gathered at the old Seminary School recently to celebrate 40 years of county music, dancing and just plain old fellowship and fun for the whole family – no age limit either way.
When she was a young girl living in England years ago, Anne Eddings brought home every stray cat to care for. Years later, when she was living in the United States, in Missouri, she found herself taking in and caring for wild animals that had been injured or left motherless.
Page 28 of the May 23 issue of Country Weekly magazine features a pretty, winsome face framed with long blonde hair that may seem familiar to many Fayette County residents, especially those in Vandalia.
Zachary Edgar, a life-long member of Mother of Dolors Catholic Church in Vandalia, is an ordained deacon and is looking forward to May 2012, when he will become an ordained priest.
Last week, 90-year-old Miles Filer shared his story about serving as a paratrooper in the 82nd Army Airborne Division; his jump over Normandy on D-Day; his capture by the Germans; and 11 months as a prisoner of war, nine of which he worked in a coal mine in Czechoslovakia, until the war was over.
May 1945
The war was over – Miles Filer was rescued from a POW camp, returned home after an honorable discharge and began life again as a civilian.
When Miles Filer left Fayette County to join the U.S. Army 508th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in October 1942, the young farm boy weighed 160 pounds.
Two ambassadors of good will and warm, fuzzy feelings are on duty four to five days a week at Friendship Manor Nursing Home in St. Elmo.
It might seem that when she moved to Vandalia four years ago with her husband, Pat Rhodes hit the ground running and doing for others.
"With love, you can do almost anything." Those wise words were spoken by Lucille Bingaman, whose appearance, intelligence, conversation and quiet sense of humor belie her age of 99 years.
15 Years Ago
1996 – Haier Plumbing & Heating of Okawville was hired by the city of Vandalia to lay a city water line to the new work camp at Vandalia Correctional Center.
Adam Lach and Chris Mason of Vandalia Community High School were selected by Crawford-Hale American Legion Post 95 to attend Boys' State in the summer at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.
Lutherans living in Sharon and Hurricane townships organized the Jehovah Lutheran Church in what is now Shafter Township in 1879. Prior to 1913, Shafter Township was part of Sharon, and was identified as West Sharon Township.
If you are entering Tony Koberlein's workshop and showroom for the first time, be prepared, because you might come face-to-face with a snarling, teeth-bared coyote, a huge elk, a full-size longhorn cow or a life-size buck deer with a large rack.
"We're supposed to attack Satan where he's at…That's the only way I know how to do it, as a paratrooper would do, just jump in with both feet."
Rev. Carl Rhodes
Some years back, Leo Marty of Ramsey asked me to write a column about the creeks of Fayette County. I had written about the villages, schools, people and roads, but nothing on the creeks and branches that run through the valleys of Fayette County.
Rosemary "Rosie" Gerkin's family could be considered as pioneers in Vandalia.
A life-long resident of Vandalia, Rosie and her husband, the late Dennis Gerkin, are the parents of sons Denny and Jimmy Joe.
"I knew it when I was 21," he said. "Up to that time, I had only treated horses or some suffering animal. One day, I happened to visit a man who as very ill with erysipelas. His head was twice as large as it should have been, and the doctors told him they couldn't help. That man received my first treatment. The next day, he was up and all right."
April is National Volunteer Month, and one of Fayette County's favorite volunteers, for both young and old, is Bill Beard, also known as "Windy Willy," the lovable balloon animals clown.
What began as a desire to help others as he and his family had been helped became a ministry of sorts that has spanned 20 years, and Bill is enthusiastically entering into the 21st.
Copyright © 2018
The Leader Union is your source for local news, sports, events and information in Vandalia, Il, and the surrounding area.


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Visual Learning: "Who's that swimming in my pool?"
Images, photos, and pictures stimulate the mind. For the viewer, they offer a chance to connect and question. They also offer potential for play and imagination, and pulling the observer into purposeful messages.
Most often, newspaper and magazine readers take a quick glance at photos and their captions. With this YES! lesson plan, you and your students can luxuriate—and pause—to truly understand an image, its message, and why it's interesting (or not).
STEP 1: What do you notice?
STEP 2: What are you wondering?
After you've heard what your students are noticing, you'll probably hear the peppering of questions: Is that a black bear? Where did the bear come from? What is the girl thinking? Is she scared? Is the bear going to attack the girl? This is a good time to reveal the photo's caption, accompanying quote, and facts about the actual situation. Watch how the conversation shifts from what they believe to be true to discerning the facts about the photo.
Photo caption
It was the hottest day of the summer and I was learning to do flips off of the diving board. As the day was ending, I saw him staring at me next to the fence. My mom always said to stay still if I saw a bear.
Photo by Amy Stein, from her "Domesticated" photo essay
In her "Domesticated" series, New York photographer and teacher Amy Stein explores encounters between humans and animals in the wild. The images are re-creations of real stories from local newspapers of animal encounters in Matamoras, Pennsylvania, using taxidermy animals.
The real story behind this photo is that bears had been swimming in a family's pool located on the edge of town. Next door, another bear had been hibernating under the house. Eventually, a fence was put up to keep the bears out.
There are three species of bears in North America: the American black bear, the grizzly or brown bear, and the polar bear. The total black bear population is estimated around 900,000.
According to the Center for Wildlife, if you encounter a bear in an urban area, remain calm. Give the bear plenty of space and an escape route. If it's a black bear, make a lot of noise and encourage it to leave. If it's a grizzly bear, remain calm and slowly walk away.
Additional resources around the image:PHOTO ESSAY :: Domesticated
EXPLORE :: North American Bear Center
VISIT :: Amy Stein Photography
STEP 3: What next?
What is your relationship with the natural world? Do you isolate yourself from the wild or do you want to connect with it?
- What kind of encounters have you had with wild animals—locally and in other environments?
- What kind of accommodation or protection should wild animals and natural environments be given when development encroaches?
- The wild can bring feelings of comfort and fear, and submission and dominance. The same may be said of the unknown. Think about how you deal with new situations or different-from-you kinds of people. Which of these feelings surface?
- What are traits of something or someone who is dominant? Discuss an example or situation where an individual or group dominated or overpowered another. Was it inevitable? Was it fair?


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You are here: Home ‹ Board index ‹ Movie Discussion ‹ All Other/Older Movies ‹ (2005) Fun With Dick And Jane
Have not seen it...
Discuss this movie. Available on DVD and PSP.
14 posts • Page 1 of 1
Have not seen it...
I am too young to die...he looks so refreshed on the picture of this board that if I see him in the movies-I think I would have a heartattack-
Bah hum bug!!!!
Ya but i don't think she would get caught like Pee Wee.
I am part of an elite group of people......THE MEN OF JCO.
(Standing member since July 18th, 2005)
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text: This pamphlet, written by Charles Schmitz, acknowledges the impact of music on religious radio. Schmitz maintains that music helps establish the purpose of religious radio programs and that certain musical selections have the power to create Christian mood and comfort. This pamphlet gives instructions on how best to implement music.


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You are here
The Whole Poem with Neil Shepard
6 Thursdays, April 12–May 24th (skipping May 10th), 6:00–8:30pm
From first draft to final draft, we need strategies for seeing the whole poem, both its full potential for content and its most satisfying form. Students will talk about strategies for the intense perception of the first draft as well as for "re-seeing" the poem, practicing the kind of deep revision that leads us to reconsider everything from word choice and vivid image to metaphoric subtext, grammatical pattern and inner music of the poem.
Neil Shepard's books of poems include I'm Here Because I Lost My Way, This Far from the Source, and (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel. Recently retired from his long-time job in the BFA Writing Program at Johnson State College (VT), he is the founder and editor of the literary magazine, Green Mountains Review.
Registration Guidelines
Open to all; no applications needed but registration is required; call (212) 431-7920 x2832 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Welcome to Day 27 of our Holiday Giveaway! Win the 2011 Threads Magazine Archive DVD-ROM from Threads Magazine! Comment on this blog article by 10AM (EST) Wednesday, December 28th to be entered to win!
26 years of instruction, tips, techniques, and tools to make you a better sewer. The Threads Magazine Archive is a tool no sewer should be without. In one amazingly easy-to-search disc, you'll enjoy 26 years of content from America's most trusted sewing magazine. That's all 158 issues of Threads, starting with issue #1 and including all the issues from 2011.
Comment to Win: Where do you sew? Do you have a dedicated sewing room?
This giveaway is sponsored by Threads Magazine
Please note: If selected as a winner, any personal information you provide to receive your prize in this giveaway is subject to the sponsor's privacy rules. These may differ from BurdaStyle's rules, so please review the rules before entering your information. BurdaStyle is not responsible for the handling of your data in connection with this giveaway.
[Update 12/28/11] – Congratulations to member sarahk for winning the Holiday Giveaway Day 27!


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All high school students are invited to apply for direct freshman entry. A high school graduate with no more than 12 college credits taken after graduation may also apply for the direct admission window. College credits taken while in high school(AP/IB etc.) do not count against a student and are encouraged. Direct freshman entry is a truly unique feature of Marquette's program. If a student is offered direct admission to the physical therapy program, they only need to maintain certain academic standards to continue in the program as opposed to the majority of schools where students apply for entry to the professional phase after completing an undergraduate degree.
Marquette offers a wide variety of undergraduate majors that incorporate the physical therapy pre-requisite courses needed. The direct freshman admission window to the six year program is fairly unique and removes much of the competitive pressure so that students often develop a richer undergraduate experience consistent with the Jesuit mission of the university. The most popular undergraduate majors are Exercise Physiology and Athletic Training* although there are almost 20 others that can be utilized depending on a student's area of interest. Admission to the professional phase of the program is guaranteed following junior year provided a student meets the following requirements for continuation:
For direct admission to the program, the best qualified students will be drawn from the pool of applicants. Strong candidates for direct freshman admission rank in the top quarter of their class, have comparable SAT or ACT test scores, and have demonstrated proficiency in their high school math and science courses.
A set number of PT-related observation hours are not officially required. However, observing in a variety of physical therapy settings and with different patient populations is the best means to demonstrate your understanding of and commitment to the profession during the application process.
The following high school courses are required for admission:
High school seniors interested in applying for direct admission should obtain an application for undergraduate admission in the fall of their senior year. The application deadline for direct freshman admission to the program is December 1 of the year preceding enrollment.
*The Athletic Training major will be transitioning to a Master's in Athletic Training in 2017.


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BPO emotions run high as Carnegie Hall beckons
A week from today at Kleinhans Music Hall, half an hour before the 8 p.m. concert, people will raise their glasses in a champagne toast – to Carnegie Hall!
"It's emotional, getting ready for this big day," said JoAnn Falletta, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra's music director.
The final countdown has begun. The Carnegie Hall concert – part of the hall's annual Spring For Music Festival – is May 8. The BPO is doing a run-through Friday and next Saturday at Kleinhans, in a program called "Carnegie Preview."
Even though the BPO has played Carnegie Hall many times over the decades, most recently in 2004, there is still magic in the fabled venue.
"You're always excited because of the wonderful music making that's taking place there, individual musicians that have performed there, because of the magic," said BPO saxophonist and bass clarinetist Sal Andolina. "In sports terms, it's like being in the Super Bowl. It's the pinnacle."
Andolina knows. Not only did he play with the BPO at Carnegie in the orchestra's last appearance there, but more recently he also took a solo turn in the Carnegie Hall spotlight. The gig came about thanks to the late Marvin Hamlisch, former BPO pops conductor. Hamlisch liked a solo Andolina played at Kleinhans and asked him to join him at Carnegie Hall. Hiding his shock, Andolina agreed.
Secretly, he was so awed that he found a photo of Carnegie Hall as seen from the stage, downloaded it and displayed it on his computer screen.
"It was a beautiful still photo taken from the stage out over the entire landscape of Carnegie Hall," he recalled. "You see the three tiers, the beautiful balconies, the white railings on the balconies, and the glowing red seats."
He practiced with that picture before him. And still, he had butterflies as he took the stage to play Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing."
"For me, that Benny stood on that stage and played that number … that's 10 on the goose bump meter," he said.
On May 8, there will be a lot of goose bumps all around.
New York's venerable classic music station WQXR will be broadcasting the concert live and streaming it live online, so you don't have to travel to Manhattan to hear the performance.
But many will. Ticket sales have broken records. The record of hometown ticket buyers, previously held by Toledo, was shattered several weeks ago. Of the 1,808 tickets sold so far, 1,500 were bought by Western New Yorkers.
Falletta said she thrives on the excitement.
"The whole reason for Spring For Music is not to play it safe," she explained. "To do something you never thought you could do before."
'I hope they'll all fit'
Most orchestras never tackle Gliere's Third Symphony because it's long. Most previous performances have been abridged versions, including one by Leopold Stokowski. Then there are its personnel demands. Next weekend at Kleinhans, the BPO will be joined by a lot of additional musicians.
"I hope they'll all fit," Falletta worried.
One of the musicians is her own husband, Robert Alemany. He is an accomplished clarinetist, and they have played and recorded together. "The symphony has an extra clarinet part," Falletta said.
So rare are performances of the symphony that the worldwide Gliere community is on the alert. A few days ago, Falletta was amazed to receive an email from one of the composer's relatives in Russia, Kirill Novosselsky. He wrote: "Please send our greeting to Maestro Falletta on behalf of the entire Gliere family in Russia, Europe and America." He also asked if photos and recordings could be sent overseas for the Reinhold Gliere Museum.
"And he asked if it was OK if he wrote a letter to the musicians, wishing them good luck," Falletta laughed. "It shows you how one concert has so many ripples."
One Gliere cousin, soprano Jennifer Gliere, lives in New York. "She has been charged with getting a signed poster for the museum," Falletta said.
Jennifer Gliere's attendance at the concert is, alas, iffy. In a message to The News, she lamented that she is locked into a rehearsal for Bach's B Minor Mass.
"However, I am definitely planning to come to the dress rehearsal, if there is one, to speak with Maestra Falletta and meet some of the members of the orchestra," she wrote.
Such a meeting might take advance planning. Events surrounding the BPO's concert abound, from a party at the Russian Tea Room to a reception in the studios of CNN.
So crowded is the schedule surrounding the concert that even the organizers can get confused. At one meeting, a BPO staffer laughed, staff gathered to survey a long list of parties and events – only to realize they had neglected to include the concert itself.
The whistle monster
Most of the BPO musicians are flying together to New York, on JetBlue. Cellos are strapped into their own seats. Percussion and double basses, instruments too big to fit in a seat, travel by truck.
Jennifer Gliere is in luck: There is a rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon. The orchestra will be like a sports team warming up.
"It's difficult in terms of endurance," said Michael Ludwig, the BPO's concertmaster. "It just goes on and on."
Anna Mattix, who plays oboe and French horn, confessed that she is terrified by the Whistle Monster. That is a character in Gliere's fanciful story, based on Russian myth, portrayed by the woodwinds.
"It's extremely difficult. Extremely technical," she said. "I'm terrified! I've practiced it for hours."
The musicians revel in the piece's atmosphere, which should shine in the acoustics of both Kleinhans and Carnegie Hall.
"It's this great masterpiece," Falletta said. "There's something about summing up the soul of Russia in this piece which sounds very moving, through the eyes of a 20th century person looking back on Russia. It's the story of this hero who gets drunk on his own victory and challenges God, and that's doomed to failure. At the end, Gliere wrote in the score, 'From that day, the great warriors have disappeared from Mother Russia, never to be seen again.' "
The symphony begins and ends with what Falletta describes as "the solemn, quiet landscape of Russia." As the romantic music surges, the BPO musicians will add their own individual emotions.
Mattix has never been inside Carnegie Hall. Her parents, though, went there together frequently. One of their first dates took place there, with her dad on stage and her mother in the audience.
Her father died last year, but her mother will be in the audience. "She's so thrilled!" Mattix said.
Ludwig, as he walks from the wings in his tails, will be thinking of his late father, longtime Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Irving Ludwig. "Dad played there countless times with the Philadelphia Orchestra over the years," he says. "I have memories of roaming backstage, being out in audience for performances."
Ludwig was 10 when he met Isaac Stern, who led the fight to save Carnegie Hall in 1960, when the hall's future was in jeopardy.
"He was a dynamic guy," Ludwig said. "His history is so inextricably linked to that hall." He pauses. "I'll have many memories."
He will be making new memories, too.
It is a Spring For Music tradition that hometown fans wave scarves of a special color and design. The BPO's bandanna is green – a thanks to M&T Bank, a major sponsor. Squinting into the stage lights, the musicians will see thousands of green scarves fluttering.
"We're not bringing just the Buffalo Philharmonic to New York," Falletta says. "We're bringing Buffalo."
email: email@example.com


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Would you like to shoot the most accurate rifles in the world?
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You can try shooting either of the 100/200 yard benchrest discipines, Group, Score, or BOTH. Shooting Group entails trying to put all five shots through the same hole-or nearly so. A well-tuned competition rifle will be able to put five shots into .150" or less, measured center to center of the two widest shots. Many targets can be covered by a dime with lots of room to spare. The Score discipline requires equally accurate rifles, but the object for that game is to hit five separate bullseyes. A perfect target would be 50-5x's. IBS also shoots Long Range matches at both 600, and 1000 yards. The Long Range discipline is scored for both Group and Score.


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FishyPic Announces An Exciting New iPhone Fishing App
FishyPic LLC, www.FishyPic.com, has released a new application for the IPhone that is available for instant download through the iTunes store.
FishyPic LLC, www.FishyPic.com, has released a new application for the IPhone that is available for instant download through the iTunes store. The App has been created in response to overwhelming demand from the members of FishyPic, an online social network created for fishermen. The new app allows for taking pictures and instantly uploading them to share with friends, family and other members of FishyPic.com. Users can be notified within seconds when their fishing buddies have landed a fish. The FishyPic iPhone app can also integrate GPS coordinates onto a private map for each user in addition to providing up to date weather forecasting capabilities.
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Fishermen nationwide can partake in the innovative and interactive fishing social network. Users can contribute photos and stories as often as they like while being able to view the catch of the day and other videos and photos from fellow FishyPic users. Categories for posting are divided by the type of fishing and include offshore, inshore, freshwater, and fly fishing. Once the user selects the appropriate category, they can then post the photo under the type of fish they caught. The website also offers fishing items for sale as well as allowing users to post fishing excursions for sale such as guided kayak tours.
The FishyPic iPhone app is the newest way that members of FishyPic can utilize to extend their interactive sharing. The ability to take photos and instantly update them adds to the fun and excitement of the entire experience. For more information or to download the app for free visit: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishypic/id555653923?mt=8.
- Contact Information
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- Co-Owner
- FishyPic LLC
- Contact via E-mail
This news content may be integrated into any legitimate news gathering and publishing effort. Linking is permitted.
News Release Distribution and Press Release Distribution Services Provided by WebWire.


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DUDLEY � Sean M. Gilrein, superintendent of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District, notified the school committee Wednesday of his intent to retire on Aug. 31.
"I thank the current members and past (school committee) members for the honor and privilege of leading this outstanding educational community since my appointment as superintendent in July 2001," Mr. Gilrein said. "I thoroughly enjoyed my tenure with the district."
Mr. Gilrein, a Charlton resident, joined the Dudley-Charlton district in 1993 as assistant principal for Shepherd Hill Regional High School. Two years later, he was named the school's principal and remained in the role until 2001, when he accepted the post of superintendent.
"It's a shock, I'm sure, for all of us," committee member Catherine M. Kabala said. "You will be a hard act to follow."
Committee chairwoman Pauline J. Aucoin also called his notice "a shock" to the committee and thanked Mr. Gilrein for his years of service.
"No matter what the challenge, you always attacked it with extreme enthusiasm and dedication and you will be sorely missed by all," she said.
Mr. Gilrein closed his statements with "heartfelt sentiments" regarding his working relationship with the school committee and his staff.
"Serving as superintendent has been an experience that I will always cherish, and when I leave, I will carry with me a seemingly never-ending collection of wonderful memories," he said.
As the district's top executive, Mr. Gilrein oversees about 550 employees and 4,200 students.
Prior to joining Dudley-Charlton, he also held positions in the Oxford Public School District as a teacher, director of alternative education, director of a special education, and director/curriculum supervisor.


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Florida in March is the vacation destination your mother warned you about. Which is one of the reasons Disney Channel sweethearts Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens were drawn to the candy-colored sleaze that is Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers." It's their chance, with ABC Family's Ashley Benson ("Pretty Little Liars"), to break free of the parental-guidance considerations that have ruled their careers.
Lewd, lush and mind-emptying, "Spring Breakers" mixes the commercial lure of its bikini-clad good girls turned bad with Korine's brand of subculture excavation ("Gummo," "Trash Humpers"). The movie is an arty lark of ambiguous entertainment value, pulsing with melancholy. It's rarely less than interesting visually or tonally, thanks in large part to Korine's prurient sense of humor and the rich location textures and Crayola sweep provided by gifted cinematographer Benoit Debie ("Enter the Void").
The threadbare story — rumbling like a bass line between the ambient images of bongs, breasts and beat-driven boredom — involves money-strapped college girls (including Korine's wife, Rachel) who rob a diner with ski masks, water pistols and mallets to fund their spring break road trip.
PHOTOS: SXSW 13 must-see films
After landing in jail, the quartet are bailed out by Alien, a cornrowed multi-hyphenate (rapper/pusher/arms dealer) played with amusing Cheshire Cat skeeviness by the ubiquitous James Franco. He croons a Britney Spears song at his poolside baby grand while the group — minus Gomez's God-fearing character, who wisely bails — plan further criminal adventures in the milky glow of youthful hedonism. This time with pink ski masks and real firepower.


text:
|Ellen Wilkinson
|Year of Death or Disappearance:
|Center Ossipee
|Unsolved Homicide
|Ellen Wilkinson, age 39, and her husband Maurice Wilkinson, age 48, were shot to death in their home at Old Route 16 in Center Ossipee, NH, on August 16, 1974. Maurice was sitting in a chair in the living room when he was shot and Ellen was upstairs in bed at the time of her death. Autopsies on the victims revealed that Maurice was shot one time with a 9mm weapon and Ellen was shot multiple times.
|Help us solve this case and bring justice to the family of this victim. Use our Tip Form.
New Hampshire Cold Case Unit | 33 Hazen Drive | Concord, NH | 03305
Telephone: 603-271-2663


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The act of miserably failing towards the end of a task that was started with such promise. The phrase comes from many seasons in which the Clemson University football team starts off their season with huge victories, only to fall off completely at the end of the season to teams like Georgia Tech and get dominated by teams like NC State, South Carolina and West Virginia.
"Look. Clemson is pulling a Clemson again. They started off 8-0 and in the national title hunt, but they actually suck."
by Nellanaesp January 23, 2012
buy the domain for your cat site


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Rolling Your Own Applications
Ready to roll your own apps? Here's why programming may soon be as easy as snapping together Legos.
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Just imagine having the programming chops to build a video-sharing site that's as good as YouTube. Or being able to hack together your own little Salesforce clone - a way to manage your sales contacts and other customers, just for yourself and your co-workers.
Sounds neat, right? Cheap too. Instead of paying $65 per month, you'd build it once and use it forever.
Now imagine being able to do this with a few clicks of the mouse - without writing (or knowing) a single line of code.
Soon enough, you should be able to do all that and more, thanks to a number of startups building new ways to put the power of the programmer into the hands of mere mortals.
User-generated applications
Some of them, such as Palo Alto-based Ning, are targeting consumers, while others, such as Coghead, of Redwood City, Calif., and Teqlo, of nearby Santa Clara, are going after corporate markets. Smallthought Systems, of Vancouver, British Columbia, is focusing its Dabble DB software on users who like to do things their own way.
Big companies are starting to think along these lines as well: BEA Systems (Charts) has introduced two products, Project Runner and Project Builder, that target the DIY Fortune 500 crowd, and IBM (Charts) is throwing its hat into the ring with its QEDWiki project.
This trend of less programming and more assembly is just starting to gather steam, says Jeff Nolan, who recently left his gig at SAP (Charts) to become chief executive of one-year-old Teqlo, which lets people use a simple drag-and-drop interface to weave Web services together and build tiny apps.
You could take a feed from your shipping company and mash it up with real-time manufacturing data from your supplier, all tied to a sales report from an eBay store - that's the kind of app Teqlo would let you build. "If you have personalized homepages and user-generated content, then why can't you have user-generated applications?" Nolan reasons.
Why not, indeed?
As simple as drag and drop
Rolling your own applications wasn't seen as cost-effective until recently, because of the high cost of hardware, which required expert programmers to get your money's worth out of it. And closed or incompatible platforms made it tough to integrate software on the fly.
But the price of hardware and bandwidth has dropped precipitously, while Apache, Linux, MySQL, PHP, and other open-source products are bringing the sanity of standards to the Web. Newer technologies such as Ajax have also been a catalyst, making it possible to mimic a desktop experience within a browser. Putting all these breakthroughs together, these startups are building development environments that let the user cobble together software packages as easily as snapping together Lego bricks.
Paul McNamara, CEO of Coghead (see "The Next Disruptors," October), says his company is going after small workgroups that need custom apps but can't get the IT departments in their own corporations to devote the time. He points out that a lot of folks are well versed in writing Microsoft Excel macros and FileMaker-based applications without knowing a lick of programming.
Writing applications using Coghead, he says, is no more difficult.
Please note that McNamara's optimism, while understandable, doesn't mask the fact that the transition to this type of platform is going to be slow; I believe it could take about three years to realize its potential.
The environments have to become easier to use, and workers like you and me have to get comfortable with the idea that building our own apps is as easy as dragging and dropping a few components.
But I, for one, am ready for it.
Om Malik is a contributing writer for Business 2.0 and runs the popular technology blog GigaOm.To send a letter to the editor about this story, click here.