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Some people are OK. For instance, you are seven months pregnant and you just boarded the bus or train. The moppy-hair kid with the PSP takes note, invites you to have his seat while he disembowels opponents on Mortal Kombat, standing. He's not so bad and chances are you won't spend the next 30 minutes developing increasingly vile scenarios by which he meets his inevitable doom. A win-win situation for the both of you.
However, many (most?) of the people you encounter throughout the rest of your day are probably less palatable. The world we live in has spawned a race of people who bond together in silent accord over a set of behaviors (habits) which are the topic of this week's posting. It's not that these people are malicious (although some certainly are), rather, this subsection of humanity has devolved into a sort of self-unaware conglomerate of energy consuming cells seemingly bent on creating a less habitable world for us all. By consciously choosing not to be cognizant of their actions (or more importantly, the impact of their actions) they have laid the foundation for a society which progressively cares little for the common good in preference for a type of F U Individuality that increasingly defines our societal fabric. Some of these habits are merely a nuisance. Others generate the sort of vitriol that, over the long stretch of history, may effectively Darwinesque them into a forgotten oblivion. The reader should feel free to parse the following habits into appropriate buckets, and, if a responsible citizen, should feel a sense of obligation to call out offenders when they act in such a manner. Together, we the denizens of a better future, hold strong under a flailing banner of optimism and the prospect that tomorrow can be better if we manage to wash the following patterns of behavior from civil society. I present to you , in no specific order, The Seven Stupid Habits of Highly Annoying People:
- Obsessive Social Media Updating – The inane details of your pathetic life are readily available to every poor sot who felt obligated to return the favor of a connect (be it a circle inclusion, a friending or a Twitter connect). What prompts you to think that it is a good idea to share, with several hundred people, useless nuggets of trivial data about your sad little world? Your "breakfast tasted great" huh? Do you think I really give a shit? Did I make that breakfast for you? Are you complimenting my culinary skills? No, to all of the above. You simply had a little extra time on your hands and thought it would be appropriate to share this micro revelation with the world. Are you bored? Do you simply need attention? Are you in search of confirmation? Are you fishing for information about other peoples' breakfasts because you have absolutely nothing better to do? Did your decision to make this announcement cause you to bump another task into the 'incomplete' pile? If yes, I'd love to know what profundity played second fiddle to this announcement. Actually, no I wouldn't and neither would any of your 'friends', jackass. Next time you are in a restaurant and decide it's a good idea to share your feeling about the meal, stand-up and announce in a big, bold voice to all restaurant patrons your thoughts. Consider the looks they return and assume that people on the other end of the social media continuum are expressing the exact same response to your update. Bon Appetite.
- Honking Immediately at the Start of a Green Light – I'm still unclear as to why this isn't against the law. Oh, wait, it is and for a reason no doubt. Do you think that the people in front of you are intentionally not moving because they want to sit idle in their car wasting petrol? Are you concerned that other drivers may be blind, or perhaps just as stupid as you are? What if everyone participating in this behavior? Wouldn't that be enjoyable where every time a light turned green a 100 decibels of screech raped everyones' eardrums. Maybe you would even prefer to extend this brilliant methodology to stop signs? Did it not occur to you that it takes a least a fraction of a second to remove one's foot from the brake in order to place it on the accelerator? Are you capable of executing two mutually exclusive tasks in the same point along the space-time continuum? No? Then why do you expect that a queue of five drivers in front of you are simultaneously capable of this impossible feat? Next time you ask this of me, I'm going to put my car in park, get out, rip your antenna off with my teeth then beat you senselessly with it. Fair Warning.
- Saying Something, Anything During a Meeting – Silence can be golden. An opportunity for thoughts to simmer, to marinate. A chance for next level thinking to take root and blossom after deliberate consideration of points. Unfortunately for you, the half-second of silence provided ample opportunity to reveal to everyone that you do in fact have a functioning pulse (often to the dismay of many). It's not as if your contribution added anything valuable to the process, you simply felt it necessary to be heard even if what you said was a mere reconfiguration of the words in the previous utterance. Your aim is not knowledge-expansion, bridge-building, clarification or empathy, rather, it is simply a ploy to register your physical presence in the room. A fart, burp, groan or smacking noise as a result of a self-punch could have been registered with the same effect. Nobody in the room gained anything from your decision to speak, instead, you have managed to (at least minimally) derail thought processes as people now must take a brief pause to consider why it remains advantageous for society to permit you to consume limited oxygen resources in these times of creeping over-population. Next time you are in a meeting and a moment of silence descends upon the participants, do yourself a favor by picking up your laptop and smashing yourself in the face effectively registering your presence to all. This way, instead of people fretting for a their ration of limited oxygen, they can ponder the prospect of you hitting yourself too hard, rendering yourself unconscious and unable to continue your participation in the current and possibly (hopefully) future meetings.
- Leaving Long, Instructive Voicemail Greetings – Thomas Edison first applied for a U.S. patent for voice recording technology in 1877. Fastforward 134 years and it is fair to say that, as a civilization, we have had ample time to understand the purpose for and methodology of leaving a voice message. If your incoming caller is in anyway confused about what to do and requires instructions on how to leave a voice message, you should reevaluate who you keep in your circle of friends, and perhaps even consider administering selective jockpunts. I think it would be prudent for us all to cut down the VM greeting to a simple "Thanks for calling, pls leave a message". If the person on the other end gets confused and suddenly decides to eat his handset instead of leaving a message, consider yourself a useful societal filter, effectively weeding out communication from people who have less sense than a Raisinet. If you choose not to shave down your greeting message, I'm going to have to assume one of two things: (A) You think I enjoy wasting my time listening to stupid instructions from you and your automated lady friend (B) Your decision to leave said message is a calculated assessment of my intelligence level. In either case, I will take the following action to remedy the situation (and to further mitigate stress upon my system): contact everyone you have labelled as a mortal enemy and do my best to become a sincere companion of theirs. We will then pool together and develop a program which reroutes all your calls to Miss Cleo's line discouraging anyone from ever trying to call you again.
- Setting the Car Alarm to Hyper-Sensitive – Nobody wants to steal your 1989 Honda Civic with chrome rims and a broken exhaust system. The fact that you adhered the rear spoiler to your trunk with twine and duct tape should have tipped you off that you drive a worthless piece of crap, unjustified for any level of protection. Why do you feel it is necessary for your car to make a noise when the garbage truck rolls by? Are you in some way competing? I'd like to propose a benchmark, a sort of threshold if you will. If your car alarm is worth more than 3% of the value of your car, you should really take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are capable of making judicious financial decisions. More importantly though (for the rest of the hearing public) please ask yourself the following question: "Is there a direct correlation between the marginal volume of my car alarm and the increasing impetus for a random citizen to intervene should that same car alarm sound?" If you don't understand this question, research has told me that the best method of car security for your particular situation would be to leave a half-dozen king cobras on the dashboard of your car as they will certainly be a more effective deterrent. I hope those subwoofers destroy your hearing rendering you one step closer to complete biological failure.
- Not Getting Out of the Way – Perhaps the KING of HABITS for the completely self-unaware individual, and, unfortunately, one which makes an appearance in multiple aspects of daily life. Be it at the grocery store, on the road, in a parking lot, on a sidewalk, the supremely self-unaware individual is just that; unaware that they are blocking many other people with their ignorance. They clog up the fast lane, they're blind to the fact that their shopping cart is preventing anyone else from moving in the aisle, and they can't seem to grasp the concept that other people move at different paces along the sidewalk. It's frustrating. It's rampant. It should have some penalty attached to it. For God's sake, have some sense of self or at least be cognizant of the fact the you are not the only person occupying space on planet earth. This mentality (or lack thereof) even extends to things such as not stunning your phone at appropriate times (in a movie theatre, funeral, during a speech, etc). Is it really possible that you haven't quite learned how to properly use that electronic device, or are you simply just the kind of asshole that put his singular interest above the collective interests of impacted hundreds? Either way, society would be better off without you. Your penalty? Each time you block or otherwise disturb more than 2 people at once, the blocked/disturbed people are permitted to set fire to whatever object has assisted you in the offense. Your cellphone? A couple squirts of kerosene and a match. Your car? Molotov cocktail. Your grocery cart? Lighter fluid in aisle 5, matches right next to it. We should all take notes from this man as he is truly and innovator:
- Littering – Yep, good 'ol fashion littering. The sort of misdemeanor crime which screams "I'm still several chromosomes shy of 46 and I advertise this to all by revealing my inability to delineate where I should shit from where I should eat."It is nothing short of amazing that there are seemingly so many people in a civilized society that haven' t grasped the importance of separating these duties. I think stiffer penalties should be employed (and aggressively enforced) which not only impact the wallet of the littering offender but also create a perspective which can be used to teach the ignorant person. Specifically, a law proposal: one room in the offender's home shall be filled to the ceiling with rubbage from the local landfill. The refuse must stay in place for a period of 30 days after which, the garbage is to be extracted by a clean up crew at the litterer's expense. We can't (yet) improve the biological condition of these criminals (they will remain chromosomally challenged for the foreseeable future), although, we can take steps to increase their awareness by providing them with some practical experience in the impacts of their stupidity.
I wrote a book. At $2.99, it's a freakin' bargain. Click the image below to learn more:
Fortunately, the book is an Indie project, so your hard earned money won't further enrich media-controlling assholes like this guy:


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H/T GregRoberts
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Where We Are Right Now? And Where We Didn't Go...
Posted byDavos at1:11 PM
World View & Market Commentary.
Forest first; Trees second.
Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.

subset: commoncrawl


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Born in Liège, Nicolas Broca attended the Academy of Fine Arts, and subsequently worked in varying occupation. He turned to animation and found employment as assistant decorator at the Belvision Studios in Brussels in 1959. He worked on the animation of the film 'Pinocchio dans l'Espace' and then worked in advertising animation for seveal years.
He returned to Belvision in 1966 and participated in the firm's big projects like 'Astérix le Gaulois', 'Astérix et Cléopatre', 'Lucky Luke', 'Tintin et le Lac aux Requins', 'Gulliver' and 'La Flûte à Six Schtroumpfs'. Broca was also hired by Idéfix in Paris to work on 'Douze Travaux d'Astérix' and 'La Balade des Dalton'. For SEPP, the animation department of Dupuis, he designed 'Les Snorky' in 1982, little underwater creatures that were eventually animated by Hanna-Barbera in the USA.
He developed famous cartoon series like 'Ovide' and 'Les Snorky'. In 1980, Broca teamed up with scriptwriter Raoul Cauvin to create new stories with 'Spirou et Fantasio' in Spirou, alternating with Yves Chaland and Tome and Janry. After one trilogy, published in albums by Dupuis, Broca returned to animation forgood. He joined the Kid Cartoons studios, where he realized 65 episodes of 'La Bande à Ovide' in cooperation with Godi. One of his final collaborations was on 'Les Tifous', an animation series based on characters created by André Franquin.


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The constraints of a struggling economy have finally gripped Google's staff and some of its lesser-known and experimental services. Across a collection of company blog posts, the search giant announced a relatively small batch of layoffs and staff shuffling, as well as the shuttering of little-known or little-used services like Jaiku and Google Notebook.
Google's layoffs and a pending rearrangement of remote engineering staff are perhaps the most significant of all these announcements. With two posts on the Official Google Blog, Google detailed changes to engineering and changes to recruitment. Google says it has thousands of engineers working in 40 offices across more than 20 countries, and 70 of those engineers from offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway; and Lulea, Sweden will either be reassigned to other projects or let go (some reports claim that these 70 are being laid off; they are inaccurate). This follows a Phoenix, Arizona engineering restructure last September due to "highly fragmented" projects, a decision Google came to "after a lot of soul searching."
Approximately 100 from Google's recruitment staff will be laid off, but the company reiterates statements from its October quarterly earnings call that it is still hiring. However, the reduced pace of bringing on new employees led the company to discontinue its contracts with external recruiting services and, alas, even shed some personnel from within.
Shuttered services
Among Google's products to have plugs pulled, microblogging service Jaiku and location-based social network Dodgeball are likely the two most significant, announced in a joint blog post. Google purchased Jaiku, a more feature-full competitor to Twitter, in October 2007, and there was a lot of potential to integrate it into everything from Gmail to what eventually became Google's Android mobile phone OS. A lack of communication and creeping neglect began driving users to jump ship for Twitter by January 2008, though, and Google announced this week that it will no longer actively develop Jaiku's codebase. After porting the software to the Google App Engine, the Jaiku Engine will be open sourced and the service will live on "thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers."
Dodgeball, on the other hand, will not experience life after death via volunteers. As a mobile social network similar to Brightkite and Loopt that Google purchased in 2005, Dodgeball suffered stagnation like Jaiku and will simply be shut down in "the next couple of months."
Google Notebook and Google Video are also getting axes of their own, though neither will be completely shut down. In a blog post, Google announced that it will stop active development on Google Notebook, a Backpack-like service that borrows from Gmail's UI and allows users to collect snippets of web information. Starting next week, Google will no longer add new features to Google Notebook, its Firefox extension will cease to work, and new users will not be able to sign up. Service will continue (for now) for existing users, though the loss of its browser extension is a blow to Google Notebook's appeal and usability. Google never got around to finding a way to monetize Google Notebook, and it naturally recommends similar Google products that users can try instead, such as Google Docs and Bookmarks. Even "Tasks in Gmail" is recommended, despite being a beta feature (for a beta e-mail service) that has no guarantee of getting incorporated into Gmail.
Finally, Google Video, long considered to be a redundant product since Google purchased YouTube, will no longer be accepting uploads in a few months. The Google Video site will still work and all content uploaded directly to it will remain live. But Google clearly wants to morph the product into a video search engine for all videos across the web, instead of a community destination like YouTube.


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The rioting students of Quebec got scant sympathy even before they started smashing windows and detonating smoke bombs.
Polls suggest that Quebecers generally support Jean Charest government's plan to raise tuitions in small increments over the next five (and now possibly seven) years. Even when all the increases are phased in, Quebec students will still pay less than students anywhere else in Canada, only 17% of the cost of their own education.
So what have these kids got to complain about? Unfortunately, more than their elders care to admit.
The Canadian fiscal system, like those of all developed countries, tilts heavily toward the elderly. It's not just that pensions and health-care spending outweigh education and college spending (although of course they do). In addition, the cohorts born before 1960 have received a better deal from government at every phase of life than will, in all likelihood, the
cohorts born after 1990.
Members of the pre-1960 cohort paid less tax when young. More of that tax was used to buy things they themselves consumed; less to support the retirement of the (smaller and shorter-lived) cohorts before them.
As they age, the pre-1960 cohorts will enjoy more benefits from government than they themselves ever paid for. They will draw more support from the post-1990 cohorts than they themselves paid toward their elders. And because so many of the benefits for the pre-1960 cohorts have been (and will be) financed by debt, the pre-1960 cohorts will be drawing support from the post-1990 cohorts for years to come.
In the past, this redistribution from young to old could be justified by economic growth. When we taxed the young to support the old, we could assume we were taxing the (richer) future to support a (poorer) past.
This point carried great force so long as we were taxing the cohorts born before 1960 to support the cohorts born before 1930. The pre-1930 cohorts really were dealt a hard hand: depression and war. But the people born between 1930 and 1960 were history¹s big winners. They enjoyed booming prosperity in the first half of their lives, and are now looking forward to
generous governmental support in the second half.
But the mechanism for delivering the support expected by pre-1960 cohorts is breaking down.
On the present trajectory, the post-1990 cohorts will not gain anything like the huge increase of wealth over their elders as did the pre-1960 cohorts. If anything, many of the individual members of the post-1990 cohort will be poorer than their counterparts born before 1960.
The people born before 1960 came of age in a society where the proceeds of economic growth were broadly shared. If the country got richer, everybody in the country got richer.
But in today's more globalized economy, the proceeds of growth are shared less broadly. The United States is an extreme case: By one estimate, in the year 2010, 93% of the benefits of economic growth were captured by the top 1% of the population. But similar trends can be seen in every advanced democracy, including Canada.
Back in the 1970s, the most important wealth gap was the gap between countries: Almost everybody in a country such as Canada was richer than almost everybody in a country such as China. Now we are moving toward a world in which the gap is widening within countries.
Which means that even when the world economy again resumes growing, many of the younger people in the post-1990 cohorts will never equal the average incomes of the pre-1960 cohorts, even as they face decades of heavy taxation over the remainder of their working lives to support the retirements (and pay the debts) of the cohorts before them.
None of this is to say that the Quebec protesters deserve any sympathy. They are a radical fringe. And besides, they are part of the problem: a richer-than-average tranche of their own cohort demanding support from the taxes of less affluent people.
But whatever we think of the protesters, the protests point to a real and true problem. Throughout the Western world, politicians are confronting the question: Who will bear how much of the burden of adjusting budgets to grim new post-2008 realities? Canadian politicians have been more responsible and more concerned with fairness than most. But even in Canada, and much more in Japan, Europe and the United States, the answer being heard louder and
louder is: Spare the old, burden the young.
This blog is cross-posted on the National Post.


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The RTG1591 is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We are dedicated to training PhD students in research projects concerning the post-transcriptional control of gene expression in directing cell fate, human diseases and plant-pathogen interactions. Successful candidates will characterize, on the molecular level, how RNA-binding proteins, enzymes acting on RNA, and various regulatory RNAs, including microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs and bacterial sRNAs, modulate gene expression. On the basis of animal and plant model organisms, students will explore how the post-transcriptional control of gene expression determines cell fate and diseases. The RTG1591 provides a structured post-graduate training program including various workshops and seminars supporting students in establishing a successful scientific career.
We offer MD stipends (stipend, approximately 830€/month) for one year with an optional extension for an additional two years.
PhD candidates
- Master (M.Sc.) or comparable degree in a relevant discipline obtained after at most 5y of study
- Average grade in exams 2 or better
- Grade for Master thesis 1.7 or better
MD candidates
- "1. Abschnitt der ärztlichen Prüfung" (M1) in 4 'Fachsemester'
- Grade for the written part of M1 with grade "2" or better
- Completion of the first two clinical semesters without any failure
- Recommendation of at least one professor of the Medical School
MD applications are welcome at any time and via PDF shall be directed to anne.baude(at)medizin.uni-halle.de


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Community ContentbyPublished on 11-11-2012 10:15 PM
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour, the magical mystery tour around this fortnights Episode of the Spotlight, featuring another helping of awesome levels from the Showcase. Roll up, got everything you need, roll up for the mystery tour. Roll up, satisfaction guaranteed! Yep, tear yourselves away from LBPKarting and queue these wonderful levels one of them even features a car!
On the subject of Karting, we have been recruiting new Spotlight members to be ready for the influx of amazing Karting levels we are confidently expecting. We are delighted to announce that WESFUN, Night Angel and fireblitz95 have joined the Crew and are raring to get going in next fortnights Episode. ...byPublished on 10-29-2012 01:09 AM
Welcome one and all to the latest, brand new, shiny episode of the Spotlight! Weve got plenty for everyone from stunning artistic visuals and high adventure to great tunes and ingenious platforming! So as the nights begin to draw in, draw the curtains, light the fire, get out the cocoa and settle down with your favourite form of LBP and get stuck into these levels! ...byPublished on 10-21-2012 09:50 PM
Epic Story Time
Interview conducted by Taffey
amazingflyingpoo. Who IS this guy anyway? I remember the first time I noticed him lurking around one of the LittleBigPlanet community forums. I thought to myself, "With a name like that, he's either a genius or completely out of his mind. Either way, I'd better check out some of his levels." Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that, because his levels have always been incredibly popular. When you load up an amazingflyingpoo creation, you are guaranteed a feature-length experience. His well-developed stories and clever gameplay mechanics make you feel less like you're playing a level and more like you're playing an entire game. ...byPublished on 10-14-2012 08:52 PM
Welcome to the latest and greatest edition of the Community Spotlight! It's a big one this month as we now feature - drum roll please - the first batch of LBP Vita Spotlights. In addition, we're excited to welcome OriginalCreator to the crew to help us play through all of those new and exciting Vita levels! On a sadder note, we also say goodbye to the venerable PSP LBP as we will no longer be Spotlighting PSP levels. ...byPublished on 10-06-2012 11:41 PM
Wiki-Wiki-Wiki, He Da Boss
Interview conducted by rialrees
Let's play a little game of word association, shall we?
I say Holguin, you think: Cuba, Sun, Sea, Sand...
You say Holguin, I think: Boss Fights!
Yes, the creator who took his name from a holiday he took when he bought his PS3 (Talk about random.... *cough*) is now under the Creator Spotlight microscope! Holguin86 is the perfect example of someone who likes to push the envelope. Every level on his earth is a refreshing take on established concepts within gaming: The Time Warp, The Dungeon, The Survival Challenge, and of course... The Boss.
The man is infatuated with Boss fights - and each one he releases is even more challenging and intriguing than the last! But that's far from the only thing he has to offer - this creator is no one-trick pony. Imaginative settings and mind-blowing gameplay mechanics are a foregone conclusion when Holguin86 is involved.
How does he do it? It's a mystery to me. I suspect there may be some sort of voodoo practices at work. Perhaps involving fabric effigies of sackboy in front of a bubbling cauldron, heaped to the brim with jelly. I hope that my questioning will help me find the secret of this witchcraft... ...byPublished on 09-30-2012 07:15 PM
Welcome to the latest slice of mouth watering Showcase action! Weve plenty for you to feast on from fantastic animation work to epic story series and awesome platforming. So put down your Vita for 5 minutes and go queue these amazing levels. With creators as talented as this still working in LBP2, theres plenty of life in the old dog yet! ...byPublished on 09-16-2012 06:53 PM
Welcome one and all to the latest batch of freshly baked levels, hot from the Level Showcase, each one good enough to eat...sorry, must have been hanging around with Hubbie too much! Anyway, theres a distinct feel of Autumn in the air in this Episode and even our first Halloween level of the season! So banish those back to school blues by booting up your PS3 and getting playing. Be sure to check out the nods too, as there are some real gems in that list.
Finally, a quick note that we are still accepting applications to join the Spotlight Crew so anyone who might be interested should pop over to this thread and check out the details. ...byPublished on 09-02-2012 07:23 PM
Welcome one and all to the latest instalment of the Spotlight. Its small but perfectly formed, filled as it is with a varied set of levels with one thing in common their all round awesomeness!
You will notice that we havent included in this episode any levels entered for the Progressive contest. We agonised over this decision but in the end we felt that, given the way this particular contest is being judged, it would not be fair to feature any contest entries until after the shortlist has been finalised. Progressive levels posted in the Level Showcase in the last fortnight will be held over until the 10 most hearted levels have been selected. It wasn't an easy decision to come to but we thought it was the right thing to do in the circumstances. ...byPublished on 08-19-2012 10:21 PM
Welcome one and all to the latest episode of the Community Spotlight a collection of the most magnificent, awesome and just plain fun levels! Theres something for everyone in this episode, so get online and give them a go!
...byPublished on 08-05-2012 06:19 PM
Welcome everyone to another bumper edition of your friendly Community Spotlight packed with goodies from the Level Showcase. This time we have to give a special shout-out to Woodbury Raider who has achieved the unprecedented feat of gaining 3 full spotlights in a single edition! Well done to him!
So switch off the Olympics for a moment and switch on your PS3s (and PSPs) and get playing!


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John Silvanus Wilson Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, knows the value of HBCUs — even if it seems these days that too many others don't. Amid growing doubts about their relevancy and benefits, and fears that black colleges could be facing extinction, Wilson has the task of persuading 32 federal agencies to invest in the institutions.
By changing the HBCU narrative from a story of need and challenges to one of strength and opportunities, Wilson has led the way in steadily increasing such funds — from $728 million in 2008 to $783 million in 2009 to $853 million in 2010 — with an emphasis on escalating curriculum and research in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Wilson says that the emphasis comes at the direction of President Obama, who has made STEM education a key priority of his administration. By training more American students at the top levels of science and math achievement, the president seeks to build a globally competitive workforce, discover new ideas and generate more jobs — and he wants African Americans and HBCUs to play a major part.
Among others, grants and agreements established in the past two years include:
* $9 million from the Department of Energy to nine HBCUs (including Benedict College, Denmark Technical College and South Carolina State University) for science and technical research, combining coursework, DOE field work and applied research.
* $28.5 million from NASA to Morgan State University, for research supporting NASA's earth-and-space science projects, including the areas of atmospheric chemistry, oceanography and polar climate change.
* Research partnership between the U.S. Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command and Morgan State University, giving students direct access to the technological advancements at the nearby Army facility.
* $51.5 million from the Department of Agriculture for 18 HBCUs (including Alabama A&M University, Fort Valley State University, Southern University, Prairie View A&M University and West Virginia State University) for providing technical assistance to rural businesses and developing educational materials around renewable energy sources.
The Root: Part of your responsibility is to inform the federal agencies, and the public, about the value of HBCUs. What's different about your approach?
John Silvanus Wilson: The messaging about the value of HBCUs is easier now, with the national goal established by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. That goal is to have the most educated, competitive and diverse workforce in the world by 2020. What that means is we're going right by this question of whether HBCUs are necessary or valuable. We are simply saying that we need HBCUs to reach this national goal, and we need them to improve their productivity and their product.
This is about the future. Therefore we are not looking for corrective, "save the day" gifts. We are looking for creative, "create tomorrow" investments.
TR: In 2009 you put out a call for HBCU presidents to show you their academic strengths. What are some examples of the things they shared with you?
JSW: The response was initially slow but certain. We are building an inventory of HBCU strengths. A lot of it skews toward health and health-disparities research. For instance, there's world-class AIDS research at Claflin University, there's cancer research at Hampton University, and just a broad range of health research at places like Alcorn State University and Jackson State University.
TR: Why is it important to advance STEM education at HBCUs in particular?
JSW: There's a STEM emphasis nationally. President Obama, Secretary Duncan and the entire administration have STEM as a priority. These disciplines are at the foundation of this knowledge economy.
It is the language of the present day and of the future, and technical proficiency is required for most of the jobs and other opportunities that are now emerging. The folks in China certainly know that, as do the folks in India and elsewhere in the world. America knows it, and needs to know it better.
TR: HBCUs are already a major source of African-American engineers and scientists — they produce 33 percent of engineering degrees awarded to black undergraduates, and nine of the top 10 institutions (pdf) producing blacks with STEM doctoral degrees are black colleges. What's encouraging more students to go into these fields at HBCUs, compared with their numbers at traditional institutions?
That culture goes back to the days when their students had to be strengthened, not only intellectually, but in terms of character and readiness to engage what was often a hostile society. Although it's not in every case, a lot of HBCUs still have that legacy.
I believe the combination of that, and the requirements of the new economy, position HBCUs better than others to prepare students in these fields. If you are an African American, you actually have a better chance of becoming an engineer by going to North Carolina A&T or Howard than you do at a lot of other institutions, just based on the numbers.
TR: On the other hand, an argument often used to dismiss some HBCUs is that many students coming in are unprepared for college-level work, making the institutions less competitive. In your mission to get more dollars for STEM research and innovation at HBCUs, how do you confront that challenge?
JSW: We don't define the challenge based on what their preparation is coming in. There's always been a gap, in general, in the preparation of many African-American students and non-African-American students. That's often because of the inequities at the K-12 level. The beauty of HBCUs is that they have been able to take those less well-prepared students and convert them into competitive students by the time they graduate.
I would also argue that this is not a black issue. There is lamentation across higher education, on the part of various faculty members in a variety of institutions, that American high school graduates are less well-prepared now than they used to be.
TR: In order to help meet President Obama's 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world, you've said that HBCUs must produce roughly 197,000 extra graduates by 2020. Why do you feel optimistic about hitting this benchmark, and how is it looking so far?
JSW: I am optimistic because HBCUs really are treasured institutions. We believe that when that message becomes increasingly clear to more Americans, then you're going to see more investment in HBCUs, from the federal government to the private philanthropic sector.
This challenge that President Obama and Secretary Duncan have outlined is the right challenge for us all to have, and HBCUs are excited and energized to help meet it for the nation.
Cynthia Gordy is The Root's Washington reporter.


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Office: 914-831-2251
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Former Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz holds hands with his girlfriend, Elycia Marie, as they shops at Kitson in Los Angeles, on Friday afternoon (May 1).
The 23-year-old actor is in his fourth year as a professional racecar driver.
"I don't want to sound conceited, but I don't think there has been an actor or celebrity-turned-racecar driver that has made it as high up on the racecar circuit as I have," he has told People of his fellow celebrity racecar drivers. "So I don't think there's anyone who can keep up with me. And that's just me being honest."More Here! »


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Throwback Live At 8:25 - August 9, 2019
August 9, 2019
Every day at 8:25am Tammy will throw it back with 5 pop culture pieces of audio that she will play for John and Jessica and they will battle it out between the two of them! Who will WIN Throwback Live at 8:25a? Listen below and play along!
Contest Line
On Air Now
Daily Schedule
Upcoming Events
23 Jul
Maren Morris (POSTPONED) Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
24 Jul
23 Sep
Luke Bryan (New 2021 Date Announced) North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre


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The week in review
Most questionable competency: Accused triple-murderer Rashad Riddick, 25, pummels his defense attorney, Joseph Flood, in the face at a mental competency hearing August 1 in Madison, the Culpeper Star-Exponent reports. Riddick is charged with the February 2011 murders of his uncle, James Jackson, 55, Jackson's wife and daughter, Karen Lee Jackson, 53, and Chante Latrice Davis, 26. The hearing on Riddick's competency to stand trial is postponed until September 19.
Worst attack on UVA students: Three men– two of them university students– are attacked around 1am July 27 in the 1300 block of West Main. Arrested early August 2 and charged with two counts of malicious wounding, three counts of assault by a mob, and one count of vandalism, according to the Progress, are Barry Wayne Booth, 22, and Chris Cockrell and Ryan Collins, both 23.
Longest underage drinking bust: After a four-hour standoff in Forest Lakes starting August 4, police arrest seven people for underage drinking out of a crowd of 34.
Latest cat-killing case: Harrisonburg police officer Jonathan Snoddy gets acquitted July 30 of animal cruelty for the November baton-beating death an injured cat that had been hit by a car, according to the Newsplex. Snoddy was convicted of the misdemeanor in March and appealed.
Biggest tempest in a teapot: A thrown-away coffee mug leads to charges of a racially hostile work environment at the National Ground Intelligence Center, Samantha Koon reports in the Progress. Carol Koenig, the mug tosser, who is white, filed suit in September claiming that she was disciplined while the mug-owner, Dorsell Williams, who is black, was not. Koenig names Secretary of the Army John McHugh as the sole defendant, and wants $250,000 in damages.
Most inconvenient crash: An SUV wrecks on Ridge Street early July 25, taking out three other cars and three utility poles and electricity, and closing Ridge between Monticello and Elliott avenues, the Newsplex reports. The driver flees, and CPD files warrants against 31-year-old Marvin Sirrelle Turner of Esmont, who turns himself in August 6.
Most symbolic reparations: On August 5, the 85th anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that legalized forced sterilizations of so-called "undesirables," Democratic Delegate Patrick Hope of Alexandria asks Governor Bob McDonnell to make token payments to those still living who were institutionalized and sterilized by the Commonwealth's eugenics program, according to the Newsplex.
Saddest loss of a local character: Sadun Tor, better known as Duner, founder of the eponymous Ivy eatery, dies suddenly July 23 while traveling in New Jersey.
Worst knot failure: Jonathan M. Sullivan, 20, who died while climbing Raven's Roost on the Blue Ridge Parkway June 15, 2011, fell 80 feet because a non-standard climbing knot failed, the News-Advance reports after obtaining a report from the National Park Service under the Freedom of Information Act. The death was ruled accidental.
Worst loss of a neonatal nurse: Judith Malin Linden, 50, who worked at Martha Jefferson, is identified through DNA as being the woman whose remains were found in a June 25 barn fire near Etlan, the Madison County Eagle reports. Police have not ruled out foul play.
Latest call to close Yancey: Albemarle's Long Range Planning Advisory Committee floats the idea of consolidating the county's three southern elementary schools– Yancey, Red Hill, and Scottsville– because of an anticipated $6 million in repairs needed at Yancey, an issue last visited in 2009. The Progress reports 100 show up in support of the Esmont school, including supes Chris Dumler and Duane Snow, and School Board member Eric Strucko.
Latest Billy Campbell sighting: The Charlottesville native is spotted in Richmond, where he's starring in a National Geographic film called Killing Lincoln, based on the book by Bill O'Reilly and produced by Tony and Ridley Scott, NBC29 reports.
Newest ex-Eagle: Albemarle Supervisor Chris Dumler is giving up his badge in protest of Boy Scouts of America's exclusion of openly gay Scouts and leaders, Dumler tells Coy Barefoot at WINA.
–updated 4:42pm August 7 with news of Marvin Sirrelle Turner's arrest.
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If you want to survive in the game of sports betting, Today Soccer Fixtures And Predictions in Tips then you have to use effective money management. I recommend that you follow these guidelines at all times.
- Only invest what you can realistically afford to lose. Best Free Soccer Predictions For Today you have to remember that you really do not need to start with al a lot of money. I got started with only $100 dollars and I followed the system and my money has doubled over and over again over the course of years.
- Do not make your initial bet too high. Only invest 5% of your total bankroll for a flat betting system (in which you bet the same amount each time) and no more than 2% for a progressive system. You need to be patient here and allow your systems to do their slow and steady work.
- Increase your initial bets when your bankroll has increased by 25%. This will increase your earning power, Today Soccer Fixtures And Predictions just remember to stick to the suggested percentages in #2.
- Remember to Diversify your portfolio. If you have a total bankroll of $1000 and 4 systems that you would like to use, then each system should be allotted $250 and you have to keep those amounts separate.
You have to be disciplined in your use of your systems and in your money management strategy. It can be difficult especially you are doing exceptionally well or if you are losing badly. You may be tempted to deviate from the systems or the money management guidelines in either of those situations. But do not, Todays Football Prediction And Tips just remain diligent and the rewards are sure to follow.
Today Soccer Fixtures And Predictions in Tips?
In a previous article I jokingly suggested I had put all my assets – my savings, the deeds to the farm, my kids' Trust fund, and the proceeds from selling one of my kidneys – on a horse at Newbury. I showed this was potentially financial suicide, and an extreme example of bad money management.
I wrote that more often than not a losing punter will find himself saddled with a bunch of bad betting habits. It is these bad habits that have gotten him, and his betting bank, to where his is now – the Poor House.
To arrive at a change in fortune, and to start making consistent profits, the losing punter has to be prepared to make changes to the way in which he bets. In the previous article we talked about the cornerstone supporting my own personal betting strategy, and that is finding value in every bet you make.
You will only ever make a profit from betting if you consistently back horses at prices too high when compared to their actual chance of winning. This is exactly how bookmakers have made their money for generations – they consistently lay horses at prices too low compared to the actual chance of the horse winning. When punters continue to take these low prices day-in and day-out, it will only ever be the bookmakers who come out with a profit in the long run.
The second 'bad habit' I want to examine is the subject of inappropriate staking. What do I mean by staking that is not appropriate? Well, what I am driving at is placing bets that are generally too large in proportion to the size of your betting bank.
Before I expand upon this, the concept of a betting bank is a side-issue in itself. You categorically MUST have a sum of money put aside for the sole purpose of betting. It scares me rigid when I hear of people simply 'dipping' into their current account to place a bet using their debit card.
If you do not have a separate account for your betting activities, you cannot keep records, and you will not be able to answer that simple question, "Am I making a profit, or a loss?"
It goes without saying, that betting involves a degree of risk, and you should never bet with money you cannot afford to lose.
Getting back to inappropriate staking, the idea of lumping all your money on one horse is an extreme example of over-staking. Of course, on the one occasion this strategy may pay off. We had friends round a few nights ago to play one of those Race Night DVDs. I was comfortably in front by studying the form before each race, and placing considered bets at what I considered to be value prices. As you might imagine, I had a suitably smug expression on my face as we came to the last race, and our friends were complaining I enjoyed a 'professional advantage'.
My wife then decided to put every penny she had left on an 8/1 chance. The race turned out to be the 'lucky last' for my wife, and she walked away with the whole bank!
But seriously, continue with these tactics, and it will not be long before you lose everything.
Personally, I would never consider starting any betting campaign with a bankroll of less than 100 points. In other words, I will divide my bank by 100 to arrive at my unit stake. You can see that I will only ever be putting 1% of my bank at risk when I place a bet.
This is a very generalised approach, and you might argue that a little more consideration should be given to a punter's typical strike rate. True, if someone has a strike rate of 50% then it is statistically highly unlikely that he will suffer a run of 100 losers to go bust. So, in this case you might be justified in operating a smaller bank. Bear in mind that when flipping a coin, it is by no means unusual to see 6 or 7 'heads' in succession, and losing runs in double figures do occur.
Erring on the side of caution, you could foresee two such losing runs occurring twice in close succession. In which case, I hope you can see that even when considering a system which such a high strike rate, having a bank of well over 20 points now seems very sensible.
With my own Redd Racing betting service, we enjoy what I would consider to be quite a healthy strike rate. However, we have experienced a negative swing of some 60 points during one particular month a couple years back. The account recovered to make a profit by the end of the month, but it underlined the importance of having a bankroll large enough to absorb the losing runs that EVERYBODY has to endure from time to time.
Indeed, it would probably be better advice if I suggested members of my service had a bankroll of 150 or even 200 points in reserve.
Yet I often receive emails asking me whether it is OK to deposit £100 with Betfair and start with unit stakes of £10.
Betting with stakes too high in proportion to your bank normally comes out of a desire to make money quickly. I think we are all guilty of getting overly greedy sometimes, and unwilling to think a little more long-term. People are inclined to set themselves unrealistic profit targets, given the size of their betting bankroll. Having a bank of £100 and expecting to be able to make £100 per month is not realistic. Get-rich-quick does not exist.
Akin to the Tortoise and Hare story, let me give you an example of where what might initially seem like a very moderate return, actually gives surprising results over time.
If you started with £100 in your betting bank, and increased this bank by just one-half of one per cent every day, after just 6 months your account would have a balance of £244 due to the compounding effect. You could more than double your investment in 6 months with this seemingly small daily profit return. Take that to your bank or building society and see if they can come anywhere near such a deal!
Hopefully this demonstrates how 'slowly but surely' wins the race.
To summarize, my advice would be to set your unit stakes at one per cent, or even one half of one per cent, of your total betting bank. By striking only value bets, and when the odds are in your favour, your betting bank will grow. As your bank grows, so you can naturally increase the size of your unit stake to make more profit – but your bets will still be in proportion to your bank.
In the next part of this Sensible Money Management series, I will look at more bad habits that suck money from the accounts of losing punters.
Football (Soccer) Betting Strategy - Discover Winning by Picking Draws
Now that we have put the Barry Bonds/ Babe Ruth blah, blah, blah to sleep, I think it's time that we sat back and wagered a few bucks on our favorite MLB team. Parity is here and every one of the six divisions is up for grabs this year and handicapping these teams, takes patience and talent.
Let's start with the glamour division and of course I am referring to the American League East where the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have been trading punches since the opening week of April and George's boys are now sitting in the penthouse.
Lurking down in the lobby are the Toronto Blue Jays who have fought off injuries to their starting pitching staff, with superb hitting and are 32-25 and are just three games back. Toronto has made it clear from the get go, that they will spend money during the season in order to contend.
In the AL Central my 9-1 betting bonanza and that would be the 2005 Chicago White Sox are scuffling a bit after a torrid start and presently trail the Motown Detroit Tigers. The Tigers began the first 50 games under Jim Leyland in spectacular fashion, but injuries are beginning to hit them, with the latest being to Pudge Rodriguez.
At 28-29 the Cleveland Indians will make a move at some point and placing a few bucks on them, could provide you with a nice return on your dollar. The AL West with Texas, Oakland, Seattle and Los Angeles is a crapshoot, with only 5.5 games separating the VIP section and the cheap seats. The first place Rangers incidentally are the only team in the West with a winning mark in games played within the division and against the powerful AL East and you cannot ignore that vital gambling statistic.
The New York Mets like their neighbors the Yankees like to throw the money around and they sit atop the NL East presently, but the Phillies and Braves can almost reach out and touch them. With 14 straight division titles, I certainly would think about a wagering a few bucks on them to win once again.
The Cardinals are suddenly trying to ward off the Cincinnati Reds who are getting healthy and pounding the ball. The Cardinals meanwhile have all kids of injury issues with Pujols and ace Chris Carpenter does not look stable.
Just like their counterparts in the AL West, the NL West Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Padres, Giants and Rockies are in a fierce battle for supremacy. Just six games separate the top and bottom, with Arizona leading the pack. The Dodgers are getting superb play out of Garciaparra and if their veterans can stay healthy, watch out!
Bob Acton
Current baseball betting lines


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The Religion of Perpetual Outrage strikes again
Rick Moran
of fanatics attacked and killed 7 UN workers in Afghanistan yesterday. The
reason? The Florida preacher Terry Jones – desperate for media attention after
being ignored for a few months – burned a Koran on March 20 – almost two weeks
For the 14th
century peasants who have now rioted for two days, it seems news travels slowly
to that part of the world.
But the question isn't about
benighted religious extremists who go off at the slightest hint of disrespect to
their holy book and prophet. The shocking question is why is the press, and much
of the West, excusing the violence by pointing to the Koran burning as a
justification for it?
Stirred up by three angry
mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church,
thousands of protesters on Friday overran the compound of the United Nations in
this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people, Afghan and United Nations
officials said.
The dead included at least seven United
Nations workers – four Nepalese guards and three Europeans from Romania, Sweden
and Norway – according to United Nations officials in New York. One was a woman.
Early reports, later denied by Afghan officials, said that at least two of the
dead had been beheaded. Five Afghans were also killed.
Unable to find
Americans on whom to vent their anger, the mob turned instead on the next-best
symbol of Western intrusion – the nearby United Nations headquarters. "Some of
our colleagues were just hunted down," said a spokesman for the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, in confirming the attack.
In Washington, President Obama issued a statement strongly condemning the
violence against United Nations workers. "Their work is essential to building a
stronger Afghanistan for the benefit of all its citizens," he said. "We stress
the importance of calm and urge all parties to reject violence." The statement
made no reference to the Florida church or the Koran burning.
The president was correct in not
including reference to Koran burning in his statement. By doing so, he would
have given the illogical, unreasoning, intolerant, violently sick extremists a
pass for their murderous rampage.
There is no reason on earth for
murdering people, regardless of the "provocation." This is especially true when
it comes to reacting to the mindless, intolerant bigot in Florida. If Jones
wants to burn a Koran, as long as he's not violently attacking anyone or
advocating such, he is within his rights to do so. There is no law against
idiocy, nor even hate as long as the hater does not violate the rights of
Melanie Phillips recently got
into trouble with the PC police in Great Britain for referring to mindless,
Muslim fanatics as "savages" for murdering an Israeli family in their beds. I
think that description would be apt in this case as well.


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Death is in the air. To be more specific, it is on the air waves. I turned on the car radio last week to hear a recording of a speech that the late Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of the Apple empire, had made in 2005 to the students of Stanford University. In its own way it was electrifying.
Jobs said that when he was 17 he had come across the saying, "If you live each day as though it were your last, some day you will most certainly be right." Apparently it had made a deep impression on him, leading him to ask himself every day, "If today were the last day of my life would I wish to do what I am now doing?" He went on to tell the students, "Death is the destination we all share. No-one has ever escaped it….Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life." A difficult colleague to work with, Jobs brought an urgency and intensity to his work that clearly contributed to his success.
I don't know what his listeners made of it. Apparently Jobs had been influenced by Eastern religions; certainly there was a Buddhist element to his thought: the endless cycle of birth and death of which humans are just a part. And his admonition, "Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking" lacked a Catholic understanding of the word "dogma". The recording made me immediately think of the (probably apocryphal) story of a former headmaster of Ampleforth who, when asked by a parent what he was preparing the boys for, answered robustly, "Death."
Then yesterday morning on Radio 4 there was more of the Grim Reaper: an interview with the novelist Julian Barnes, who is the favourite to win this year's Man Booker Prize. Barnes wrote in his autobiographical book, Nothing to be Frightened Of, "For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about." Like Jobs, Barnes is very preoccupied with the subject, telling interviewer Rebecca Jones, "I don't think we talk or think enough about death." Describing death as "an eternity of non-existence" he concluded with a mordant half-laugh, "You are only here once."
My Catholic ears were twitching. For Christians, death is not the point of life; it is "the life of the world to come" that we recite – often so unthinkingly – in the Creed at Mass. St Paul grasped this immediately, knowing that our faith is 'vain' without belief in the Resurrection. As it happened, I had a conversation about Jobs' speech last weekend with my brother-in-law. As with his fellow-atheists, Jobs and Barnes, the finality and vastness of non-existence is troubling to him. I explained that Christians see it differently: this life is simply a preparation for the fullness of life that we hope to experience after death. He could see this might be a consoling thought, a happy illusion, but as he did not believe it he was not consoled.
I sometimes think we Christians don't emphasise enough to our non-believing friends that the grave is not victorious and that death has no sting. We give assent to the dogma but we don't live it in our daily lives with the heartfelt urgency that Jobs and Barnes give to thinking of death. If we did, we might possibly convert people like them, terrified of the dreariness of non-being but without hope of an alternative. After all, the atheist Edith Stein was deeply influenced by the example of a Christian friend whose husband had died in the Great War and who, despite her sorrow, was quietly convinced she would meet him again one day.
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First of all, I say goodday to you my friends, and let me introduce myself:
I am DocRoe, 25 years old (i think), born in Carlow, Ireland in the wonderful year of 1988, so you can figure out my exact age every year. I suck at math.
Carlow is a town you probably never heard of and, well, I don't blame you.
Here it is, an aerial view of Carlow:
Traveling agents would say it's a wonderful little picturesque towny thingy with a lot of character, my best description is this:
It's an absolute shithole.
I grew up there until about the age of 5 or 6, and then my parents finally got it in to their dusty little braincells that this place blows,
and moved across the pond to Belgium. Talking about a shithole, that country isn't all that better. But that story is maybe for another time. I lived there practically all my life, from 5/6 until 20.
But then something happened in the boring life of The Doctor.
He met a girl. Online.
She was the most amazing person he ever talked to, met, and had the privilege to hang out with.
And she still is.
One year after meeting her at the age of 20, I decided to just say "fuck y'all" and leave Belgium to move in with her. I moved all my stuff by train, and the next stop was Groningen, Netherlands. That's where i still live today. Also, my favorite movie is Boondock Saints.
Now that you know who the hell I am:
I have arrived here at G.A.N.G. to bring you columns and a new web/radio show. I'm not going to tell you what or how or when. It's on Sundays. And that's all you're getting from me!!!!
I will co-host this show with my dear friend Obionex2 here in this lovely community.
Wait, Doc, go back.
Who the hell does that nowadays?!!
Well, me, for starters. What will my columns be about? Anything I fucking feel like.. But mostly series, movies, games and music.
Where to find the best games and movies you HAVE to see and which you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT TOUCH!!! Right here.
(That last part goes for series as well.)
So yeah, here i am, and i'm coming for your soul!
If you guys want me to discuss anything about any subject, just let me know and i probably will, if i feel like it, ok, you win. I will.
And for now: SEE YA NERDS!
P.S. Maybe next time a schmexy picture of Le Doc? Stay Tuned!


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In 'The Impossible,' one family's tsunami saga
'The Impossible'' is an earnest, extremely grueling, prodigiously crafted true-life drama that takes one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history and reduces it to a bad day at Club Med.
All right, make that a very bad day. When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hits without warning in the film's opening minutes, we see it through the terrified eyes of the film's protagonists, a British family vacationing at a Thai beach resort. The father, Henry (Ewan McGregor) is in the pool with the younger boys, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). Oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) is off to the side having an adolescent sulk. And mother Maria (Naomi Watts) is crouched before a pool house's glass walls as she looks up to see distant palm trees crashing down and a wall of brown water crest high above the roof of the resort.
The following 20 minutes put the audience right in the middle of the maelstrom. Swept underwater into a raging current, Maria collides with cars and tree branches like pathetically vulnerable flotsam, gets reunited in mid-cataract with Lucas, and eventually comes to earth far inland, grievously wounded. These scenes have an immediacy that obliterates an audience's bearings as easily as it does the family's casual tourist entitlement. Director Juan Antonio Bayona and his production and effects teams want to show us what disaster looks like from the very center, and they succeed all too well.
Yet "The Impossible'' becomes steadily more ordinary as it drags itself from the high-water mark back to safety. Amidst the tinderstick wreckage, Maria and Lucas take refuge in a tree with an imperturbable little boy (Johan Sundberg); our one good look at the injury to the mother's leg — a shocking hole of ragged flesh — raises the stakes to unbearable levels. Henry, meanwhile, has found his other two sons and is desperate to locate his wife and Lucas. The film becomes an "Incredible Journey''-style ordeal that highlights the drama of one family against a backdrop of human chaos.
Which has its problems. The actual family to whom these events occurred is Spanish (as are the filmmakers), and the decision to change that family into Nordic-looking, English-speaking characters who can be played by globally recognizable movie stars is odd but understandable, at least from a commercial standpoint. (In any event, the movie was a huge hit in Spain.) And the tragic truth is that of the estimated 5,400 dead in Thailand (total fatalities for the region approached a staggering 230,000), nearly half were foreigners, most of them vacationing Europeans. The 523 Swedish dead alone represented the country's worst loss since the Battle of Poltava in 1709.
So this particular approach has context, and plenty of it. Yet "The Impossible'' still plays unsettlingly like a tragedy visited only on wealthy white folks because the focus is so narrow and because Sergio G. Sánchez's screenplay barely acknowledges other kinds of people's suffering. There are Thai locals in the movie — pulling Maria to safety and getting her on a truck to the hospital, assisting Lucas when he briefly loses his mother, kindly overseeing the necessary surgeries and evacuations. They're there. They're just the Help.
The acting, it should be noted, is excellent, if in extremis. Watts believably travels from stressed competence (Maria's a doctor) to a state shockingly near death, and McGregor has a scene involving a cellphone where you can see Henry's stoic attempts to hold it together give way completely. The most striking performance, in the film's most realized role, comes from Holland, whose character has to grow up in a matter of hours and — under prodding from Maria — reach out to assist others. Actually, the look on Lucas's face as he discovers his own altruism may be the best special effect in the film. "The Impossible'' is frustratingly myopic, but at least one of its protagonists learns to see.
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The 'Premium Shed' is our most popular range due to its versatility, which provides a home for all your Garden or Household oddments. Our Premium range of sheds start at 6' x 3' and go through to 20' x 10' and are available in both apex and pent style roof options. Doors can be fitted almost anywhere on these buildings.
The standard range can be easily customised, with additional windows, double doors; extra height etc.
We are currently delivering in the following areas: Ashford, Aylesford, Banstead, Beckenham, Bexley, Bexleyheath, Biggin Hill, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Bromley, Canterbury, Caterham, Chatham,
Chelmsford, Chislehurst, Colchester, Cranbrook, Crawley,
Crowborough, Croydon, Dartford, Dover, Eastbourne, East Grinstead, Epsom, Erith, Esher, Ewell, Faversham, Folkestone, Gillingham,
Gravesend, Greenwich, Grays, Grain, Guildford, Hailsham, Hastings, Haywards Heath, Heathfield, Herne Bay, High Wycombe,
Horsham, Isle of Sheppey, Keston, Kingston, Lewes, Lewisham, Lingfield, Luton, Maidstone,
Margate, Medway, Orpington, Oxford, Oxted, Purley, Queenborough, Ramsgate, Rochester, Romford,
Rye, Sanderstead, Sevenoaks, Sidcup, Sittingbourne, Southend, Strood, Sutton, Swanley, Tenterden, Tonbridge,
Thurrock, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield, Warlingham, Westerham, West Malling,
Whitstable, East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, Essex,
London, Berkshire


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4790 W. 16th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46222
(800) 822-4639 (317) 492-6700 Mon-Fri, 9a.m.-5p.m. ET
Jul 5, 2020
March 30, 2012 | By Paul Kelly
Car club members who want to display their prized vehicle and meet fellow automotive enthusiasts can take advantage of one of five Car Corral packages offered by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the inaugural Super Weekend at the Brickyard on July 26-29.
All five packages include tickets, passes to the Car Corral in the IMS infield, IMS merchandise coupons and other perks for the historic event, which features NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Nationwide and GRAND-AM Road Racing on the same weekend.
Car Club members who purchase any Car Corral package also can drive a lap around the famous IMS oval Monday, July 30 in their passenger cars.
Package prices start at $50 per person and are available by (800) 822-INDY or by visiting IMStix.com/promotions.
Four thrilling races will take place in three days during the Super Weekend, with action on the famed IMS oval and road course during the same event for the first time.
GRAND-AM races for the Rolex Sports Car Series and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge will take place Friday, July 27 on the 13-turn 2.534-mile Grand Prix road course. The action will shift to the 2.5-mile oval Saturday, July 28 with the inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series race at IMS, followed by the Crown Royal Presents the "Your Hero's Name Here" 400 at the Brickyard NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Sunday, July 29.
Car Corral participants will park in groups separated by car manufacturer or marque. This will create great opportunities for car club members to meet and spend time with like-minded enthusiasts and also enjoy some good-natured ribbing of fans of rival manufacturers.
Package details:
Thursday-Friday (July 26 – Nationwide practice, July 27 – GRAND-AM)
Friday Only (July 27 – GRAND-AM)
Sunday Only (July 29 – Sprint Cup race)
Super Weekend #1 (Thursday-Sunday)
Super Weekend #2 (Friday-Sunday)


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Pediatric Associates | Physician
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After Hours General Pediatrician Opportunity
at Pediatric Associates | Physician
Posted: 11/7/2020
Job Status: Full Time
Job Reference #: 5469
Job Description
General Pediatrician
Full Time, After-Hours
Weekly Schedule: Evening Hours 5:30-10:30pm, Saturdays 12-8pm, Sundays 12-5pm
Bilingual: Preferred
Bilingual Type: Spanish
Posted 11/06/2020
Req # 5469
- Responsible for providing direct medical care to children from birth to adulthood. Works with other physicians to establish medical protocols and treatment regimens.
- M.D. or D.O degree required.
- Current state specific license.
- Current state specific DEA license
- Current Board Certification appropriate for degree.
- Meets all requirements in order to obtain medical staff membership and required privileges.
- Basic Life Support (BLS) certification is required and PALS as required for hospital appointment.
- Ability to efficiently and effectively manage multiple clinical tasks.
- Ability and comfort to educate and coordinate with other health care professionals.
- Knowledge of all Compliance documents including but not limited to the Employee Handbook, Code of Conduct, Compliance Plan, and OSHA Binder.
- Above average communication and interpersonal skills.
- Proficiency in the use of appropriate computer software and hardware.
- Ability to perform job with minimum supervision.
- Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team, ensuring that other specialties are included in the healthcare plan.
- Ability to maintain quality, safety and infection control standards.
COMPANY OVERVIEW: Founded in 1955, Pediatric Associates is one of the oldest and most respected pediatric practices in the United States. Pediatric Associates opened its first office in Hollywood, Florida. The Company was one of the first medical groups to introduce satellite office locations in consumer retail locations. They were also one of the first pediatric groups to embrace managed care in the 1970s, collaborating with insurance plans as healthcare partners with the common interest of providing South Florida's children with the best healthcare available. Today, Pediatric Associates is a national leader in pediatric population health management with over 200,000 patients under global risk. Keeping abreast of medical advances and changing lifestyles, Pediatric Associate's modern facilities offer comprehensive services, including X-ray and state certified laboratories. The Company currently has 33 neighborhood locations, which are staffed by more than 200 employed providers who proudly serve families throughout Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, St. Lucie, counties, including Tampa and Jacksonville. Pediatric Associates will continue to bring the best possible healthcare service to its patients well into the 21st Century. Ease of access, prompt courteous service and responsiveness to our patients' concerns will always be their primary goal. Pediatric Associates has continued to thrive and today is recognized as one of the premier general pediatric and population health management practices in the United States.
Application Instructions
Please click on the link below to apply for this position. A new window will open and direct you to apply at our corporate careers page. We look forward to hearing from you!


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Another super nice Couple Photo Shooting in Hollywood Beach.
Every time I say to my customers, "I prefer to shoot at sunrise" I get a little of resistance at the beginning, but then, you arrive to a totally empty Beautiful Beach, with a fresh weather, clear water, and perfect light, everything changes, nothing better for a relaxing and enjoyable session with amazing results.
You can play mixing lights (Natural and Flash/Natural and Bouncing) and you will get the most incredible effects.
Thank you very much Omar and Yoselin for trusting on my criteria and having the courage to wake up early for the shooting, I'm super happy with results.


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Feds reject Jindal's financing plans for LSU hospital privatizations
Federal officials have rejected financing plans by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration for privatization deals involving six state-run hospitals.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified the state health department Friday of its refusal to sign off on the deals. The agency said they don't meet federal guidelines governing how Medicaid dollars can be spent.
The decision was a significant blow to the Jindal administration and could create massive upheaval in the state's budget because the deals rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Jindal didn't wait for federal approval before he shifted the hospital management, so the hospitals are now operating under financing plans that have been rejected.
The rejections involved plans for LSU-run hospitals in New Orleans, Lafayette, Houma, Lake Charles, Shreveport and Monroe.


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If you're wondering about the chance your child has to breaking into the middle class by adulthood, a new study by the Brookings Institution provides some clues.
The study breaks down the financial development of a person from childhood through adulthood into a number of milestones.
With the achievement of each milestone, success for the next milestone becomes more likely. If an adult achieves the final milestone, he or she has an 81 percent chance of being considered a member of middle class (earning at least three times the poverty threshold).
Readers here are probably not concerned with entering the middle class so much as they are interested in maintaining middle class status through difficult economic times or building wealth beyond the middle class threshold. Taking a parent's perspective, however, I'd imagine all readers would want their children, hypothetical or real, to be able to at least enter the middle class, relatively without help, as an independent adult.
The milestones used in the study can function as markers along the path. For someone who doesn't meet one of the benchmark criteria for any particular milestone, the chances of being on-track to meet the next milestone are lower. Here are the milestones that help indicate a future in the middle class or better is highly likely.
- 1. Family formation (at birth). Born at normal birth weight to non-poor, married mother with at least a high school diploma.
- 2. Early childhood (age 0 to 5). Acceptable pre-reading and math skills and behavior generally school-appropriate.
- 3. Middle childhood (age 5 to 11). Basic reading and math skills and social-emotional skills.
- 4. Adolescence (age 11 to 19). Graduates from high school with a GPA at least 2.5 and has not been convicted of a crime nor become a parent.
- 5. Transition to adulthood (age 19 to 29). Lives independently and family income at least 250% of poverty or receives college degree.
- 6. Adulthood (age 29 to 40). Reaches middle class, family income is at least 300% of poverty.
The key to building and growing a strong middle class is ensuring those children who were not lucky enough to be born achieving the first milestone get on track to meet the second despite their circumstances, and that's where community or government assistance needs to play a role. Children born into situations with a successful first milestone have a 72 percent chance of reaching the next milestone, but those without that initial advantage have only a 59 percent chance of getting on track by age 5. This identifies the need for early childhood education.
This 59 percent chance of getting on track to the middle class after missing the first milestone opportunity is the highest chance someone off track will have. If another milestone is missed in later development, it will be much more difficult to get back on track. Those who by age 29 do not live independently and have not earned a college degree and are not earning at least 250 percent of the poverty level have only a 38 percent chance of reaching the final milestone.
The role of early childhood education is important, regardless of the circumstances of birth, but in terms of final outcome, family situation is still determinant. The study offers this observation:
The first responsibility of parents is not to have a child before they are ready. Yet 70 percent of pregnancies to women in their twenties are unplanned and, partly as a consequence, more than half of births to women under 30 occur outside of wedlock.
In the past, most adults married before having children. Now childbearing outside of marriage is becoming the norm for women without a college degree. To many people, this is an issue of values; to others, it is simple common sense to note that two parents are more likely to have the time and financial resources to raise a child well. Many young people in their twenties have children with a cohabiting partner, but these cohabiting relationships have proven to be quite unstable, leading to a lot of turmoil for both the children and the adults in such households.
Government can help to ensure that more children are born into supportive circumstances by funding social marketing campaigns and nongovernmental institutions that encourage young people to think and act responsibly. It can also help by providing access to effective forms of contraception, and by funding teen pregnancy prevention efforts that have had some success in reducing the nation's high rates of very early pregnancies, abortions, and unwed births. A number of well-evaluated programs have accomplished these goals and they easily pass a cost-benefit test and end up saving taxpayers money.
There is often a prevailing opinion among political leaders that failure to enter the middle class is a result of laziness or poor choices. This study shows, however, that many of the factors that improve the chance of entering the middle class are out of one's control: family circumstance at the time of birth, early education in reading and mathematics, and appropriate behavior as a child. Without these milestones, breaking into the middle class as an adult is highly unlikely.
The study concludes that more than hard work, entrance into the middle class depends on the choices parents make for their children.


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You don't even need a web browser.
First, test it out in the terminal:
- Code: Select all
$ curl -4 http://wttr.in/Paris
You should now get a nice forecast for the next three days in Paris. Try another city by replacing Paris with what you want.
If you like this tool, let's make a script to make it possible for you to get the forecast of your city just by typing wttr in the command line.
As root:
- Code: Select all
# nano /bin/wttr
Paste the following content into the file:
- Code: Select all
curl -4 http://wttr.in/${CITY}
The second line states the default city. Replace it with the city closest to you.
Save and exit. (In nano this is done by pressing Ctrl + X, and then Y to save.)
You now only need to make the script executable (as root).
- Code: Select all
# chmod +x /bin/wttr
All done!
Now you can check the weather forecast where you live by typing (as regular user)
- Code: Select all
$ wttr
in the terminal.
If you want to check the weather in, say, Istanbul, just type
- Code: Select all
$ wttr istanbul


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Grant Hart | 24/09/13
Having originally brought his new album The Argument to the UK with a full backing band earlier this year, Grant Hart is now returning to perform tracks - both new and old – in a solo, electric show during October and November this year. Full dates can be found below.
The Argument, which is inspired by both John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost and an unpublished manuscript by William S. Burroughs entitled Lost Paradise, includes recent track 'Is the Sky the Limit?' and '(It was a) Most Disturbing Dream' can now be streamed below.
Grant Hart will be playing the following shows:
21/10 - Edinburgh Sneaky Pete's (TICKETS)
23/10 - Glasgow Broadcast (TICKETS)
24/10 - Hebden Bridge Trades Club, Yorkshire (TICKETS)
27/10 - York Fibbers (TICKETS)
29/10 - Brighton The Hope (TICKETS)
30/10 - Cardiff Moon Club (TICKETS)
31/10 - London The Miller (TICKETS)
1/11 - Bristol Exchange (TICKETS)
3/11 - Cambridge Portland Arms (TICKETS)


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December 29th – The Hummingbird Trail and Rocky Peak
10 hikers assembled at the inadequate on-street parking area at the north end of Kuehner Drive at the trailhead (1,175') for the Hummingbird Trail (just outside the gate into Hummingbird Ranch) on what promised to be a nice day for hiking. The morning was chilly with an intermittent wind as we began our 2.4-mile eastward climb to the Rocky Peak Fire Road.
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December 22nd – Big Sky Loop
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18 hikers met along Big Sky Place in Simi Valley on a chilly-early-winter morning for a local hike just south of the Big Sky Movie Ranch for which the nearby housing development was named (the ranch was used for filming many television and film productions such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, and Little House on the Prairie).
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December 15th – Work Party – Lower Stagecoach Trail
The December work party was on the lower Stagecoach Trail – from the top down. The soil dampness was perfect to compact the soil. Thanks to the participants: Martin DeGoey, John Sabol, Kelly Demel, Kyler Demel, Mike Kuhn, and Paul Friedeborn.
December 14th – Christmas Holiday Party Potluck
Ursula Christie again welcomed us into her beautifully decorated home for our annual potluck holiday party. A variety of foodstuffs accumulated as a stream of "Trail Blazers" arrived to partake in the festivities.
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December 8th – Echo Mountain via the Sam Merrill Trail
11 hikers carpooled to the trailhead of the Sam Merrill Trail which begins at the north end of Lake Avenue in Altadena on a very pleasant late-autumn morning with good visibility. We found parking a few blocks from the trailhead and then gathered at the gated entrance for a group photo.
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December 1st – Piedra Blanca to Twin Forks Camp


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Travel as much as you can, as far as you can. ... More +
Travel as much as you can, as far as you can.
To order, select options then add the item to cart.
To find your size, refer to our Size Chart.
Affordable shipping rates. Starts at P40 for Metro Manila and P90 for the rest of the Philippines.Product Code: WM01
To determine your size, get a non-stretch t-shirt that fits you comfortably. Lay it down on flat surface and measure the width of the shirt jus below the sleeves. Look up the width in the size chart to find your equivalent size. If your measurement is in between two sizes, choose the bigger size to ensure a better fit.
SIZE CHART : Unisex Tee
SIZE CHART : Ladies Tee
Both unisex and ladies t-shirts are made of non-stretch cotton-polyester blends materials. Unisex t-shirts have modern basic fit which will look good on any body type. Ladies tees are shapely with shorter sleeves.
SIZE CHART : Hoodies


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Monday, November 24, 2008
SAG Headed Toward Strike Vote After Talks Fail
The Screen Actors Guild leadership will ask for a strike vote from the membership after talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers produced no movement over the weekend. The negotiations, under the leadership of a federal mediator, were the first in months. The 12,000 SAG members have been working without a contract since June 30.
Here's part of SAG's press release.
"Our leadership was optimistic that federal mediation would help to move our negotiations forward, but despite the Guild's extraordinary efforts to reach agreement, the mediation was adjourned shortly before 1:00 a.m. today.
Management continues to insist on terms we cannot responsibly accept on behalf of our members. As previously authorized by the National Board of Directors, we will now launch a full-scale education campaign in support of a strike authorization referendum. We will further inform our members about the core, critical issues unique to actors that remain in dispute.
We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to reach agreement. Now it's time for SAG members to stand united and empower the national negotiating committee to bargain with the strength of a possible work stoppage behind them.
We remain committed to avoiding a strike but now more than ever we cannot allow our employers to experiment with our careers. The WGA has already learned that the new media terms they agreed to with the AMPTP are not being honored. We cannot allow our employers to undermine the futures of our members and their families."
Here's part of the AMPTP's press release on the situation.
We are disappointed to report that the federal mediation efforts between SAG and AMPTP failed in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 22nd, when mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez ended the process.
The mediation failed for one fundamental reason: SAG continued unrealistically to insist on a substantially better deal than all of the other major Hollywood Guilds and Unions have negotiated so far in 2008. In the end, it was clear that SAG was not serious about using the mediation process to make a deal. Instead, SAG appears to have manipulated the mediation process in an attempt to achieve precisely the result it has wanted all along: A strike by SAG members.
SAG has not justified why it deserves to be treated differently than the industry's other Guilds and Unions – particularly at a time of extraordinary economic distress for both the country and the entertainment business. SAG refuses to deviate from its unrealistic position, even continuing to cling to its proposal to change the DVD residual formula.
AMPTP has already negotiated six major labor agreements in 2008 alone, including the pact just concluded with IATSE. We are prepared to conclude an agreement with SAG, but we simply do not see any justification for SAG receiving more than we have offered - a deal that is every bit as good as the ones the industry's other Guilds and Unions have negotiated in far better economic times.
Read SAG's press release here. Read the AMPTP's press release here.
November 24, 2008 in Film, Television | Permalink | TrackBack (0)