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Paranormal Investigation and the Search for Answers in the Darkby Kevin Redding
It is a frigid night in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. A small, comfortable, white two-story apartment building sits surrounded by tiny mountains of snow and icy walkways. Past the slippery porch and through the front door, the living room is bright, loud and smells of baked ziti from the kitchen in the next room. An energetic four-year-old named Connor is hopping up and down in front of the TV, watching a burly, spandex-cladwrestler on the WWE Network slamming a man in a cape against the mat in the ring, while his mom Theresa Matthews, mid-40's, chubby and exuding an aura of 'cool mom' with her wild, punk-styled hair, sits behind him on the couch. Framed on the wall above the front door is an embroidered plaque: "The love of a family makes life beautiful."
Matt Slater, Theresa's boyfriend, also mid-40's sporting a huge beard, a Motorhead T-shirt, and two biceps full of tattoos, stands in the kitchen chowing down a forkful of ziti and chatting on the phone loudly, his voice boisterous and excited, while their two dogs dash through the rooms sniffing where Connor was hopping.
This is the Matthews home on a Saturday night. But it isn't an ordinary night. Snaked between the action figures Connor has left scattered on the floor are cables and wires connected to surveillance cameras on tripods in three sections of the living room and kitchen. A long cable running up the stairs connects the wires to a small TV monitor perched on a nightstand next to a cushioned lounge chair. The monitor provides six views of individual rooms in the house.
James Mulcahy, short, with a trimmed, and thin goatee, wide blue eyes, a studded earring and a baggy black hoodie with a gray skull on the front leans over the TV, and adjusts a bulky audio recorder that glows with yellow lights. Three other people –59-year-old Arra Mowrey, with short, grandmotherly gray hair and black framed glasses, Kelli Weber, quiet and reserved with long brown hair, a tan even in the winter, and black-framed glasses, and tall, grey-haired, tatted- up and wild-eyed Edward "Awesome Ed" Bates, 45 years old– are raising tripods and running wires around the room. Each is wearing a black T-shirt with "POUGHKEEPSIE PARANORMAL" printed on the back in thick, green letters.
"I think we're just about ready," said Mulcahy.
This is the Matthews home on a Saturday night, host of a paranormal investigation.
After a month-long hiatus from taking on any new cases, Mulcahy and his gang of ghost hunters are back to business. Equipped with headlamps, EVP recorders to pick up any "electronic voice phenomena" from spirits that may try to communicate with them, and high-resolution flashing cameras, the ever-skeptical Mulcahy leads his group upstairs to seek out what's reduced Matthew's seven-year-old daughter to a bundle of screaming terror and find explanations for other strange occurrences happening in the house.
"We think that right now, the high EMF [electromotive force]readings in the house are playing a big role in terms of what they're experiencing," says Mulcahy, a 35-year-old local handyman whose interest inthe paranormal began with what he calls a near-death experience when he was 10 years old. "We can't discredit the apparition. Obviously we haven't experienced it or seen it but as far as what they're feeling, it could be the high EMF, perhaps, causing delusion of seeing what they're really not."
Slater contacted Mulcahy in early January after attempting to contact various groups, including The Atlantic Paranormal Society, which became the subject of the Syfy Channel show Ghost Hunters. But, none of the groups he contacted got back to him.
"I had seen their group on Facebook," Slater said of Poughkeepsie Paranormal. "And considering that they were local, only 15 minutes away, they just made a lot of sense. We were just looking to get some answers."
Slater got in touch with Mulcahy on Facebook. They exchanged phone numbers, and Mulcahy spoke to Slater and Matthews together to gauge their situation and home environment. What they told him was that Matthews' seven-year-old daughter screamed bloody murder while taking a bath one night. She would later tell her mom that she had seen a dark silhouette of a little boy in the doorway.
"That was definitely real for her," said Matthews, who asked that her daughter's name not be disclosed. "She was screaming. I ran up immediately, thinking something was wrong. Maybe she turned on the hot water because the way she screamed….It was a scream I had never heard from her before. It was almost like a scream she was fighting to get out. She said the little boy was just standing there, looking at her."
"Well, just like any house, people have obviously died in here in the past," said Slater. "I'm sure that happens."
"I feel like when people die," said Matthews, "they come back to where they're comfortable." She curled up on the couch with Slater as Mulcahy and his team headed upstairs.
There are also deep, dark footprints embedded in the wood at the far corner of the porch leading to the entrance of the apartment.
Matthews and Slater say they appeared there after a few nights of loud stomping and pacing as if someone had been outside walking back and forth deciding if they wanted to knock or not.
"It's weird and unexplainable," said Slater. "There are no other prints on the porch. James was saying it could be pressure treatment on the wood itself because of the weather. But it's weird."
Slater cited other "random, strange" happenings.
He said that a few days before he had been standing in the kitchen when he saw a framed picture fall from the edge of the cabinet in the living room "as if it was forcefully pushed off." He said he put it back and jumped up and down on the floor to jar it off. "I'm a 200-pound guy and there was no budge."
Is this a sign of ghosts? Mulcahy isn't quick to draw conclusions. His main concern is "to give the family peace of mind."
"They wanna know what's going on, whether they're going crazy or if there's legitimately something in their house," he said."We want them to feel safe and happy in their own home. And it is their home. They should feel secure here. So we're here to basically give them that foundation of safety."
Mulcahy and his band of ghost-hunters, who charge nothing for their services, say it's their mission to "assist those in need of our help with the paranormal" and vow on their website to "handle each person and case with care and the utmost respect." The team is based, of course, in Poughkeepsie, the 75,000-inhabitant "Queen City of the Hudson," roughly 80 miles north of Manhattan, but its members have hunted ectoplasm in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Cases like the one at the Matthews home spring up often all over America.
Poughkeepsie Paranormal is just one of 121 registered paranormal societies in New York, according to an online directory (http://paranormalsocieties.com/) of all groups in the country, ranging from 1st Sightings Paranormal Investigations in Stony Brook, Long Island, to Northern Ghosts Paranormal Research & Investigations in Buffalo. According to Bill Wilkens, founder of the directory, the number of groups featured on the site "has grown exponentially, reaching almost 5,000 teams [around the world] earlier this year." When he started the directory in 2007, there were only 50 groups listed.
Fueled by the popularity of reality shows focused on the supernatural and TV programs like the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures and The Dead Files, Ghost Hunters on Syfy channel, My Ghost Story on Bio channel, and Long Island Medium on TLC, Paranormal Societies.com lists no fewer than 2,593 paranormal investigation groups spread across the United States.
While many cases are subtle and low-key private home investigations, instances of ghost-hunting range from urban legend exploring to touristy haunted tours of homes, commercial buildings, old prisons and abandoned mental hospitals.
Some sites achieve international notoriety.
In Texas, the San Antonio After Hours Ghost Tour, regarded as the top ghost tour in the country today ($15 for adults, $13 for children and active members of the military) guides visitors through the roads and buildings of the Alamo Mission, said to be humming with the spirits of soldiers killed in the disastrous 1836 battle.
Guests are invited to "stand in the very place where men, women and children begged for their lives while having their heads removed for recreation and revenge." The tour's website recommends that guests to equip themselves only with cameras, as the tour guides bring their own ghost-hunting equipment.
According to BusinessWeek, Alamo City Paranormal, which runs the "After Hours" tour owns up to $80,000 worth of ghost-detecting gear and "charges $50 and up for its investigations."
The tour's owner, Martin Leal, says that their revenue grew 21% since 2004. Leal has recently been trying to take his "association of a dozen local companies charging for ghost-hunting services, called the American Alliance of Professional Ghost Hunters, nationwide" according to Leal's website.
Sites like San Antonio are paranormal magnets that pull in would-be ghostbusters and thrill-seekers from all over the country. These are the bread and butter of the ever-growing paranormal industry, heavily promoted by the tourist trade, which aid in bringing financial legitimacy to the industry, its population consisting of a motley assortment of conmen, serious scientific researchers and the just plain curious.
But there are other locales in America's hamlets, towns and cities where things that go bump in the night are not easily blown up to be something they're not and, in turn, empty the client's wallet. These cases, often isolated and untapped, defy easy explanation. They are the domain of Poughkeepsie Paranormal and groups like it.
In Kansas City, Kansas, a group called Heartland Paranormal took photos of a woman holding her child as well as a skeletal face peering out the window at the site of the Battle of Black Jack, where the confrontation between abolitionist John Brown and pro-slavery forces occurred on June 2, 1856.
In Columbia, Pa., the Lights Out Paranormal group investigated an old, abandoned firehouse, which was being fixed up to serve as residential property. As documented on its website (http://lightsoutparanormal.webs.com/thekeystone.htm) the group picked up a total of three EVP voice recordings. While the first of the recordings is faint and inaudible, the others aren't quite as lackluster. There is a low yet sinister whisper of "Get out" when one of the investigators announces that the team is downstairs. When the investigator mentions not knowing the exact time when logging the information, the same voice whispers: "It's now. There's a fire."
In Washington, a group called Puget Sound Ghost Hunters investigated the Dumas Brothel, built in 1890 and reported to be the home to eerie voices, footsteps and apparitions of a woman through the hallways. The group reports logging screams, whispers, footsteps, and full-on conversations on itsaudio recorders.
And in Virginia Beach, Va., Tidewater Paranormal was calledto assist a client whose best friend and roommate committed suicide in the residence. After the group detected little activity, it performed a shamanic cleansing for good measure.
Tales of the supernatural, the dark and macabre have terrified and titillated humans from the beginning of time, but the current soar in popularity owes much to the late author Jay Anson, whose wildly popular 1977 book "The Amityville Horror" told the purportedly true story of George and Kathy Lutz, who moved into the house where 13 months before troubled 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed six members of his family.
The Lutz family, terrorized by increasingly chilling occurrences, moved out of the house just 28 days after moving in on Dec. 18, 1975. George often woke up at 3:15 a.m., the exact time of the DeFeo murders, to the sound of the front door slamming, only to see that there was nothing there. Kathy would frequently discover red welts on her chest and be levitated two feet off her bed at night. Their daughter Missy developed an imaginary friend named "Jodie", described as a pig-like creature with red eyes. Kathy and Missy would see "Jodie" throughout the house and in windows, as well as images of the devil with its head blown out in the fireplace.
The 1979 film version of Anson's book spawned at least 10 Amityville-themed sequels and has a secure place in the pantheon of Hollywood's supernatural-themed classics of the period, which includes The Exorcist (1973), Poltergeist (1982), The Shining (1980)and comedies like Ghostbusters (1984).
There have been well-known paranormal investigators in the United States since the late '60s and '70s, most notably Ed and Lorraine Warren, whose paranormal investigations were portrayed by actors Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively, in the 2013 horror film The Conjuring
The Warrens were heavily involved in the Amityville case, examining the house alongside hand-selected paranormal reporters and crew a mere 20 days after the Lutz family moved out. Ed, a demonologist, claims to have been pushed to the ground by some unseen force after attempting to provoke any spirits in the house using crosses and holy water.
Lorraine, a clairvoyant medium, said she was pushed and overwhelmed by demonic presence in the house. She claimed she "saw" the DeFeo's bodies along the floor in white sheets.
In an online interview, Annette Hill, author of "Paranormal Media: Audiences, Spirits and Magic in Popular Culture", tells University of York sociology professor Laurence Taylor that the spike in interest in the supernatural represents "a quite intense form of cultural participation" and that "people have this collective subconscious engagement with these experiences."
Hill, a professor of media at Lund University in Sweden, cites a survey in her book that shows a giant rise in belief in the paranormal following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. When asked if there is a correlation between the popularity of these beliefs and historical moments, Hill says, "Yes, absolutely. You see ghost beliefs peaking at certain key moments of crisis. It could be war, it could be economic unrest, it could be religious uncertainty. And [the fact that] we look for things in unusual places to deal with uncertainty is so well-known that Business Week anticipated there would be a huge rise in paranormal beliefs as a result of the economic crisis."
Stephen Flusberg, assistant professor of psychology at the State University of New York's Purchase College, says that belief in the supernatural among humans is extremely widespread and can be linked to theory of mind, the ability to infer the range of mental states of others.
"Human beings are the most social creatures," said Flusberg, "and we have evolved in ability to tune in to the minds of others. We see intentional actions everywhere we look. The side effect of this social ability is that we end up seeing intentions where there are none."
According to Flusberg, this helps explain why belief in an afterlife, and that the mind can survive the death of the body, is natural for human beings to believe. And when it comes to those in groups who actually seek out the paranormal, there lies a major confirmation bias.
"We tend to weigh evidence, and seek out evidence that confirms our prior beliefs," he said. "The scientific method is used explicitly to override this innate confirmation bias we all suffer from. Little noises happen, things move, things fall just because the world's a chaotic place. It's all within the realm of natural physics. So now I'm in a dark, supposedly haunted, house and I believe in ghosts and there's a weird sound. There it is! Proof to support the belief!"
Ghost-hunting groups "make the conclusions based on what they see on TV and that's a big problem," says Loyd Auerbach, a renowned parapsychologist, adjunct professor of Integral Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, Ca.,since 1983, and lecturer. "That's like basing police work off watching Cops"
Auerbach says ghost-themed reality shows have created unrealistic expectations.
"Too many people are influenced by all these shows in terms of expectations," he says.
"Ninety percent of the people who call are just reaching out for help. Being scared is a big factor. They don't know how to handle it. Sometimes they're angry because the phenomena is consistent and it's pissing them off. I've had to talk people down from the idea that there's a demon in their house. Just because noises are happening, it doesn't mean there's an evil force in the house."
"Lots of people get messed up from this stuff," says paranormal investigator and theologian Paul Eno who has worked with the Warrens and the Rev. John Nicola, the Catholic priest who served as technical advisor for The Exorcist, and appeared on the Travel, Discovery and History channels, and in the short film The Devil's Hour, which accompanied The Conjuring.
"My concern is that a lot of the people interested in the paranormal treat it like bird-watching and you can't do that," he said. "To go looking for the paranormal is really stupid. It's thrill-seeking. And not to say that there aren't good groups out there, but as a rule think it's a really dumb thing to do."
But, he said, "It's such a huge industry right now and you really can't rein it in because people are making too much money."
Based on the production of books, e-books, paranormal TV ad revenue, movies and live events over the last 10 years, Eno estimates the paranormal craze floats a nearly $30 billion-a-year industry. And this doesn't include sales of EMF meters, infrared video equipment and other ghost-hunting gear.
Earlier this year, Eno was speaking to a room of 230 beginning ghost hunters at a paranormal convention in Clearwater, Florida. He was asked to give a piece of advice to all the would-be thrill-seekers and what he said nobody in the room expected:
"Don't. Don't do it."
And while well-educated scholars of this field, like Auerbach and Eno, don't encourage the tactics of D.I.Y. ghost-hunters for grounded reasons, their words of wisdom have little effect on wannabe ghost-hunters, like those in Long Island Paranormal (LIPI), who meet once a week in the brightly lit garage attached to group-founder Michael Cardinuto's one-story house in the Suffolk County hamlet of Ronkonoma. This place could be his boyhood clubhouse, ramped up with technology and testosterone.
Long Island Paranormal (LIPI) is affiliated with the American Alliance for Professional Ghosthunters, a conglomeration of 13 groups across the country and one in Ireland.
A refrigerator sits in a corner, surrounded by a few microwaves perched on the floor and on small tables along one wall. In the center of the garage, where under other circumstances you might expect to see Cardinuto's pickup truck parked, are two long folding tables with three laptops plugged in and open for use.
Cabinets stuffed with financial data and investigative files line the walls, the color of which are obscured by what seems to be hundreds of certificates and awards and printouts of banners from locations the team has investigated.
Cardinuto, 37, works two jobs, one at Wendy's, where his teenaged employees are very interested in his after-work hobby, and the other at Sports Authority, where his employees are more skeptical and more likely to roll their eyes.
LIPI was formed on March 8, 2003 as an outlet for an interest in urban legends and the paranormal shared by Cardinuto and his longtime friend and co-founder Rob Levine, a sales consultant for Brothers 3 Pools, a pool cleaning and installation company.
"We were so tired of hearing about all these stories and hauntings and we wanted to see for ourselves if any of this was true," said Cardinuto, who organized the group along quasi-military lines.
He is the group's self-styled colonel. Levine holds the rank of lieutenant colonel. With them at one recent meeting are Dimitri Haritos, a married father of two and medical biller, who serves as the group's demonologist. He's a second lieutenant. Pete Ferraro, head of the "psychic department" is the first sergeant. Ferraro, at the far end of the table, immersed in the laptop in front of him, fails his arms and mutters incoherently to himself throughout the night.
When Cardinuto formed the group, the major boom in paranormal hunting TV shows was still a few distant years away. The group relied on a ton on self-educating and purchasing of equipment that corresponded with what paranormal theorists were saying was needed to catch ghosts.
In 2006, referred to by Cardinuto as "a big year" for the group, LIPI launched a website (http://liparanormalinvestigators.com/) and started to buckle down to recruit members, who had to survive a rigorous interviewprocess. By 2007, the group had grown to 22 members, conducted its first home investigation—a purported haunting of a suburban home in Bayside–and started travelling out of state. "Ever since then, it's just been skyrocketing," said Cardinuto.
"There's not a group out there in the world that's like this group," says Cardinuto. "We are probably the most organized out there. We all have different army rankings and basically the way you move up is by taking different exams based on equipment and leadership skills."
The group hosts a weekly radio show, called "Ghost News Network" every Sunday night between 6 pm and 8 pm through Sepia Radio Network, an online, not-for-profit network devoted to the supernatural, on which LIPI members discuss local urban legends, offer a paranormal definition of the week, review equipment, and air segments such as 'This Week in Paranormal History', 'Ghost Weather' and 'Fan Questions.'
"It's no bullshit," said Cardinuto. "I run this like a business."
The group stresses the importance of technology. On any one of their probes LIPI investigators might carry a 35mm camera, a barometer to read the change in pressure caused by unseen entities, a carbon monoxide detector, digital audio recorder, digital EMF reader, static reader, thermometer, dowsing rods to track energy, a DVR system, an electrosmog meter to detect frequencies, a germanium diode to scan entity-heavy frequencies, K-2 meters, a thermal imaging projector to gauge the surface temperature of an area, and a zap checker to detect radiation.
Cardinuto says he has documents proving LIPI has spent $97,000 on its vast array of equipment, a little more than $12,000 in 2013 alone.
According to Cardinuto, the group's money, which pays for the equipment, group trips to locations and office supplies, comes from monthly membership fees, donations, fees and honoraria from library and college presentations the group gives, an online store via their website that sells pieces of equipment like energy loss meters, for $60.00 as well as holy water necklaces for $8.00. The rest of it comes from their own pockets.
"We also come up with creative ways of gaining money," said Levine, "like collecting scrap metal."
The group protects its investment. Anyone who walks into Cardinuto's headquarters hoping to join the team must study for, and pass, an exam for each piece of equipment.
"I didn't really learn anything until I joined Long Island Paranormal," said Haritos. "Just to become the lead investigator in this group, I had to take an over 100- question verbal question test and pass with over a 90. In order to become a lead investigator, you can't teach other people if you don't know everything."
Auerbachis not impressed.
"The fact is, that none of the technology that anyone uses, myself included, can be shown to detect anything paranormal," he said. "Certainly not any better than human beings. The equipment is not a detector of the paranormal, it's a detection of what's happening in the environment and, technically, can be detectors of anomalies or an unusual effect in the environment, which you must connect to a human experience. I can just walk into an old abandoned house and get an EMF reading that's off the map. You know, pipes do that, wiring. I gotta tell ya, I've probably found more bad wiring in those older homes than I've ever found ghosts. I think I've recommended electricians multiple times over saying 'you have a ghost here' certainly."
It's now 8:55 p.m. and Mulcahy, Bates, and Mowrey are unwinding in the kitchen. The team is tense and tired. Mulcahy rubs his head and complains of a headache and a need for fresh air. Mowry accidentally hits a chair with her thigh. "Did you hear that?!" Bates says in a loud and disturbed tone, his wide eyes focused on the ceiling.
"I just bumped into the chair," Mowrey says.
"I thought that was from upstairs," Bates says, gazing suspiciously around the room and at the ceiling.
A half hour later, after gulping down some Mountain Dew and eating scraps of ziti and a breathing in a dose of fresh air, the team assembles in the crowded living room. Matthews and Slater, now joined by Slater's 16-year-old-son and his friend, sit on the couch with one of the dogs curled between them. Mulcahy sits at one end of the coffee table. Bates and Weber lean against the TV cabinet. Each is equipped with an EVP voice recorder that will flash green if any sort of energy hovers nearby.
Mowrey sits in a cushioned chair, designated to lead the procedure and call forth any spirits.
"Anybody in here want to talk to us tonight?" Mowrey gets things started, her voice direct and serious. "Knock on the wall, stomp your feet. Let us know you're in here. You see these little gadgets with green lights on them. If you go near them, they'll light up in pretty colors. They won't hurtcha."
The room is quiet. The dog shuffles and then lets out a long, drawn-out growl.
"I'm lighting up over here," says Weber. Her EVP recorder is flashing green at a rapid pace.
"What is he growling at?" asks Mowrey.
"I don't know," says Matthews, with some concern in her voice.
In the dark, the silhouette of the dog is still.
The growl lingers, on and off, sounding like a bad motor.
"He must be sensing every bit of the energy and power surge that's circulating in this house," says Mowrey. She addresses whatever force might be present in the room: "Can you tell us why you knocked that picture over? Did you not like it for some reason?"
The dog growls faintly.
Weber's EVP flickers off. "Here we go."
"We're lit up again, I'm lit up again!" says Mowrey. "It seems like it's not necessarily anything paranormal, but instead all power in the room and he's sensing that."
"Ya know the dog whistles only they can hear?" Mulcahy cuts in. "That's pretty much what's going on with this EMF. He's hearing that EMF frequency coming through and it's affecting him."
"See, now we're dead and he's quiet," says Mowrey. "But I bet the minute it goes up again, he's gonna start growling."
The team wrapped up the EVP procedure in an hour. They spent three hours in the Matthews home, conducted a full sweep of the rooms that were said to have had activity, with EVP scans, flash photography, and video capture, looking for any signs of orbs, a spherical globe, or energy or anything out of the ordinary at all.
After a week looking over everything they have, Mulcahy puts it bluntly: "We really didn't find much of anything, as far as evidence goes."
However, the team offered some speculation.
"I decided to pour some water over the footsteps on the porch and, sure enough, they were still there," Slater said. "But I think that when the porch was being built, and the finishing had been put on it, the person that was doing it may have been standing in that specific area and forgot to finish that portion where the footprints were. So that claim was debunked as being a natural occurrence."
Mulcahy dismissed the sight of the boy's silhouette and things moving in the house as phenomena caused by high amounts of EMF in rooms throughout the house.
"The power lines came from the road right into the house. High EMF's, which we detected all over, can cause headaches, migraines, nausea and hallucinations that make you see things that aren't really there. Our brain is made up of impulses, and the electro-magnetic frequencies affects the brain in a way that we feel insane. And this will affect small children even more so."
The falling picture? The cabinet may have been wobbly and normal vibrations caused the frame to topple.
"Logically thinking, what we like to do is debunk everything we possibly can. There were no signs of paranormal activity in that house."
As he does after every investigation, Mulcahy went to the house to discuss the results with Matthews and Slater.
"We were satisfied with the results," says Slater. "What they were saying made sense and it made us feel better. Those footsteps are still there but James's explanation makes sense."
Though it's easy for skeptics, debunkers or scientists, to dismiss the supernatural as superstition and mock paranormal investigation as pseudo-science,a recent poll by the science news website livescience.com determined that 71% of Americans have had a paranormal experience, 34% believe in the existence of ghosts, 56% believe that ghosts are spirits of the dead (while only 2% say that they are a result of hallucinations), 37% believe that houses can be haunted and 43% believe that devil possession exists.
"I get looked at all the time," said Poughkeepsie Paranormal's "Awesome Ed" Bates, talking about driving the group's Paranormal-mobile around. "People say to me, 'Are you crazy?!' and I go, 'Yeah I'm crazy!' But we're all going to die at some point, including the naysayers. At least I know where I'm gonna be when I do!"


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New features for Google News
Google has introduced a range of features to its News section in an effort to make content more personalised. New elements in the redesign include a customisable stream of stories, titled 'News For You', and the ability to share groups of articles with other users via Buzz, Google Reader, Facebook or Twitter.
The announcement was made on Google's official blog this morning. The statement read:

subset: commoncrawl


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The Good, the Bad and the Not so Ugly: Volendam Cruise Review by Bowsider
Overall Member Rating
The Good, the Bad and the Not so Ugly
Destination: Australia & New Zealand
Embarkation: Los Angeles
We found the ship wonderful with like minded passengers and plenty of activities to suit everyone. Being a long cruise, there was plenty of time to try everything on offer without having to rush around a ship as you do on shorter cruises. However, nothing is perfect.
Being Kiwis our dollar was getting thrashed and therefore we were careful in what we spent. We took several bottles of wine onboard and were very grateful to HAL for allowing us to do so. However, we did purchase bottled wine for dinner at the Rotterdam - big mistake - a few days into the cruise a fellow passenger gave us the heads up on THE WINE CARD - a great saving over buying by the glass or the More bottle. However, it is not advertised as such by the ship.
I purchased a gym package which entitled me to do all the classes such as yoga, pilates and spinning for $200. The gym facilities and fitness instructors were outstanding. However at the spa, my elderly mother was "encouraged" to get skin products when she went to get her hair done. No price was mentioned at the time but when she went to sign for the bill she was most upset to see it was over $600. I was however able to return most of them. I was also told by a fellow "novice" cruiser he was also "encouraged" to get his teeth whitened and was charged $500 afterwards and was too embarrassed to question it. So anyone using the spa I would advise to question the price of all products they are offering.
The cabin was on Dolphin Deck midships and one of the smoothest rides I have ever encountered. It was quiet, spacious, big window and comfortable beds. If it had a fridge I would have rated it with a top mark. (We had done a short cruise on the Sun Princess earlier and were upgraded to a balcony. However the cabin was a lot smaller than Volendam and the bathroom was tiny). The cabin and ship were kept spotlessly clean.
We had open seating which I preferred over fixed dining as it gave us flexibility to dine especially in port. We preferred to eat at the Rotterdam and all meals were tasty, well presented and quite healthy. Breakfasts however were disappointing as the toast was always either burnt, soggy or both. The bacon also was fatty and very overdone and impossible to eat with a fork as it just crumbled. They constantly ran out of cereals or fruit but made up for it with the fresh omelettes made before your eyes which I particularly enjoyed.
We dined with an officer once and I was disappointed that the officers were not around more. (I always remembered cruising in the seventies and eighties as being a lot of fun when the officers partied too!) There was one evening called a Black and White Ball where you could dance with them and it was probably the most fun I had all cruise.
The live shows each evening were wonderful with lots of variety and they also incorporated live local cultural shows from various ports. We also attended the Park West art shows and these were really interesting and informative as well as being entertaining. The Art Director was particularly knowledgeable and nothing was too much trouble for him.
The ports were good with ample time in each one although I would have preferred Tahiti to Suva. We tendered 3 times and it was well organized with minimal waiting time.
Overall we thoroughly enjoyed the cruise and found the Volendam full of wonderful surprises. The front office staff were most obliging and helpful, as were 99% of the crew. The captain kept us informed most days on the ship's nautical happenings as did the cruise director with activities and I would have no hesitation to sail with HAL again. Less
Published 10/30/08
Cabin review: E Large Ocean-View Stateroom
Very comfortable, spacious but no fridge.Read All Large Ocean-View Stateroom (E) Reviews >>
Read Cruise Critic's Volendam Review >>
Bogan ship for bogan people
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Owner: khoid
Listed in: Home-garden
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Monster house plans blog providing info on all types of home and floor plans in North America.
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Club Bonito, located on Las Galeras Bay, Dominican Republic, offers a Caribbean escape to a novel-like setting on a secluded, panoramic bay on the undiscovered Samana Peninsula. The proprietors have combined their experiences in North America, Europe, Africa and Japan to create an international ambiance of hospitality, elegance and dedication to service. We provide our guests with privacy as well as many readily available social and excursion activities.
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- Arroyo Barril International Airport (EPS) / 6.4 miles
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It is a strange combination, but it keeps appearing.
Some alien, or sometimes a group of them, is absolutely brilliant at some kind of activity, but a total klutz at managing immigration regulation.
Sometimes this odd mix is used as an argument that we really should loosen our immigration laws on behalf of some partially-brilliant group, or an individual. Here are three examples of this mix of talent and ineptitude.
The Bank Embezzlers. Two mid-level bankers working in China, Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun, over a period of years stole $482 million from their employer, the Bank of China, before their scheme was uncovered. They managed to escape to Canada and later to the United States, apparently with a lot of that money.
Now, what they did is not commendable, but you must admit that managing a bank fraud of that size takes real talent, a remarkable skill at the manipulation of complex systems. Xu and Xu proved to be total bumblers, however, when it came to handling North American immigration regulations.
Instead of buying their way into Canada or the U.S., legitimately, through immigrant investor programs available and well known in China at the time, they opted for the clumsy and dangerous approaches of purchasing counterfeit passports and engaging in U.S. marriage fraud.
Currently Xu and Xu are facing prison time in the U.S., charged with, among other things, immigration fraud, money laundering, and RICO violations. The Ninth Circuit has just affirmed their convictions, but has sent the case back to the district court in Las Vegas for a fine-tuning of their sentences. Users of PACER, the federal courts' electronic data system, can read the latest decision against them in appellate files 09-10189 and 09-10201.
The Disfigured Nigerian. Rather more admirable is a would-be Nigerian physician. He is Sopuruchi Chukwueke, the subject of both a recent blog of mine and more significantly, one of those rare private immigration bills to be signed into law.
This young man, apparently of humble origins, developed disfiguring (but not malignant) tumors on his face in Nigeria, and was saved by a nun who got him to the U.S. where he and his support system got him seven (U.S.-funded) medical operations, a presumably U.S.-funded four years in college, and an admission to medical school.
While the young Nigerian and his supporters hit a trifecta with the hospital, university, and medical school systems, the system collapsed totally regarding immigration, and instead of finding himself with an F-visa, he lapsed into illegal status, which was ended with the passage of the bill.
The Sometimes-Savvy Alien Entrepreneurs. Former Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), about-to-be-former Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and one of the two Senators Udall, Mark the Colorado Democrat, introduced the StartUP Visa Act of 2011 to help would-be alien entrepreneurs come to, or stay in, the U.S.
The premise seems to be that the next foreign-born Bill Gates will be have an inventive mind, will grasp the principals of start-up capitalism, will be able to raise funds from hard-nosed investors, but though he is one of the world's best and brightest, that alien will neither be able to figure out how our immigration system can be manipulated for himself, nor alert enough to hire a lawyer to work it out for him.
With the panoply of immigrant and nonimmigrant visas available for bright and/or moneyed aliens, you would think that the start-up capitalists would not need to have still another visa category created for them. After all, there are: E visas for treaty investors, the OPT years for recent F-1 graduates, H-1Bs for skilled workers, the exchange programs (J), and L-1s for employees of multinational organizations, all nonimmigrant classes, and various employment-based visas that lead to full immigrant status, as well as the EB-5s for immigrant investors.
Surely the inventive foreign-born start-up people are fully capable of tweaking one or more of those systems with their little fingers, while using the rest of their bodies and brains to invent the next wildly successful software system.
Apparently the senators three, soon to shrink to one, did not come to that conclusion.
(I am grateful to Joe Whalen, the EB-5 consultant, for telling me about the embezzling bankers.)


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Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies
I found the recipe for these cookies on Hannah Kaminsky's BitterSweet Blog. It caught my eye because I love chocolate chip cookies, and I'm a huge fan of malt flavor. I was so excited to try them out!
I made these for some friends who were coming over to hang out for the evening, and I really appreciated how easy they were to make. When I'm baking during my "free" time, I'm not as up for making really elaborate recipes.
These came together in no time, and were the perfect batch size for four people, though I didn't have any left over. You might want to consider doubling this recipe if you're baking for a crowd.
The thing I loved most about these cookies was the incredibly soft and chewy texture. They kind of reminded me of Keebler Soft Batch Cookies (though I probably haven't had those since I was in junior high, and I'd rather not try to figure out how long ago that was!). I'm guessing it's the malt syrup that gives these cookies that amazing texture.
I do have to say though, that even though I love malt, I found it just a little overpowering in these. I think I might experiment with using just a touch less, or even subbing some brown rice syrup or molasses. I know that Hannah adapted this recipe, and I'm curious to try out the original. Don't get me wrong – these are really, really tasty. But you know me; I can't help but tinker!


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If Foster is the new starter I have no problems at all.
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If Foster is the new starter I have no problems at all.
Sad night, but good to see that Foster tied his career high in rebounds.
hard time wondering why you have the slowest guy on the floor trying to foul one of the quickest. Dumb coaching.
Well, at least there was generally more fight displayed throughout. Foster was great IMO and Hansbrough did pretty well, too, minus the one bad segment in the third.
I'd rather die standing up than live on my knees.
-Emiliano Zapata
I know he is limitd on minutes but why not have Dun in there in the final minute. Gives you more than one option for a 3pter. Dumb coaching...
well, atleast it was somewhat of an amusing game to watch
everybody still not on the same page offensively
i feel like we really let this one slip...esp with all their TOs and our offensive boards.
Am I the only one that thinks T.J. (20 minutes, 0 pts, 1 ast) should be the next to go to the bench in favor of Earl Watson (28 minutes, 15 points, 2 asts, 3 stls)?
He was past his limitation, and long term health is more important than this game.
-- Steve --
We really played a great game, but not great enough with a loss.
Three Trophies of the Game
Bronze: Danny Granger
He had a great scoring night finishing with 33 points and tried to bring the game down to the wire in the closing minute. He did his best to defend the arc, but it just didn't work out to well.
Silver: Earl Watson
His defense around the arc was a help in keeping the score close. He was on fire with his scoring finishing with 15 points.
Gold: Jeff Foster
After watching his performance tonight, he should be with us for another 10 years. He was a rebounding machine finishing with 18 total and 10 offensive. His defense at center was forcing the Sacramento bigs to stay out of the paint. I really thought he played very well when coming off the bench.
Beat Utah!
Are u serious? He could have been at least for the last play
I trust the doctors more than taking a 3 in a game we weren't likely to win.
I must say I love Jeff Foster, he does so many little things to get extra possessions, even if he is an old dude, I have no problem with him playing lots of minutes.
Troy Murphy on the other hand is like giving the other team another player. At best it becomes 4vs5, most of the time it seems like 4vs6. I hope he never sees another minute of playing time as a Pacer.
You gotta put your best players out there when the game is close and you have a chance to win. 1 minute of playing time isn't going to make a difference on recovering.
1 minute of playing time could cause all sorts of knee injuries in a game we probably weren't going to win anyway.
Ok, once you start breaking doctors orders by 1 minute, what's next? 3 minutes? 5 minutes? 10?
This is a long season and if the doctors have determined that 20 minutes per game is his limit, then that's his limit. Not because of this one game, but the extra wear that could add up over the course of the season because of you thinking your needs trump the needs of the doctors, or more importantly Dunleavy's knee.
As a coach if I don't follow doctors orders and then I see him suffering through what he's already been through there's going to be 2 thoughts in my head .... 1 - Wow did I screw this team. 2 - I feel like a piece of **** for putting a man through this again.
If the docs are wrong and he can't even handle 20 minutes a game, and he gets hurt while I'm following the restrictions, I have nothing to regret. This isn't even a difficult decision, at ALL.
-- Steve --
Did Reggie ever have a major knee injury that have ended, or ruined other people's careers?
-- Steve --
Then call the doctor and ask for one more minute !
-- Steve --
I hope you don't mind an outsider's observations...
The main thing I noticed was a lack of passion by JOB. He seems somehow disconnected, as though he's a stranger in a strange land surrounded by strangers. (I hope that makes sense...)
One thing I always used to like about the Pacers was the camaraderie among the players. I didn't see that tonight. Players didn't talk to each other; heck a couple of times they didn't even act like they knew each other. Was this just something I'm reading too much into?
I don't like the idea of making 780 seconds such a critical number that you lose contributions from a major player like Dunleavy, who has ALWAYS given the Kings fits. It's my totally unmedical opinion that 13 minutes is a guideline, not an indication on a map or something that "beyond here there be dragons."
Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of my team for gritting it out and winning but I feel sorry for you guys because I think your coach is failing all of you ... and himself.
Just my two cents, of course. Good luck against Utah. And watch out for Jerry Sloan. He cheats.
NBA basketball - taking my breath away since 1963.
Seriously with the one minute guys? I think he would have been fine. That one extra minute of court time isn't likely to cause any problems.
Can nobody look past the short term? It's not the one minute.
It's that if you start cheating and going over, you'll continue to do it. You'll get away with it and think, hmmm .... that wasn't so bad. He's still fine. So then you'll cheat 3 minutes next time. Maybe five ... who knows?
Over the course of the season those accumulated minutes of cheating will add up. So will the wear and tear on a knee that may not be ready for it. I may be on JOB's *** for some things, but he got this one 110% right. Thank God.
Worst thing is, if he did play him that 1 minute, and he reinjured the knee in that one minute, I'm sure these would be the same people throwing him under the bus for it.
-- Steve --


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we have high speed internet & all kinds of visual communication devices so why send kids to school 5 days a week?
if kids really need 1on1 interaction with the teacher then why not just one day to help with homework/questions.
teachers can still visually teach at a 'chalk board' via webcam/recording, lesson plans can be sent out online, it would let kids work in a comfortable environment, it would give kids an early preview of college, etc.
it also would be cheaper & 'green' & kids would be safe at home.
what are your thoughts on public school and its function?
Most Helpful Guy
Kids don't go to their neighbor's houses anymore. They sit in front of the xbox, yell racist obscenities, and tune everything out. Public schools are for the most part, a daycare.21|10|0


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Articles in Breakfasts
Huckleberry Doughnuts
Doughnuts are the best morning breakfast treat. And while store bought doughnuts may be great, these homemade Vanilla Huckleberry doughnuts are even better.
Cranberry & Caramelized Onion Galette with Brie Cheese
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Jams: Not Just for Bread!
Jams and jellies often get pigeonholed for one purpose: a delightfully flavorful topping for breads, muffins, bagels, crackers or scones. We don't diminish those uses by any means, but as purveyors of some of the …
Fresk Picked Recipe- Vanilla Pear Dutch Baby Pancake!
A dutch baby is a cross between a pancake and a pop over, and it happens to be a super easy and quick breakfast treat! They are made with ingredients that are common in just …
Northwest Huckleberry Pancakes
Featuring our Huckleberry Fruit Spread
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3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all …


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It started with Pinkberry: The Movie, and then Yom Kippur At WME and Staff Meeting: The Movie. When WME holds its all-company meeting, departments contribute in-house spoofs for the amusement of their colleagues. And Deadline has had fun airing them when we get them. The latest, directed by the team called Walter Robot, is called The Transfer. Generated by the motion picture lit department for last week's gathering, this one adds a new wrinkle to the usual spoofery. Sure they've got Aaron Sorkin and Pauly Shore, but past films had dealmakers and talent playing themselves. The innovation this time is VFX, as a mailroom trainee tries to step up.
WME Motion Pic Lit Department Adds VFX To Annual Spoof Film 'The Transfer'
52 Comments
So happy WME is busy making movies instead of, you know, helping me–A CLIENT–get work and do this for a living.
Yep… that was one big Circle Jerk.
Didn't you hear? Agents and studio execs are the new talent! Yeah, who needs writers, directors, producers and actors?? Suits are doin' it for themselves, baby!
hilarious! It made me not-at-all nostalgic for my days as an assistant! at first I thought it started it a tad slow, but then it totally ramped up. the Pauly Shore cameo (didn't know he was still acting), the fax machines (people still use those?), the human explosions–all very funny. but best part…Aaron Sorkin polishing his Oscar.
Nice SFX. My favorite part was when WME blew up.
Not sure why these in house shorts get posted. They're hardly ever funny and this is no exception. Imagine setting the bar high… I mean to the point where it actually needed to amuse you before you actually posted it. Sounds insane, right? Try it next time. This stunk.
This one REALLY was not funny. I thought I was missing some inside industry jokes until I read the comments.
The others were corny. This one is awful and a complete waste of time.
Aaron Sorkin may have guest starred…but, it is doubtful he wrote this.
I am a big fan of humor in the workplace and applaud companies which encourage this type of culture.
On the other hand, after watching this 'spoof' I have come to the realization that WME and other agencies should be mentioned when discussing "why Hollywood cannot make good movies anymore …for the mot part.'
Perhaps, their clients would be better served if the efforts to make this film were spent developing far better projects for their clients.
Just a thought…
I bet that was funny to people at WME.
Tasteless. Juvenile. Offensive. And not even clever.
Wait, offensive? WTF? It was nothing more than a vfx reel with no dialog.
haha, pretty clever. Good for them
Hey client: Instead of wasting your time leaving comments here why not use your time to go out and find your own work.
One of the best ways for a client to know what is going on and "go out and find their own work" is to pay attention to this website. Jerk.
Pauly Shore's still got it!! In all seriousness, this is the BEST of these silly videos that has EVER been made. Thanks for putting it up. Now, don't ever put up any more!! Ha! JK. We all love you, WME.
Would say it was a waste of my time to watch – but then WME blows up! VFX weren't anything special. But really – this was pretty bad. Stick with agenting and not creative.
You are so entitled! They should slave for you! God forbid they have lives of their own…
Kinda loved this one. Everyone's been there.
Juvenile, offensive – and not even clever. And btw, did any of my 10 percent go to this? I sure hope not.
And the annual WME video gives way to…
Seriously, guys, you need over two minutes to set up a FIVE MINUTE video? Get to the joke! Day One in any sketch writing class teaches you this. Hell, watching ANY amateur web video shows you how too much setup absolutely kills a short film.
And while we're at it, what is the joke? The Pinkberry video was a satire on studios making franchises out of silly brands with a nice jab at how dealmakers spin these projects. It poked fun at the industry and the agents themselves. Witty, relevant, absurd.
This video satirizes…interns not knowing how to transfer calls? How one wrong transfer can blow up an agency?
I know this was made for in-house use, but it's leaked here so I for one cannot miss an opportunity to pile on with my armchair directing.
I thought the acting in this film was just amazing!
best WME vid yet. love me some Walter Robot!
Great comment, Walter.
Slightly confused about the message…
WME: unexperienced people in charge working in a company they can bring it down to its knees at any moment…
Please, WME take this down and delete this…
this is just an in-house video that some assistants/agents in the department take the time out of their insane work week to do over one Saturday every three months. It's a cute thing to do when they review the accomplishments every quarter. I agree it's weird for people outside the company to view this without being an employee or knowing everything else that is talked about at the all-company meetings, but of course it's not going to be well-done because it's not a big priority. And it's not supposed to be an accurate reflection of anything nor is it supposed to have any direct message. I will never really understand that kind of criticism these videos get on here…take it easy!
I know this is all fun and all but is this part of a WME marketing scheme? I mean they promote themselves at every turn. Every day they try to litter the press with who they've signed, what deals they've made, what videos they've made, what parties they've thrown, where they've eaten for lunch, i kind of tune it out now.
An unfunny, tedious, poorly conceived and written, grating rip off. It is also a cloying, putrid, bland, tepid, sanctimonious, stale mess. Other than that, I liked it.
this may be the lamest short film i've ever seen… not one solitary laugh.
Look, they've obviously got an amazing list, but they just kinda come off douchey. These videos are part of the reason why. Is that their goal?
Should've been about two minutes shorter, but somewhat funny. Pauly Shore is criminally underused. There should've been a scene where Aaron Sorkin and Pauly accidentally end up on the same line, and Sorkin pitches him a movie idea. That would've been way funnier.
I wanted to like it…really. But, this short shows that it's easy to pretend to be creative, (all the bells and whistles and the Special Effects are quite good) but not so easy to actually pull off…especially comedy. If this is considered funny, then the comedy bar has not only been lowered, but literally dropped on the ground. Sorry. Take this same energy and make a straight up VFX thriller, you'd kill it!


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Boys Golf: Cardinals tie for 9th at Apollo Invite
ST. CLOUD — Edina's top four scores averaged 74 Wednesday to rule the 17-team field at the 40th annual St. Cloud Apollo Invitational at The Territory Golf Club.
The Hornets' 297 was seven strokes better than runner-up and Central Lakes Conference power Brainerd. The CLC also had St. Cloud Tech come in third and Alexandria fourth. Willmar tied St. Cloud Cathedral for ninth at 337.
Zach Berget paced Willmar with an 80, while Riley Grabow's 82, Jason Dickerson's 86 and Brady Damhof's 89 rounded out the team's top four scores.
Willmar will be at the Alexandria Invite today.
TOP THREE – (1) Thomas Stoxen, Brainerd, 68 (2) Sam Foust, Edina 70 (3) David Scharenboich, SC Tech, 73
Area results
WILLMAR – Zach Berget 80, Riley Grabow 82, Jason Dickerson 86, Brady Damhof 89, Jacob Croonquist 91, T.J. Mattison 102


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Giveaway Monday -- PSA Essentials Interchangeable Custom Stamp Package {$75 value}
Happy Monday!!
I'd love to show you another of my favorite things!
I ran across PSA Essentials at the CHA Trade Show in January.
I love their interchangeable stamp pads!
You can order a custom stamp with your address. I ordered my blog name. And then you can change out the inside image. So if you have your address, you can order a holiday stamp set and change out the inside images whenever you want!!
The alignment tool makes switching out the inside images so easy!!
I recently used PSA Essentials to make my Spring Frame Wall.
I love their alphabet kits. I also think it would be fun to make a clock or coat hooks with their number kit. So many project possibilities!!
I also love following along with their PSA Stamp Camp Blog - where they share all kinds of project ideas!! Like these cards made with their Rocket stamps:
PSA Essentials is giving away a great package:
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View this article at TatertotsAndJello.com »
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Cnooc Ltd. May Raise Unocal Bid
The company may offer $19 billion in cash to counter Chevron¿s cash and stock plan.
NEW YORK -- Cnooc Ltd., China's third-largest oil producer, may raise its $18.5 billion bid for Unocal Corp. by as much as 3 percent amid increasing opposition from U.S. lawmakers, people familiar with the plan said, according to Bloomberg.com.
The Chinese state-controlled company may offer $19 billion in cash, or $69 a share, to counter Chevron Corp.'s cash and stock plan, said the people, who asked to not be identified. Chevron's agreement is worth $16.5 billion or $60.65 a share. Unocal's board met yesterday to consider Cnooc's bid.
Cnooc seeks the support of Unocal's board, which so far has stuck with its April 4 Chevron agreement. Chevron has declined to raise its offer in response to Cnooc's June 22 offer of $67 a share. The bid is superior because it would close quickly, while Cnooc faces a lengthy U.S. review, according to Chevron.
"The funds from Chevron are immediate, whereas from Cnooc it could be a year," said Rodney Mitchell, who oversees $395 million as president of the Mitchell Group, a Houston money manager. Chevron may prefer to sit tight, counting on government opposition to Cnooc, rather than "get into a bidding war with the Chinese government," said Mitchell.
Any agreement for Cnooc to acquire Unocal would be a "matter of national security" worthy of a serious investigation, said Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and chair of the Senate Energy Committee. "Now what's more important, some stockholders or national security?" Domenici said in an interview today.
Samuel Bodman, the U.S. Energy Secretary, yesterday declined to say whether President George W. Bush would support Cnooc if its bid for Unocal prevails.


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Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - A marathon national debate in Australia over embryonic stem cell research comes down to the wire this week, as the country's Senate prepares to vote on controversial legislation that has generated months of often heated debate.
The 76-member federal Senate is considering a bill that would allow researchers to experiment on 70,000 human embryos created during in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment but are now frozen and unwanted by their parents.
The lower House of Representatives last September passed the Research Involving Embryos Bill by 99-33, in a rare free vote.
A free vote is one in which lawmakers voted according to their individual consciences, rather than following a party line. Many found themselves voting against their party colleagues, and even the cabinet was split.
The bill then moved to the Senate, where pro-lifers and other opponents of embryonic stem cell research had been more hopeful the legislation would fail.
Not only did there appear to be more opposition in the upper chamber, but it also held a separate inquiry into the issues. That inquiry included five public sessions and the review of almost 2,000 submissions - mostly by objectors.
Indications in recent days, however, are that supporters of the bill in the Senate have the required numbers to pass it.
In an eleventh-hour bid to swing opinion against it, opponents have reiterated their argument that lawmakers are being swayed by bio-tech researchers intent on getting rich by using human embryos for drug testing and other commercial purposes - and not driven by the altruistic desire to find treatments for diseases as they claim.
Opponents of the legislation point out that those most in favor of its passage have themselves acknowledged the drug-testing potential.
In his testimony to the Senate inquiry last September, Prof. Alan Trounson, a leading bio-scientists and one of the bill's strongest supporters, said that embryonic stem cells would under certain circumstances be "highly useful for screening drugs for both toxicology and effectiveness."
Senator Ron Boswell, a member of the junior coalition partner National Party with strong pro-life views, said Sunday that under the draft legislation, human embryos from Australia could end up being exported abroad, where they would be used for drug testing or cloning.
Another leading critic, Senator Brian Harradine, said scientists' claims of "impending cures" were exaggerated.
The bill, he warned, would allow embryos to be used in " drug and toxicology testing, in training IVF clinicians in lasering, cutting and dissecting and for 'quality assurance' in genetic testing."
Harradine argued that embryos are members of the human family.
"If we label immature human beings as not yet human because they can't do certain things, we make the status of everyone dependent on their capacities."
The basic arguments on each side of the debate have largely echoed those raised in several other countries.
Supporters say stem cells to be harvested from the embryos have the potential to help treat a range of diseases, and that should outweigh any ethical concerns about the destruction of entities that are unwanted and will probably be destroyed anyway.
Opponents argue that destroying an embryo even at that early stage is wrong. They point out that there have been no significant successes reported to date in research using embryos, while "adult" stem cells from sources like bone marrow and placenta are already being used in human trials, delivering promising results.
Conscientious objections
Facing the strong possibility of a defeat in the Senate this week, an ethics group called Do No Harm called Monday for any future drugs whose development has involved research on human embryos to be clearly identified.
If this was done, "doctors and patients who conscientiously object from such research will know which medications to avoid," said the group's medical spokesman, Dr. David van Gend.
Do No Harm has written to major pharmaceutical companies to call for labeling that would identify drugs that have and have not been "tested on human embryos."
"As doctors, we would face the troubling predicament of having at our disposal an increasing number of drugs derived, in our view, unethically, and therefore needing to find ethically innocent alternative drugs to prescribe," the letter says.
Van Gend also expressed the hope that the Senate would see that scientists' claims about embryonic cells provided cures for diseases was "a convenient and calculated fantasy."
The commercial reality, he said, was "the feeding of embryonic humans to drug companies."
A Senate decision is expected by week's end.
See earlier story:
Australian Stem Cell Debate Thrown Into Disarray Over 'Misleading' Evidence (Aug. 28, 2002)
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The United Methodist Women of the Union Avenue United Methodist Church held a unit meeting March 4 i
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text: Ryan & Maniskas, LLP ( www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ocz) announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of purchasers of OCZ Technology Group, Inc. ("OCZ" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: OCZ) securities during the period of July 10, 2012 and October 10, 2012 (the "Class Period"). For more information regarding this class action suit, please contact Ryan & Maniskas, LLP (Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire) toll-free at (877) 316-3218 or by email at email@example.com or visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ocz The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period the Company and certain of its executive officers made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) the Company was providing extraordinary customer incentives in excess of what was normal and customary in the past; (2) the Company was improperly accounting for customer incentive programs; (3) as a result, the Company's financial results were misstated during the Class Period; (4) the Company lacked adequate internal and financial controls; (5) as a result, defendants' statements were materially false and misleading; and (6) as a result of the foregoing, defendants' positive statements about OCZ's business, operations and prospects lacked a reasonable basis. On October 10, 2012 the Company shocked the market when it announced that it would file a Form 12b-25 Notification of Late Filing with the SEC, to extend the deadline to file OCZ's second quarter 2013 financial results. According to the Company, OCZ's second quarter 2013 revenue will be materially lower than the September 5 preliminary revenue range of $110 to $120 million due to the impact of customer incentive programs which were discovered subsequent to the preliminary announcement during the normal close process, and which the Company will be reporting as a material weakness in its Form 10-Q. Moreover, the Company stated that it expected to report negative gross margins and a significant net loss for second quarter 2013. On this news, the Company's shares declined $1.27 per share, or more than 40%, to close on October 10, 2012 at $1.88 per share on unusually heavy volume.


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RollerCoaster Tycoon
Review by Sebbisismo
"Who needs a real job?"
Amazing! Who in the world would have made a game about running a theme park? Only a perfect few! I'd like to give some congratulations to Chris Sawyer! Everybody give a round of applause to Chris! Thank you! The details of the game are as follows...
Graphics 9/10
Good way of moving lots of people and making everybody different in their own happy way. A few glitches with people and rides but other than that you won't find anything wrong with the graphics of this game. The graphics on the roller coasters and other rides are good if not a little off perfect. Wonderful job of allowing you too make your own rides and still having them look shiny and what-not, apart from making your own rides and then looking at them and saying "Is that a right turn or a loop? Weird!" Wonderfully done paint jobs on all your rides, being able to paint the color of your fancy or not painting them at all and leaving them the not so bad default colors.
Sounds 10/10
Finally! A game where you get to choose where you want your music if you want music at all! Amazing job of making people talk quieter or louder depending on how far away from them you are. If you only have 1-10 people in your park you won't be hearing a lot of talking but if you have 1,000+ you better turn your sound down! You can even hear the gears clink and churn on your rides as they crank those heavy seats around! Incredible!
Game Play 10/10
You'll never have another boring moment again. If your park is beginning to crash and you can't find out what to do then you'll have a fun moment of panic and stress while if your park is the talk of the country and your getting millions of guests a day then you'll love to just sit back and watch the little people enjoy themselves on all your self made rides and those boring old pre-made mini rides.
Replay Value 10/10
If I could rate replay value higher than 10/10 I would. There is nothing repetitive in the least throughout the entire game. The most repetitive thing you could possibly do is to look at the design of another park but no matter how hard you tried you could never make the exact same park as you did before. If you fall madly in love with your previous park and would love to play it again just keep truckin'! You can play any park as many times as you want in this game, so that's great for all you emotional people out there.
Game Time 7/10
Sadly, I have to give the time rating only an 7/10. The reason being that you have a set time to beat the park you have and even if you finish your objective in the first 5 minutes of play you still have to wait for hours for the time clock to be up. This is good for beginners because they'll have plenty of time to do whatever they would like with the park to make your objective, but for the more experienced players (like me!) You'd much rather have a button that could make time go faster or something, or a button that'd it be the time of your goal.
Game Difficulty 9/10
As this game is perfect in almost every way this little aspect of the game could be a little better. The difficulty rating lost the one point because it is a touch too easy at the beginning. As the game progresses, however, it gets much harder and requires much more of your time and effort. At the beginning you barely have to work at all because you only have to build like 2 rides and you complete your objective. I'm exaggerating on that of course. I guess you could call the beginning of the game a warm-up for the veterans and a practice round for the beginners.
Cheating and Easter Eggs 10/10
Oh Baby! You will never find more cheats in one game that are as perfect as these! None of these cheats are ridiculous, such as there is no cheat that makes you automatically complete every park in the entire game at the touch of a button, but there are some very helpful cheats such as naming your people certain names or little glitches here and there to make life easier for you. If you would like to learn these please go to the Cheats & Secrets page for this game.
My conclusion of this review is going to be a summary of what I have just spent the last of my time and energy on. I'm just kidding I'm feeling great. But the summary of the game is that this game has good graphics but not amazing enough to blow you away, great sound system that is enough to blow you away, great cheats that aren't crazy good but aren't worthless either, and will definitely blow you away. Game play and Replay Value are both incredible! You'll never see anything twice in the entire game unless you are freakishly obsessive and make everything as picture perfect as you can. Time on this game sometimes takes a little longer than needed, but other than that you won't be disappointed by it.
Once again thank you for reading my review!
If you enjoyed it then my name is Sebbisismo!
If you didn't like it then my name is Bob and I no spake English!
Reviewer's Rating: 5.0 - Flawless
Originally Posted: 08/19/07
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Mayhem # 1832475
About MeI'm a second year photography student at RMIT and predominately looking to work on my fashion photography portfolio. I will be looking for models that are interested in time for print. Some of my inspirational artists include Mert and Marcus, Steven Meisel, David Lachapelle, Steven Klein, Greg Kadel, Mario Testino and Mariano Vivanco. Some of my favourite fashion photography appears in Love Magazine, Numero and Italian Vogue. I like to think my aesthetic is fresh and quite theatrically and conceptually based. I believe a good fashion shoot relies on the whole team, from the stylist, make-up, hair, assistants and the photographer and model. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if your keen for a collaboration!
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