text:
"This Means War" stars Reese Witherspoon as Lauren, a woman in a loveless rut whose sister (Chelsea Handler) creates for her an online dating profile. In short order Lauren's out with Tuck (Tom Hardy), a British dreamboat whose accent is as gorgeous as he is sweet. Moments after their first date, Lauren is apparently so emboldened by the experience, she parries like an old pro with FDR, an American dreamboat with bottomless blue eyes who tries to pick her up.
What Lauren doesn't know is that both Tuck and FDR are, in reality, CIA agents and best friends. So what happens when two bohunks, who happen to be trained spies, fall for the same girl? "This Means War," a film with a soul-deadening identity crisis, a limp affair that combines elements of spy thrillers, action films and romcoms, with three very talented and attractive actors to spin a joyless yarn. What McG, the director, manages to achieve is like the opposite of alchemy.
Tuck and FDR realize almost immediately that they've fallen for the same girl, and make an agreement that they'll let her choose which of them she wants to date--how magnanimous!--but they won't tell her they know each other--another smashing idea! And so our two heroes put the full force of the nation's preeminent intelligence agency to bear on wooing Lauren, while also tracking their rival's progress. Because, you know, a dozen junior CIA agents have nothing better to do.
You know how a lot of action films have a totally gratuitous "romantic" sub-plot that does nothing for the film (except distract from the explosions and the bullets) in a vain attempt to make the film palatable to women? "This Means War" turns the formula on its head, as interwoven through the courtship of Lauren is the thinnest, lamest, least interesting thread of international intrigue. Really has a movie villain been less engaging than Til Schweiger's Heinrich, a sneering German baddy with zero story.
Deadening the action is the fact that FDR and Tuck are besties, so they never really go knives-out each, making the contest between them the film equivalent of an NFL pre-season game, with nobody really giving their best for fear of injury. When this script was first kicking around, it was compared to the classic Mad magazine feature "Spy vs. Spy," but that serial was entertaining because those nameless guys hated each other and threw down with a furious vengeance. Tuck and FDR? Not so much.
Witherspoon played a total butt-kicking badass in her breakout role in "Freeway," and followed that up with smart, edgy fare like "Election" and "American Psycho," but has since drifted toward "safer" films as she's aged. Yet she's not that old and she deserves far better than this, playing an object of desire being secretly fought over. However, with the sad state of things for women in Hollywood, you can forgive her for slumming--but what are Tom Hardy and Chris Pine doing? One is a card-carrying member of the Chris Nolan Cast Club, the other is best Starfleet Captain in more than 40 years—these guys don't need "This Means War," and neither do you.
Now if Witherspoon and Pine had been enemy spies, and Hardy had been at the center of the love triangle, that might've been interesting.
U.S. & World
"This Means War" opens in theaters nationwide Friday, February 17th


text:
Variable Stars and the Asymptotic Giant Branch: Stellar Pulsations, Dust Production, and Mass Loss
Angela K. Speck
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211
Presented at the 100th Spring Meeting of the AAVSO, May 23, 2011; received February 17, 2012; revised March 26, 2012; accepted May 11, 2012
Low- and intermediate-mass stars (1–8 MÄ; LIMS) are very important contributors of material to the interstellar medium (ISM), and yet the mechanisms by which this matter is expelled remain a mystery. In this paper we discuss how interferometry plays a role in studying the interplay between pulsation, mass loss, dust formation and evolution of these LIMS.
Submitted by M.Saladyga on Wed, 08/15/2012 - 10:28

subset: commoncrawl


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Guest: Marc Lamont Hill, Doug Nick, Steve McMahon, Todd Harris, Sherrod Brown, Amy Walter
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: So who's going to pay the oil bill?
Let's play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews out in Chicago. Leading off
tonight: Who's going to pay? Are we looking at a giant taxpayer bill for
cleaning up that oil spill in the gulf? Is BP doing all it can to keep
from paying the damage in the gulf? Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown says they
shouldn't get away with it, and he's at the top of our show tonight.
Plus, Tuesday night fights. We're just five shorts days from the
hottest/ political night this year until election day. Three big names are
on the ballot and in trouble, and we'll give you the lowdown on who's
likely to make it and who could go down.
Also, should public schools be teaching kids something called "ethnic
studies"? Shortly after passing its tough immigration law, Arizona is now
placing restrictions on so-called "ethnic studies." Is that a good idea?
Plus, some companies are spending again. Small businesses are hiring
again. And yet when President Obama traveled to Buffalo today, he was met
with this sign, "I need a freakin' job." How do Democrats win the battle
over the economy?
And "Let Me Finish" tonight with the silence of the lambs, the
Republicans who have yet to come forward—none of them—and say theirs
is the party of Lincoln not Limbaugh.
Let's start with the politics and financing of the oil spill. Senator
Sherrod Brown is a Democrat. Senator, I want you to watch and listen to
this statement by a BP executive, Lamar McKay, on Monday. Let's all listen
together to this statement.
LAMAR MCKAY, BP AMERICA CHAIRMAN: We have said exactly what we mean.
We're going to pay the legitimate claims.
saying we will pay all legitimate claims...
going to pay all legitimate claims...
pay all legitimate claims...
all legitimate claims...
every legitimate claim...
legitimate claims...
legitimate claims...
legitimate claims...
We're going to pay all claims that are legitimate.
MATTHEWS: "Legitimate" seems to be the key word. What are they
hanging on that word for, Senator?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: Well, who knows? I'm not a lawyer.
And I know, though, that what he says isn't necessarily what he's going to
do. I think the issue is the law has to compel this company, which made a
mistake and which has a history of violating OSHA rules—we can talk
about that in a second, what happened in Texas City, Texas, five years ago
and what hasn't happened since with OSHA rules and environmental rules.
And it was—you know, the last decade, Chris, as you know, has been
a question of the oil industry and Wall Street and others staying a step
ahead of the sheriff. And the sheriff hasn't really been on the beat with
the Bush administration on environment or on worker safety rules. That's
why this is a different day, and we've got to make sure that they do what
they are supposed to do under the law.
MATTHEWS: Well, it looks like they've got another plan. Look at this
video from Thinkprogress.org. Republican congressmen—a number of them -
- and Frank Luntz, the guy who speaks the—teaches them what words to use
at a fundraiser this week on Capitol Hill. Let's watch this spectacle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice to meet you, Congressman Sessions. I just
have a quick question. Do you think on the morning that the House is going
to talk to a lot of these BP and other oil executives, it's good that your
caucus is meeting with the oil and gas industry for fundraiser?
REP. PETE SESSIONS ®, TEXAS: You know, what I think is really good
is that Barack Obama wants oil prices to skyrocket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Frank Luntz went to the fundraiser. Did he give
you that talking point?
SESSIONS: No, I—if you see, I put them on the floor of the House
every day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Any messaging advice on this BP spill?
FRANK LUNTZ, GOP POLLSTER: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a guru?
LUNTZ: Yes, the first messaging advice is there are way too many
people in really nice suits in one place at one time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shortly after the oil spill, you said that oil
rigs, quote, "have a very positive environmental record." Given the
tragedy of the spill, and you know, in light of how bad the damage is now,
do you still hold that view?
REP. TODD AKIN ®, MISSOURI: You know, I do.
MATTHEWS: So Senator, on the very week that the United States Senate
and Congress are supposedly looking at this travesty, this tragedy down in
the Gulf of Mexico, and we're watching that oil pour out of that well, the
very week they're supposed to be watchdogs, they're over raising money at
the Republican club, the Capitol Hill Club, getting advice from Frank Luntz
about how to word their way out of it. In other words, the oil companies
and the Republican Party are in bed together here, planning the way to PR
their way out of this problem without having to pay for it.
BROWN: Yes. Chris, one of the things you've done very well on
HARDBALL in the last many months, is show that depending on the issue, you
know who the Republican benefactor is. During the health care bill, the
Republican benefactor is the insurance industry. And they pretty much set
up—set the direction and gave the talking points to Republicans. During
the Wall Street reform we're doing right now, it was the banking industry.
During all of these—this oil spill and all that's happened with BP and
other companies, their benefactor has been the oil industry.
I mean, you can write the talking points. You can see their behavior.
And they will always cover for their friends, and that's what they did on
health care, that's what they're doing now on the financial reform, and
that's what they're going to continue to do on this issue with the
terrible, terrible environmental tragedy and the worker safety tragedy that
Don't forget, I mean, people aren't talking about this much, but 11
workers were killed on this oil platform and all we talk about is the
spill. That's understandable. But 11 families lost loved ones, just like
15 families and 100 people injured back in Texas City, Texas, when BP
didn't follow worker safety rules then. They had the biggest fine ever
levied by the OSHA by OSHA. That was in the Bush years. And they got—
they got fined again with a real regulator in place, Secretary Solis, for
not doing what they were supposed to do in the ensuing five years.
So we know their game. It's important that the administration come
down, that Congress does the right thing and says, No more on this. No
liability limits. You're going to pay. You're going to pay for cleaning
up the spill, and you're going to pay those businesses that lost—lost
their businesses or lost the big parts of their revenue because of this oil
MATTHEWS: Well, the public seems to agree with you, Senator. Here's
the new NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll just out. It finds that the gulf
oil spill is the top news story that concerns people, 7 points more than
the Times Square bomber, more than that terrorist incident, and more than
the immigration fight out in Arizona.
Big oil is the big target right now. It's the top corporate mess that
bothers people, bigger than the mortgage mess or even Goldman Sachs.
People give the federal government a little more credit than BP in handling
So there's the question. Can you legally require the oil company
here, BP, which made zillions of dollars in profits, to pay for the Coast
Guard activities, to pay for the clean-up along the shore, to compensate
the fishermen and the shrimp people and all the other people? Can you make
them do it?
BROWN: Yes, of course, we can. I mean, the problem is, Senator
Menendez from New Jersey, tried to—Democrat from New Jersey—tried to
do it today. The Republican senator from Alaska objected. They're going
to continue to block things, continue to obstruct.
We can legally do it. We pass this bill, get it—eventually, get it
to the president then. Then the—BP has to reimburse the Coast Guard.
Out of their—this last quarter, as you know, Chris, as you said -- $5.6
billion in profits just the last quarter alone, BP. Exxon had bigger
profits. Shell had profits almost as big. That's just one quarter.
They're going to have to pay out of those profits, pay the Coast Guard
back. They're going to have to pay other private companies that have done
the clean-up, everybody else, you bet.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Is there any way to get to the executives who have
made these decisions, these sloppy decisions about the way they drill, what
looks to be shortcuts? They didn't put the drill mud down in there. They
operated in a way that was fast and loose. Is there any way to make the
people who made those decisions pay, not the ultimate consumer, who might
finally be hit at the gas pump?
BROWN: Yes. I don't know the answer to that. As I said, I'm not a
lawyer. I don't know—I don't know what you do with the executives. If
they have civil or criminal liability, I think you absolutely pursue it. I
mean, they're making decisions—these executives made decisions by their
cutting corners that killed 11 men, and I assume women, but 11 human
beings, workers on that platform. They made decisions that have continued
to ignore worker safety violations in Texas City, Texas, near Galveston.
They've continued to make those decisions and simply cut corners,
ignore them, hoping—forgetting that George Bush isn't president anymore
and going to give them a pass on worker safety, that there's a new sheriff
in town, a new administration that's going to lean on them and enforce
these worker safety laws.
MATTHEWS: Have you got the president behind you on this bill? I see
your co-sponsors. They're an impressive list, a lot of Northeastern guys.
But do you have the president of the United States behind you on this
measure to force big oil, BP in this case, to pay for the mess they made?
BROWN: Yes, obviously, I can't speak for the president, but the White
House seems engaged on this. They don't—of course, they don't believe
taxpayers should pay for this. The clean-up and the liability, somebody's
going to have to pay, and it sure as hell shouldn't be taxpayers. We've
gone through that. It needs to be the people who made the mistakes, and
that's a company right now that reported just a couple of weeks ago over $5
billion in profits just in their first quarter.
MATTHEWS: Well, you know how your parents told you when you were
growing up and you get in a car accident, Don't say anything to the police,
don't say you're sorry, don't say anything, just don't talk? That's the
way that BP are operating. They're not saying nothing! They won't tell us
anything responsible for this, and they're the ones that did it.
Anyway, thank you, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
BROWN: Thanks, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Coming up: Just days away until primary night in some of
the hottest races in the country—Arkansas, Kentucky, and of course, down
to the wire in Pennsylvania, with Arlen Specter fighting for his 45-year
career against Joe Sestak, the admiral. We'll get to the lay of the land
in those races coming up right next.
By the way, in a minute, the state of Hawaii takes on the birthers.
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: Hawaii takes on the birthers. Hawaii's Republican governor
signed into law a bill allowing state agencies to ignore repeated requests
for more documents on President Obama's birth. State officials in Hawaii
have regularly released President Obama's birth certificate and say his
original birth records are indeed on file with the state's health
We'll be right back.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. We're in the breakdown (ph), the
most important time of any election, the final 72 hours, and that's exactly
what's about to happen in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Kentucky, where voters
are about to decide what happens in three big U.S. senate races.
Here's Joe Sestak's latest ad in Pennsylvania to give you just a taste
of the action in PA. Let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The race between Sestak and Specter is a dead
heat, so compare the records. On supporting Pennsylvania seniors, Sestak
scores better. On standing up for civil rights, Sestak. Protecting the
environment, Sestak's record is twice as good as Specter's. Issues
important to women? Sestak's record is better. The best Democrat for
Pennsylvania's future, Joe Sestak.
REP. JOE SESTAK (D-PA), SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm Joe Sestak and
authorized this message because it's time for a new generation of
MATTHEWS: And wow (ph), I got great news for everybody from that area
up there in Philadelphia and anywhere in the area. We're going to be live
from Lowe's (ph) Hotel in Center City. That's right on East Market near
city hall. All night long on Tuesday, MSNBC is going to be up there. We
HARDBALLers are going to be present to watch this amazing (INAUDIBLE)
Tuesday night. That's in Philly. Please come down and watch us on East
Market right near the Convention Center.
Now a Pittsburgher! Howard Fineman joins us now. He's an MSNBC
political analyst. And "Hotline's" Amy Walter, who's been so good on these
topics lately. I've been watching you all over the place, Amy. You first
this time. This Sestak ad has been criticized by the people working for
Arlen Specter, by Chris Nicholas (ph), as shameful because it shows Arlen
back when he was getting chemo, where he looked particularly bad. I mean,
he's 80 years old. I mean, he looks 80, of course. But he looked
particularly bad a while back, when he was getting chemo.
Is that unfair, to show an ad with his picture in that condition?
Your thoughts, Amy.
AMY WALTER, "THE HOTLINE": Oh...
MATTHEWS: Or is all fair in love and war?
WALTER: Listen, these are the last few days here of this campaign.
Now, I'm actually surprised, though. When you look at that ad that you
just put up there, that's a pretty soft comparative ad. And this wasn't
exactly—this is not slash and burn. Compare this to what's going on in
Arkansas, which is much more contentious. And you're going to actually get
whoever comes out of this primary—they've been banged up a little bit—
but this has not been the sort of dirty tricks kind of thing that...
MATTHEWS: So you don't have any problem...
WALTER: ... you've seen in others.
MATTHEWS: Howard, what do you think about that "death warmed over"
picture of Arlen there on the left? What do you make of that?
HOWARD FINEMAN, "NEWSWEEK," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's
combined with the phrase, "It's time for a new generation," and so forth.
MATTHEWS: Oh!
FINEMAN: You know, that's what they're doing at the end. But on the
other hand, I think Sestak's people, who I talked to just a little while
ago, know that for the most part, they have to try to finish positive here.
At least, that's what they told me, Chris, because they feel that they've
put Specter sufficiently on the defensive here, that the issue is no longer
whether people want Specter, because they don't. It's whether they want
MATTHEWS: Oh.
FINEMAN: So I think what you're going to see over the next 72 hours
is Sestak trying to finish positive and really, as Amy was saying, not
really do the dirty stuff because it's the tough tactics that I think, to
some extent, Specter is known for, and that reputation has hurt him in this
WALTER: Yes. You're exactly right. And nobody knew who Sestak was
and so...
FINEMAN: People still don't.
WALTER: In fact, they still don't, right.
FINEMAN: That's right.
WALTER: Most of the people in Pennsylvania still have absolutely no
idea who this guy is. And so he—he does need to sell himself as a
credible alternative, somebody who's a true Democrat. He also hasn't had
to go too far to the left in this primary. He sort of makes these vague
references here to, I'm better on women's issues, et cetera. But he's not
standing out there saying, Look at how far left I am, please vote for me.
FINEMAN: Although that's the import—aside from the shot in the
little picture you mentioned, Chris, that's the real purpose of this ad, is
to reach out to traditional Democrats because Specter has not made the sale
with traditional Democrats.
I was talking to my friends in Pittsburgh again today. There's very
little enthusiasm for Specter out there. There was a Specter event out
there. A lot of the big politicians in Pittsburgh were not there. I
checked with the White House again today just to be sure, and Barack Obama
is not going back to Pennsylvania for Specter...
MATTHEWS: Wow.
FINEMAN: ... you know, before the election. I just checked with
Robert Gibbs about an hour about that. There's no chance that the
president will be there for Specter at the end.
MATTHEWS: OK, enough of that until tomorrow night. Let's go back to
Arkansas, the home of the Clintons. The pollsters (INAUDIBLE) average up
there has got Blanche Lincoln up by 10. Is that enough, Amy, fighting it
out against the hard-charging Mr. Halter?
WALTER: We just have to remember that it is a runoff state, so she
needs -- - it is not a plurality. She needs to get 50 percent. Everyone
that I talked to, both sides of this thing, think this is going to a
runoff. So the real question is, when all is said and done, we're going to
have the end of this not over until June. And who's going to be the more -
or in this case, the less banged-up candidate between now and the end of
MATTHEWS: Yes.
WALTER: This has been a very tough campaign.
MATTHEWS: Who's taking the votes away—who's the third candidate or
who's pulling the votes away from somebody getting a majority here?
WALTER: This is—you know what? It's so funny that you say that
because I can't even remember his name right now. I don't think anybody
remembers what...
MATTHEWS: ... it's a he and he's going to get enough votes to...
WALTER: It's a he, and he's...
MATTHEWS: ... to prevent her from getting 50?
WALTER: Right. All he needs to get are, you know, 5, 6, 7 percent of
the vote. And when you think about the polls in this race—and they've
been all over the place, but these two have basically been stuck. She's
been stuck somewhere about, you know, in the mid-40s. He's kind of stuck a
little bit underneath that, if we sort of average those all together. And
you know, you can sort of see at the end, yes, the undecided should break
toward Halter, but Blanche Lincoln has done a very good job going after
him, making people question those folks who don't want to vote for
MATTHEWS: Yes.
WALTER: ... whether they want to vote for him.
FINEMAN: Chris, the other thing in Arkansas is, yes, it's Bill
Clinton's state and it sometimes votes Democrat, and so forth. It's not a
big union state. You know, the unions are backing Bill Halter big-time.
MATTHEWS: It's a right to work state.
FINEMAN: OK. Yes. And they're trying—the unions are trying to
make an example of Blanche Lincoln by saying, You don't be for us, we're
going to come after you. They may have picked the wrong place, in the end,
to do it, because of the union thing. And also, Blanche Lincoln has turned
into a populist overnight. She's the one saying that the banks shouldn't
be allowed to trade in derivatives anymore. She's taking a hard line
against the banks. That may be enough, in the end, to save her.
MATTHEWS: OK, let's take a look at them fighting it out. Here's
Halter and Lincoln on MSNBC yesterday and today. Let's listen.
LT. GOV. BILL HALTER (D-AR), SENATE CANDIDATE: What I believe, Chuck,
is that I'm going to stand with working men and women, and I'm proud to
have the support of over 40,000 working men and women in Arkansas. Senator
Lincoln wanted that support. She wanted that support badly. She's in the
past received a lot of financial contributions from labor. But when labor
decided to support me in this race because she's turned her back on them,
the fact is that, in her eyes, they became extremists and outsiders
SEN. BLANCHE LINCOLN (D), ARKANSAS: I have been very supportive of
labor and a lot of the things that—that—issues that they have.
I have got well over an 80 percent voting record with the labor
unions, and I fully support workers' rights to organize. We're a right-to-
work state, and I support that. And I think you can do both.
MATTHEWS: Howard, is it possible that the actions of the progressive
wing of the Democratic Party here will end up being counterproductive, that
knocking her down, bringing her down below 50, making her fight for that—
that runoff just weakens her for the general; she loses the general; they
never come back in that state for years to come?
FINEMAN: I think it's quite possible, Chris.
And I think they—they want to make a lesson. They want to teach
somebody a lesson. I'm not sure this is the right person or the right
place to do it, because she was probably their best chance, the Democrats'
best chance, of holding on to that seat there.
MATTHEWS: If they want 60 seats, they got to take a lot of moderates
and conservatives, it seems to me.
FINEMAN: Right.
WALSH: That's right.
MATTHEWS: That's my view, anyway.
FINEMAN: Well, they have seem to have lost that theory.
MATTHEWS: I know. I know. That's the old theory, you need 60. If
you don't need 60, we have got a new ball game.
Let's take a look at the Rand Paul fight here on front page of today's
"Washington Post." Headline, "The Old Kentucky Reign."
What is that about, Amy, that odd picture there?
WALSH: The fact that he's sitting in shorts and a suit top?
MATTHEWS: Yes. That's pretty odd.
WALSH: Which I—you know, listen, if I could get away with it, I
would do—I would do it, too. So...
FINEMAN: You're not wearing shorts right now?
WALSH: No. Don't tell anybody.
MATTHEWS: OK. Go ahead.
WALSH: So, keep the camera up.
Listen, he—the reign, really, it's as much about Mitch McConnell's
future as it is about who the eventual nominee is. Obviously, McConnell
putting his prestige on the line endorsing Trey Grayson, going up with the
TV ads supporting him. This comes in the wake, of course, of Bob Bennett,
his good friend, losing, and lieutenant, losing in the convention process
in Utah last weekend.
So, you know, the real talk around Washington now is, boy, is this guy
sort of losing his juice, if he loses two of his top people to these sort
of outside primary surges?
MATTHEWS: Yes.
WALSH: It looks right now, Rand Paul, like he does have all the
momentum going into this weekend. I would be surprised if he didn't win.
MATTHEWS: Howard, I see the excitement around Rand Paul and Ron Paul
the way I saw it about the early Goldwater, before he got into trouble with
the trigger finger stuff around '64...
FINEMAN: Right.
MATTHEWS: ... and extremist-looking. And I think there's a lot of
excitement about libertarian politics. People—young people seem to like
freedom, really basic freedom from the government.
FINEMAN: Well, it's the next turn of the wheel. While Barack Obama,
who is not all that popular in country right now, and has had to support a
lot of government programs that are controversial to some people and that
haven't necessarily resulted in nirvana arriving yet, other people are
saying, especially young people saying, let's take another look.
You know, Mitch McConnell, I was—I learned this yesterday—is not
going to be in Kentucky on election night, which means to me that he knows
that his guy, Trey Grayson, is going to lose.
However, McConnell is supposed to attend a unity breakfast of
Republicans on Saturday. And he's made friendly noises toward Rand Paul,
lately. The body language of this now, Chris is that Mitch McConnell is
going to need Rand Paul more than Rand Paul needs Mitch McConnell...
MATTHEWS: Yes, I know. You know what I'm getting out of this?
FINEMAN: ... because Mitch McConnell is going to have to try to get
right with the Tea Party people. And that's Rand Paul.
MATTHEWS: What I'm getting out of this discussion with you two
experts is, finally, this: Sestak thinks he's going to win there, for—
he's going to go positive. If he thought he was going to lose, he would be
going negative at this point, right?
FINEMAN: Yes.
WALSH: That's right.
MATTHEWS: It looks like the other race won't be decisive this time.
It's going to a runoff. Amy has got it pretty clear. It looks like nobody
is going to get 50. Halter is going to make the point that she is not
strong enough. So, that's going to be interesting.
But it looks like Rand Paul is going to win, right? Am I right?
FINEMAN: Yes. Yes.
WALSH: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Is that the summation? Thank you.
FINEMAN: Yes.
WALSH: Yes.
MATTHEWS: I think I...
MATTHEWS: Great reporting there.
Thank you, Howard Fineman.
Thank you, Amy Walter.
And a reminder: We will be at the Loews Hotels, as I said, in Center
City, Philly. It's right near—well, it's right near the Convention
Center, right near the old Reading Terminal, where my dad used to get on
the train there. Anyway, a very familiar sight, Loews Hotels, the old
(INAUDIBLE) building.
Anyway, up next, what happens when the new prime minister of Britain
is reminded that he once called the new deputy prime minister a joke? He's
got to take that back.
Stick around for the "Sideshow."
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL. Now to the "Sideshow."
First: the ties that bind. Britain's got a true team of rivals now,
with conservative Prime Minister David Cameron joining us with Deputy Prime
Minister Nick Clegg, who is the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, to
form a coalition government.
Yesterday, during their first press conference together, Cameron was
asked about a comment he made during the campaign about his then-opponent.
Take a listen.
QUESTION: Do you now regret, when once asked what your favorite joke
was, you replied, "Nick Clegg"?
And, Deputy Prime Minister, what do you think of that?
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We're all going to have—I'm
afraid I did once. I'm...
CAMERON: We're all...
CAMERON: Come back.
CAMERON: We're all going to have things that we said thrown back at
us. And, you know, and there's a serious point in this, which is, if you
want to spend the next five years finding Lib Dem politician who slightly
disagree with Conservative politicians about this or a slightly nuanced
policy, you can look lots. But we're looking at the bigger picture.
MATTHEWS: Imagine a country run by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.
Anyway, hey, Obama and Hillary get along pretty well. Come to think
of it, so do Sarah Palin and John McCain. As Henry Kissinger wants put it
so well, power is the greatest aphrodisiac.
Moving down to Florida: no refunds available. Independent Senate
candidate Charlie Crist has just backtracked and said he will not return
campaign donations from supporters who gave to his campaign when he was
still a Republican.
Crist defended the decision, saying, people gave to a good cause and
we're going spend it on a good cause.
Well, as Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh of California once said, if you can't
take their money, eat their food, drink their booze, and something else I
forget right now, and vote against them in the morning, you don't belong in
this business.
Finally: Ted Haggard back in action. Remember him? He was the
Christian right's rising star until his relationship with a male prostitute
was revealed in 2006. Well, catch this. Haggard still holds prayer
meetings at his house in Colorado Springs. And he and his wife have just
filed official papals—papers—not papals—to have that house
declared a church called the Saint James—well, for tax purposes.
Haggard said he hopes to see that same small-town church someday
become a full-fledged ministry.
Well, I wonder what Saint James thinks of all this tax policy.
Anyway, up next: First, Arizona passed that controversial illegal
immigration law. And now the state has restricted classes in ethnic
studies in public schools, things like Chicano studies. Is that a good
move for anybody? That's our debate straight ahead.
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
JULIA BOORSTIN, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I'm Julia Boorstin with your CNBC
"Market Wrap."
A triple-digit decline for the Dow on word of a bank probe and
cautious comments from Cisco, the Dow Jones industrials falling 114 points,
the S&P 500 slipping 14 points, and the Nasdaq tumbling 30 points.
Banks leading the decline on news that the New York attorney general
is probing eight banks to see if they duped the ratings agencies about the
quality of their securities.
Cisco shares down 4.5 percent at the close. The company's CEO says
he's watching events in Europe very closely, as it accounts for 20 percent
of the firm's revenue.
Department stores Kohl's and Macy's shares seeing significant
declines, despite beating earnings expectations. Kohl's delivered a weak
outlook, but Macy's posted strong profits and growing margins.
And Alcoa was the lone gainer on the Dow on word it will shut down an
Italian facility in an attempt to keep it open long-term.
That's it from CNBC, first in business worldwide—now back to
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
After passing the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration, Arizona
just passed a new law that places restrictions on what are called ethnic
studies classes in the public school system. The new law prohibits courses
that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, that promote resentment
toward a race or class of people, or are designed primarily for pupils of a
particular ethnic group, or advocate solidarity, instead of the treatment
of pupils as individual citizens.
Should ethnic studies classes be taught? An Arizona lawmaker is
aiming to eliminate the course work altogether. Well, we will see.
Doug Nick is the federal liaison for the Arizona Department of
Education. He works for the Arizona government. And Marc Lamont Hill is a
professor of education in African-American studies at Columbia.
Let me go to Doug first.
Doug, you're first here. Explain the classes that are—have been
given in Arizona that you now wish to stop.
DOUG NICK, FEDERAL LIAISON, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Well,
the situation came to light about four years ago.
My boss, superintendent Tom Horne, and our deputy, Margaret Dugan,
were made aware by some teachers down at the Tucson Unified District that
there were schools—or classes, rather, that were directed specifically
towards segregating people in—students into racial and ethnic
So, you have African-American studies and Asian studies and Native
American studies, and then you have Chicano studies or raza studies, raza
meaning race.
And we were concerned because what we were hearing from some teachers
down there was that the—and specifically, in the case of the raza
studies, some of the students were essentially becoming radicalized through
a rather radical notion of the idea that the Southwestern United States,
places like Arizona, New Mexico, California, all the way up, in some cases,
to Wyoming, all these states that are part of this country, and have been
for obviously many years, are really part of what is called Aztlan, and
that students should be encouraged, if only by sheer numbers of population
and growing and through illegal immigration, if need be, should come in and
reconquer, or reconquista would be the...
NICK: ... word.
MATTHEWS: OK. Who—to make the point, who—who came up with
these textbooks? Are they in the textbooks, this theology or philosophy
you're describing of sort of separation again? Is there something in the
textbooks that makes this case that you can point to?
NICK: Absolutely. There are several textbooks.
There's one that uses the term the pedagogy of oppression. So, what
we're doing is, we're taking 15- and 16-year-old students and we're telling
them, you may not realize you're oppressed. We actually had a student come
up to the legislature and testify to this effect, that, when she was a
freshman, said started this class, and, after the end of the class, she
realized, oh, I am in fact impressed—oppressed, when, before, she didn't
feel that way.
Well, why is that? That's indoctrination. We have a text called
"Occupied America," which talks about how we—the Chicano population, the
Hispanic population needs to rise up and smash the gringo.
It's very inflammatory language and it's inappropriate in an
educational context.
MATTHEWS: I'm stunned. I thought I knew a lot about American
Professor, I didn't know this kind of stuff was being taught. What do
you make of it, professor?
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: Well, first of all, that's not what is happening.
It's possible that there are a few rogue teachers somewhere who are
going above and beyond what the curriculum suggests. But "Pedagogy of the
Oppressed," as was just referenced, is not a book about overthrowing a
government. And it's not about convincing students that they're oppressed.
It's a book about, actually, multiculturalism. It's a book about
progressive education. In fact, the book is used in education schools all
around the country to encourage dialoguing with students and doing group
work and all the things that No Child Left Behind now calls for.
You know, this—ethnic studies is not about divisiveness. It's not
about separating people from America. It's letting people know that they
are more involved in America.
HILL: We have always had ethnic studies. It's just that the
ethnicities that we were focused on were European. They were Irish. They
were Polish. They were Russian.
And now we're saying there are other people who also have ethnicities
who count as well. And it's also factually untrue to say that the purpose
of ethnic studies is to put black people on one track and Chicanos on
another track. No.
White people will take African-American studies. Black people will
take Asian studies. The point is to expose everyone to the range of
cultures and ethnicities that makes America good.
Back to you, Doug. Your thoughts.
MATTHEWS: Explain "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed" and how you believe
it clearly makes an ideological statement.
NICK: Well, that is just one of the other text. The other text is
called "Occupied America," in which it talks about smashing the gringo.
And there are many, many other examples that we have found, not only
through our investigation—we have read the curriculum. We have spoken
to teachers down there.
The idea—the very idea that, in 2010, we would go back decades and
decades to a very dark time in this country in which segregation was
accepted, and then go back to segregation and saying, if you are an
Hispanic American or you are an African-American, you must take a certain
track of ethnic studies is completely against the notion, as my boss talks
about, with Dr. King's speech in 1963, where people should be judged for
the content of their character, not based on the color of their skin or
their ethnicity. This is exactly what is not happening in these studies.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you. A lot of these kids come from families
that came from Mexico or Colombia or Guatemala—mostly from Mexico.
Is there something inherently wrong in them taking a class or two in
high school that explains their heritage, where they came from?
NICK: Of course not. We would absolutely support a comprehensive
curriculum that does in fact cherish other cultures, not excluding and
certainly not segregating by race.
That is the exactly the opposite of the message that American public
education should be doing.
HILL: But it's factually untrue to suggest that the curriculum
advises teachers to separate people by race. And even if that were the
case, that's not an argument for getting rid of ethnic studies. That's an
argument for amplifying ethnic studies and diversifying ethnic studies, so
that everyone has access to it.
But that's not what initial intention of it was.
NICK: I have to say, in practice, though, that's a non sequitur,
because it does in fact—it absolutely, positively separates students by
their ethnicity.
HILL: It does not. That's absolutely...
NICK: Why else would you call it African-American studies, or Raza
studies. By it's very nature, it should be. You can certainly teach this
in world history, American history.
HILL: That's not true at all.
NICK: In fact, the standards of Arizona, which the chairman—the
president of the History Channel Television network came here a few years
ago. She said she had read the history standards for all 50 states, and
Arizona's were head and shoulders above the other 49. That's how much we
value --
HILL: Here's the reality: it's called African-American studies
because they're the focus of the curriculum. It's not a non sequitur.
Students in America take European history. It doesn't mean you have to be
European to take it. It just means that that's the subject that you're
studying. We want all students to take ethnic studies. We want all
students to take Asian students, all students to take African-American
studies, because they all make up America. And that's what we want them to
have access to.
And if people are dividing people by race tracks, then that's a
problem. But that's not an argument against ethnic studies. That's an
argument on a school level for how people are administering the program.
Lastly, all data suggests—all data suggests that students who have
access to ethnic studies programs do better on the high stakes tests. They
do better on the AIMS (ph) test than people who don't take it. So even in
the terms of the educational aims of the state, it makes educational sense
take these courses for everybody.
MATTHEWS: What about that point, Doug. Isn't it a way—I'm not
going to make a side here. But isn't—make a case, if you're like first-
generation American, your parents are from Mexico or somewhere else,
doesn't it encourage that kid to take more of an interest in study in
English, studying in school, which is going to help them become more
assimilated, if part of that education includes something about where he
came from?
NICK: There's absolutely no reason why we would oppose the idea of
learning about other cultures. It is the separating—
MATTHEWS: No, your own—the one your parents came from. No, with a
particular emphasis on the one your parents came from. You see something
wrong with that? I'm just trying to be honest here. You do see something
wrong with that?
NICK: I see something wrong when you take kids and say, because you
have a particular racial construct, which is a human construct—it is not
something that is anything but what humans have placed upon themselves, to
say you're going to be divided by race. I thought we were beyond that. We
should be beyond that.
HILL: In Arizona, you thought we were beyond that?
NICK: Yes, we are in fact.
HILL: You don't see any irony in being from Arizona and saying you
think we're beyond distinguishing people on the basis of race? You see no
irony in that?
NICK: I see a lot of irony in somebody telling me that simply because
I'm from Arizona, I somehow must take a certain point of view. That, sir,
is stereotypical.
HILL: Exactly, which is why I didn't say that. What I said is you're
in the midst of a state that's engaged in a set of policy practices that
hinge upon race. I don't know you. I don't know what your beliefs are.
But you're in the midst of a state that depends on these practices. That's
exactly why we need this curriculum.
MATTHEWS: You know what, this isn't a bad argument. And I thank you
both for coming on the show. And it has been quite civil, believe it or
not. It has been. I know it's a hot argument. Marc Lamont Hill,
professor, thanks for coming on. This will be continued.
Up next, President Obama pushes the economy up in Buffalo today. But
it's an angry voter out there. This guy is holding up a sign that says, "I
need a freaking job." He was polite, too. Our strategists break down how
to win the fear and loathing issue of the economy, which is still
apparently, officially, a recession.
In one minute, an eye-opening number about the cost of war. This is
HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: The war in Afghanistan is now costing this country more
than the war in Iraq. Pentagon spending in February, the most recent month
available, was 6.7 billion dollars in Afghanistan, versus 5.5 billion
dollars in Iraq. As recently as last year, the war in Iraq costs twice as
much as the war in Afghanistan. And in 2008, the war in Iraq was three
times as expensive.
By the way, the combined cost of both wars has now surpassed one
trillion dollars.
HARDBALL will be right back.
OBAMA: Frankly, I had one side of the aisle just sit on the sidelines
as the crisis unfolded. And if we had taken that position, just thinking
about what was good for my politics, millions more Americans would have
lost their jobs.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. That's President Obama up in
Buffalo today talking up his efforts to get Americans back to work. Next
week, he'll be doing the same thing near in Youngstown, Ohio. But this
billboard in Buffalo shows what he's up against. Take a look at that. It
speaks for itself. "Dear Mr. President, I need a freaking job, period.
Sincerely," then you have a number there, INAFJ.org.
Let's look at the video that that organization made, just to get
started tonight. They've got organizations. They've got videos,
everything. Let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, I need a freakin' job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need a freakin' job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need a freakin' job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need a freakin' job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need a freakin' job. Can you hear what I am
MATTHEWS: Well let's go right now. That's about economic
frustration. It's still out there. Which party can gain the edge this
fall? It's not a hard one. Steve McMahon, you're playing defense. Todd
Harris, you're happy. Look, I can read American life by looking at the
face of Todd Harris. He is happy as a pumpkin over there—Jack
O'Lantern, I should say.
Todd, let me ask you this question, is it fair to dump on the
president, to put all the heat on him a year in office, basically? He's
been in a year and two months now. What do you think? Is it fair?
TODD HARRIS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Absolutely. Look what he's done
in—in the course of that time. You know, Stimulus spending, close to a
trillion dollars in wasted, bloated government, a health care plan that is
basically going to be, you know, first step toward a government takeover of
health care.
People need jobs. This—this movement, you know, I need a freakin'
job, I think that they put—they hit the nail right on the head. What
they see is a White House that is out of touch with the needs of the
average working American. This focus on spending money on debts, a promise
from the president that this was—if we just spend all this money, it
will create jobs and it will bring down unemployment.
The exact opposite has been the case. The White House still doesn't
seem focused on it. And they're going to pay a price for it.
MATTHEWS: I love the way Republicans talk populist all of a sudden.
But the president's coming off not as a populist right now, but as sort of
Cool Hand Luke. He's there with the short sleeves, but very cool. There's
Todd Harris jumping up and down like Huey Long. What's going on here?
What's going on, Steve? It seems like the sides have been shifted here.
STEVE MCMAHON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Todd seems to be taking
pleasure from the fact that so many Americans are suffering. What we need
to do here, at this point, Chris, I think is remind Todd of what Barack
Obama and his administration inherited. We all know that the economy was
in a shambles, Wall Street was about to fall apart. We were on the verge
of an economic collapse worldwide.
The president did invest in this economy. And you can see the results
every single day. Last month, there were more jobs created than there have
been for four years. Just yesterday, the unemployment numbers suggested
fewer people filed for new unemployment than at any time in the recent
So things are getting better. Wall Street is—I'm sorry, the Dow
Industrials has recovered to the point where people can now look at their
401(k)s again. Obviously, unemployment is the last thing to pick up. But
it is starting to pick up. This administration has a story to tell. And
the first story is how they recovered from what George Bush and the
Republicans left them.
MATTHEWS: OK. Let's go to immigration right now. I have a thought
here, immigration. Let's talk about there's better than two to one support
now for the Arizona law. People are very conservative about this issue.
Latinos, of course, disagree. They feel that they're being oppressed on
this law. They think it's more an attack on them; 70 percent of them
oppose the bill.
But it seems to me, Todd Harris, that your side of the political fence
is benefiting here. People are angry about illegal immigration. But are
you going to do anything about it or just exploit it? Just sit on it—
HARRIS: Well, people are angry about illegal immigration. I do think
MATTHEWS: So what are you going to do about it?
HARRIS: There will probably be a short-term political bump for
Republicans. But I think on the long term, both parties are at risk if
this issue is not resolved. On the Republican side, you've got this huge
pool of Hispanic voters that want to see some resolution to this issue.
And on the Democratic side, you've got a huge pool of blue-collar,
independent white voters who are going to be very uncomfortable supporting
MATTHEWS: So your party's not going to do anything. I hear no action
HARRIS: Chris? Chris? Chris, that's absolutely absurd. The
immigration problem is never going to be solved until both parties are
willing to first secure the border, and then everything else can follow
after that. But until the American people know that the border is secure,
they're not going to listen to any—
MATTHEWS: How do you secure the border? How do you do that?
HARRIS: Well, you know, Senator McCain has a plan that he's been
talking about in Arizona.
MATTHEWS: The fence?
HARRIS: It's part—
MATTHEWS: You guys are hilarious. You're hilarious. You are
hilarious. If anybody thinks—
HARRIS: hold on a minute. I'm glad you think it's funny—
MATTHEWS: You would find a way of getting around that fence, Todd
Harris. I would find a way to get around it. Because you can get around
fences. Go ahead.
HARRIS: People in Arizona are dealing with drug violence spilling
over across the border into Arizona. So I don't think anyone thinks that
that's funny.
MATTHEWS: That's funny? No, your solution is funny. Go ahead. Your
thoughts, Steve? I don't think either party's straight on this. I don't
think either party wants an identifiable, reliable I.D. card that says you
can't work in this country unless you're supposed to be here. Nobody wants
to do that on either side. Republicans want the cheap labor. Democrats
want the votes. I understand the deal.
But neither one of you guys is going to tell me you're going to stop
illegal immigration. I'll believe you if you tell me how you're going to
do it. You want to talk now? Who's going to do it?
MCMAHON: You're absolutely right. But there was a bill last year
that John McCain—or two years ago, that John McCain and Ted Kennedy
sponsored together, which actually began to address both the border issue
and the reality that there are 12 to 15 million people in this country
working, many of whom have families, who aren't going to go anywhere. And
it created a system so that they could become naturalized over time by
paying a fine, learning English, keeping their records clean, getting in
the back of the line.
MATTHEWS: But how do you stop—but how does that bill stop future
illegal immigration?
MCMAHON: Well, it invests in border security to the—
MATTHEWS: You guys are jokes. You guys are absolute jokes. All your
lives, you know the fences don't work. And all your lives you—
MCMAHON: I did not say a fence.
MATTHEWS: What did you say? I'm sorry.
MCMAHON: What I said was there has to be enhanced border security,
but you're not going to stop people, as you point out correctly, from
coming over the border to get a job to feed their family. That's not going
to happen. And it hasn't happened in 20 years, since Ronald Reagan went
through this. It's not going to happen now.
Obviously, we have to do something. But we have to start with the
reality that there are people in this country who have families whose
children are American citizens, and they're not going anywhere.
MATTHEWS: Do you hear yourselves talk? You say, Steven—I hear
your argument—we have to start with the reality people are here
illegally. I'm completely with that reality. I don't think anybody should
be thrown out. Then the other guy says—Todd says start with the reality
you've got to seal the border. Neither one of you want to start with a
compromise. You both want to start where you want to start. You want to
start with something like amnesty. He wants to start with a wall. And I'm
telling you unless you agree on doing both, unless you agree on both
together at the same time, nothing's going to happen.
And I don't trust either party to cut the deal. I'm sorry. I don't
hear it tonight either. Steve McMahon, Todd Harris, I don't hear a deal
between you guys. When we return, we're still waiting to hear from any
Republican office holder who disagrees on anything with Rush Limbaugh.
We're still waiting out there, Mr. and Mrs. America, Republican.
You're watching HARDBALL right now, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with a thought on our challenge to
the Republican party. His name is Limbaugh. But let's call him Boss Tube.
You know, like Boss Tweed, the old political ring leader.
Here's the challenge we issued two days ago. It goes to any
Republican member of congress or senator. Stand up and disagree with Rush
Limbaugh on anything. We began this campaign after witnessing this long
debacle of Republican after Republican allowing this radio jock to command
not just the airwaves, but the hearts and minds of a once self-directed
political party.
Congressman Phil Gingrey almost made himself famous by challenging
Limbaugh a while back, but then supinely laid down before the forces of El
Rushbo and apologized. I guess he got the word from central command,
nobody fights with Rush Limbaugh.
I think our new NBC poll explains all this. It shows that a majority
of Americans call themselves conservatives, but only about a third call
themselves Republican, which means that the right calls the tune. The guys
in the suits up on Capitol Hill do the dance, at least enough to keep their
Now we're watching all this. Bob Bennett got called out a line last
weekend. Tray Grayson's turn comes next Tuesday. Charlie Crist quite the
party yesterday, filing as a man without a party. Arlen Specter hit the
lifeboat a year ago.
Maybe Rushbo is the boss, like the old city boss who used to control
the wards, pick the pols, and run the show. Was Dick Daley, the all-time
boss here in Chicago, ever as powerful in his party as Boss Tube is over
his? Daley only had a city. This guy's got a country.
Mr. and Mrs. North America, all the ships at sea, now hear this,
nobody talks like the Rush and dares call himself a Republican. But
there's still hope. There's still tomorrow. And HARDBALL will be
listening, ready and eager to let any Republican senator or congressperson
come here and show your guts, that you're still with the party of Lincoln,
not Limbaugh.
That's HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us. Right now, it's
time for "THE ED SHOW."
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Watch Hardball each weeknight at 5 & 7 p.m. ET


text:
On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, sound artist Mark Bain has released the full audio file of the sound of the Twin Towers collapsing, a melancholic howl terrestrially amplified by the region's geology.
What you're hearing is the "audification of the seismological data record," as Bain explains it, "which occurred in the area of New York State, New Jersey, and New England during the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on September eleventh, 2001."
The data streams were acquired from Columbia University's Geological survey lab, which run a network of earth monitoring stations in the area; with the closest being 34 km away from the epicenter of the event. A process of data conversion and signal translation was used to make the normally inaudible seismic waveforms both audible and to play back in real-time as the event unfolded. No other processing or effects were added to the tracks. The registration includes four events, two impacts and the two collapses along with the inbetween sounds of the drone of the earth. The heaviest impact of the collapse registered 2.4 on the Richter scale, a signal which traveled throughout the earth.
The piece is not intended as a memorial, Bain adds, but as "a bell-like alarm denoting histories in the making."
This post originally appeared on BLDGBLOG. Image: A ghostlike "sonographic image" taken from part of Mark Bain's sound file.


text:
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text:
The next episode of "Bones" is going to form the skeleton of a whole new series – just don't call it a spinoff.
"Spinoff has always been a troublesome term to me," admits "Bones" creator and executive producer Hart Hanson, who introduces a collection of characters in Thursday's episode "The Finder" expected to comprise the cast of a new Hanson series of the same name next fall. "It's more like we did a crossover with a series that doesn't exist yet – and that we hope does come to exist."
Hanson explains the genesis of his particular "backdoor pilot," a series concept introduced within an existing hit show (successful examples include "All In the Family" begetting "Maude," "Happy Days" introducing "Laverne & Shirley," "Grey's Anatomy" launching "Private Practice" and "JAG" off-shooting "NCIS"):
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"I either write or work on a pilot each year – it's part of my deal [with 20th Century Fox]," says Hanson. "This year I was kind of laying low, and then 20th gave me "The Locator" novel called The Knowland Retribution by Richard Greener, and it is such a simple, clear good idea for a network series: a guy who can find anything, people or things."
The novel series focuses on Walter Sherman, a reclusive former military policeman (and, for TV, a service buddy of David Boreanaz's Booth) with a knack for finding the seemingly unfindable. "Good stories are generated by people after a tangible thing or outcome, and then if what they really want or their desires are at odds with that," says Hanson. "It seemed to me that doing a series based on a guy who could find things – both tangible and intangible – for people would be a really good idea for a series. It just generates so many stories. There's a line that I put in 'The Finder' crossover/pilot episode where Walter says to Brennan 'It's amazing how many times people ask me to find something, and the real treasure is something else altogether.'"
"A crossover really appealed to me because last year when I went to do a pilot I was away from 'Bones' for weeks and weeks, and this being a 'Bones' episode meant I didn't have to leave home," admits Hanson. "I could keep an eye on getting through the end of the season on 'Bones' while doing this spin-off at the same time, so it just all came together. It turned out quite well and I have great hopes for it."
Hanson quickly found his ideal casting choice in Geoff Stults, who guest-stars as Walter in the "Bones" episode. "The role of Walter Sherman was [originally] a bit darker," he explains. "He had some brain damage in Iraq and had a darker side, and then this man came in—Geoff Stults came in to talk to us and read the part and he was just really funny. He feels to me like if we don't make him a star on 'Finder' somebody else is going to grab this guy and make him a star. It was akin to how they must have felt when they saw Tom Selleck walk in the first time: a big handsome guy who's very funny and doesn't seem to be at all vain about his looks."
Stults is joined in the episode by cohorts Leo (Michael Clarke Duncan), his legal advisor/bodyguard, and Ike (Saffron Burrows), his bar-owning boat-driver/pilot. "Casting 'The Finder' was hilarious," says Hanson. "The part played by Michael Clarke Duncan was originally written for an old, skinny white man, and instead we got Michael Clarke Duncan, who is none of those things! Saffron Burrows is in it as well, and the three of them have a great chemistry."
But the producer took pains not to take too much of the spotlight away from "Bones'" regulars. "My worry is that the Bones' fans will feel away from their Bones' people more than they would be comfortable, unless these guys charm them instantly – which I hope happens. The only character from Bones who doesn't appear in it to work with Walter and Ike and Leo is Sweets. Everyone else is in it and interacts with him, so I hope we're not away too much – but at the same time, we had to make an episode that showed what these other characters can do and show them together enough that we would see what a series with them would look like. So it's quite an experiment. I guess we'll know Friday morning how the Bones' fans took to Walter, Ike and Leo!"
If the premise resonates with viewers, Hanson's already looking to fill out the cast with a leading lady for Sherman. "The other main character will be Isabelle who is attached probably to the Miami FBI – It could be Miami field office of the FBI or the Miami Dade Police Force," he says. Just don't expect the kind of long-simmering love dance that characterizes "Bones." "Isabelle is Walter's main squeeze, on and off," he declares. "This is his law enforcement connection, with whom he sometimes has an on again/off again affair. I'd like to really avoid doing another 'will they or won't they' series. It's more emotional than romantic."


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BERLIN – One sewer plant or two, that is the question in Berlin this week.
Observers at Monday's Berlin Mayor and Council meeting were startled that a presentation by town wastewater consultant URS recommended expansion of the current wastewater treatment plant as the least expensive option.
However, the two-plant scheme proposed by developer Troy Purnell and agreed to by the town last spring will still be considered by the County Commissioners next week.
That agreement was the first change in what is becoming a confusing dance back and forth between options. At the time the two-plant agreement was reached last spring, Berlin already had a single plant expansion plan in front of the county, but decided to abandon that approach to pursue the two plants.
Now the specter of another change has been raised.
"We're still going before the county with the wastewater amendment plans," Berlin Mayor Tom Cardinale said this week.
Monday's presentation was just a financial analysis, he said.
The mayor did not rule out a reversal of the two-plant project, however.
"When it all shakes out, then we have to make a decision," Cardinale said. "There's so many loose nuts and bolts out there we don't know which way is best to go."
The memorandum of understanding with Berlin Properties North, Purnell's company, is not binding, Cardinale said.
The mayor seemed philosophical over the back and forth plans. The wastewater expansion "was on the table five years before I got here. It's been on the table the three years I've been here," Cardinale said.
At the Monday night council meeting, Mark Prouty of URS strongly recommended going back to the existing plant expansion.
"We found that the most cost effective and lowest risk solution for the town of Berlin to move forward is a single treatment plant constructed at your current site," Prouty said.
Existing customers will see an 8-percent rise in their wastewater rates just to handle the upgrade for current needs.
"If not one more house is built, the wastewater plant still has to be upgraded," Cardinale said. "The public is not paying for growth."
The expansion of the current plant to meet existing needs would cost $10.3 million with the cost rising to $12 million if stream discharge is abandoned in favor of adding spray irrigation land.
If the town moves to the two plants, using all spray irrigation, to handle one million gallons per day (MGD), the total capital cost would be $28.7 million, more than double the basic expansion. This scenario would have some new connections paying a higher connection fee.
Fees would go up for new connections with the more costly alternatives. Right now, the special connection fee is $8,000 per EDU, but it could go up to as much as $30,000 under some scenarios.
Cardinale suggested a graduated fee schedule dependent on when the property owner pays into the system. Council Vice President Gee Williams suggested banking the fees to reduce the bond amount. An alternative must be finalized before fee schedules are determined.
If the current plant is only upgraded, it could be expanded to varying capacities, and would be designed to accommodate later expansion. The plant handles half a million gallons per day (mgd) now and the upgrade would increase that to .6 mgd. The next logical steps over the next few decades would be .75 mgd, 1 mgd, then 1.4 mgd.
"It is not an entire build out of everything that would probably take you to the next phase of construction, the 1 mgd range," said Prouty.
"We don't want to do this in five years and turn around and do it again," said Williams.
"You could wind up with a wastewater treatment plant which needs to be upgraded again in four to five years," Cardinale agreed.
Wastewater treatment equipment is made in standard sizes, Prouty said, so the town would have to expand in those increments.
"When you build treatment plants, you build them in certain sizes. You build them off the shelf," he said.
Another 250,000 gallons a day capacity would allow the addition of 1,000 EDUs over the next decade, Williams said.
Whatever the town does, it must submit a work schedule to the Maryland Department of the Environment, required by a consent order. According to Prouty, the bidding and building process could take as little as a year or 14 months.
The single plant scenario has its pluses, according to Williams.
"It reduces the risk to the town of Berlin and our ratepayers in terms of not biting off more than we can chew at one time," Williams said.
Meanwhile, the two-plant alternative is still on the table with the county. The commissioners will consider the proposal at their Dec. 4 meeting. The council chose to leave the application as is and not modify it yet based on Prouty's report.
"We just don't want to go before the commissioners and muddy up the waters," Cardinale said.


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This is not an offer for credit and should be used for estimation purposes only based on the information you provided. You should not base your decision on this estimate alone. Title, registration, tax and other fees, and personal circumstances such as employment status and personal credit history, were not considered in the calculations.
The Brute Force® 300 ATV is perfect for riders 16 and older searching for a sporty and versatile ATV, packed with popular features, for a low price making it great value.
Front - Dual 180 mm discs
Rear - Single 180 mm disc
Front - AT 22 x 7-10 Maxxis® tubeless
Rear - AT 22 x 10-10 Maxxis® tubeless
Front - Double wishbone; Travel - 5.2 in.
Rear - Swingarm; Travel - 5.6 in.
Front - 44 lb.
Rear - 66 lb.


text:
Red6Marketing necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 113 diseños de 20 diseñadores freelance.
We are an online slots portal that is geared towards teaching people how to become better slot machine players as well as showing them the best online casinos to play at. Our goal is to drive traffic to the online casino sites.
Gamblers and Slot fans.
We are looking for a redesign of our current site:
We would like the following:
1. A professional looking site - Web 2.0 Look and Feel - Clean, Bold Colors, Cool Graphics
2. Professional looking Logo
3. A 2 column layout preferred
4. Sidebar:
- Slot Room logos and names
- Slot Articles
5. 960px. Width
6. Navigation bar with 4-5 links
7. The main page should have tables/sections for the following:
a. Top Online Slot Casinos
b. Featured Slot Casinos
c. Most Popular Online Slot Games
d. Search Box - user can search based on # Reels, Jackpots, etc...
8. A 'Play Now' button or something similar with a clear call to action near the top of the index page - maybe in the header.
9. Visit and Bonus graphics
10. 'Online Slots' as the H1 Tag (i.e. text) somewhere near the top of the page
11. We will need the following pages redesigned:
a. http://www.slotsguide.net/ - Index Page
b. http://www.slotsguide.net/crazy-slots - Room Review Page
- Slots Room review template that we can use for our other review pages.
- Call to actions (visit and download images and text) should be high on the page.
c. http://www.slotsguide.net/aztecs-treasure - Slot Game Review Page
- There should be a clear call to action on the is page - something along the lines of 'Play Aztec Treasure at Rushmore Casino' (the text should not be an image).


text:
Reverse Engineering and measurement support for portable cmms and laser scanners.
Alignment and ball compensation for Device support FARO EDGE, Romer Absolute , Microscribe, 3D Creator, Baces 3D, Faro Focus 3D, Faro Laser Tracker, Leica laser Tracker
Supports processing GB of Scan data, Generate profiles , extract features and build your model against the MESH. Point clouds data format integration available on request.
Christiann Moore, RevereEngineering.com


text:
CES As soon as you lay hands on the Samsung YP-P3, the first thought that will go through your head is what a nasty bit of plastic tat the P2 is by comparison.
Clearly someone at Samsung has been looking at recent Apple and Cowon players and decided to up the quality of the company's builds. The results speak for themselves: with its brushed metal back and solid glass front, the P3 is by far the most solid device we have seem from the Korean maker.
Samsung's P3: widget-based UI
Though the 480 x 270, 3in screen doesn't set any new standards, it looked bright, clear and crisp when the pre-loaded videos played.
With the exception of the volume control at the top of the device the P3 is controlled using the capacitive touchscreen, and a pretty effective control interface it is too.
The touchscreen is very responsive
Swipes and prods generally resulted in an immediate and rapid response, the only fly in the ointment being the widget control bar, which had a habit of popping up for less than a second before vanishing. We were assured that this is a known bug in the firmware that will be ironed out before release.
Being a Samsung, the P3's touchscreen comes with a full range of haptic buzzes and beeps. Thankfully, they can all be turned off.
The widget-based control interface is very similar to that of the T-Mobile G1 phone – you add or remove widget icons as your needs dictate and then spread them out over as many pages as you think necessary.
It's thin - note that the blob we're holding was the anti-theft dongle
Start really spreading your widgets out and you soon discover you can actually have five pages' worth, though the page indicator at the top of the screen only highlight pages with active widgets. Remove them all from a page and it effectively ceases to exist until you put a widget back.
Sponsored: Practical tips for Office 365 tenant-to-tenant migration


text:
Meeting of the Voorburg Group on Service Statistics, Sydney 21-25 September 2015
NatStats 2013 Conference, Brisbane 12-14 March 2013
International Year of Statistics
Other Australian Government links
Australian Government Information and Services - http://www.australia.gov.au/
Government Online Directory - http://www.directory.gov.au/
Business Entry Point - http://www.bep.gov.au/
ABS data is available from sources other than the ABS
Demographic Profiling
International Trade
Wikiprogress - A global platform for sharing information in order to evaluate societal progress. It is a place to find information and statistics to facilitate the exchange of ideas, initiatives and knowledge on "measuring the progress of societies".
Note - Use of ABS data in other websites is subject to the ABS copyright terms.
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text:
Five Guys Named Moe Is MO'velous!
I had a good time out in Roy Wilkins Park on Sunday where The Black Spectrum Theatre, which is in its 37th season of entertaining the community, is housed in Jamaica, Queens.
The show "Five Guys Named Moe" which opened October 20th is running through December 9th and is well worth the trip to the theatre, located at 177th Street and Baisley Boulevard.
This musical by Clarke Peters begins with the character Nomax, played by Abraham Blue, feeling downhearted and dejected because his lady left him. Neither drink nor rationalization makes Nomax feel any better. He just doesn't understand why his woman left him, never mind his ignoring her birthday nor doing any of those little things she asked of him. Why can't his sweet Lorraine understand that a man's got to do what a man's got to do? What do women want anyway? That's the question Nomax is pondering as he drifts off to sleep to the sound of his radio.
Still drowsy, Nomax is suddenly awakened, startled by the five specters before him. He wonders whether he is still dreaming or whether the universe has heard his appeal and sent the answers to his question via the sudden appearance of five musical guys, all who are named Moe.'
Now, these five guys don't seem to have all the answers themselves. They bicker among themselves and at first stroke Nomax's ego. They pound their point home via a cadre of music and dance numbers. These Five Guys named Eat Moe (played by Jarvis Manning, Jr.,) Big Moe (Donald Hinson), No Moe (Leon Rogers), Four Eyed Moe amusingly portrayed by Roy Coleman and L'il Moe (John Edwards) are as different from one another as can be. They cajole, bicker, prod, wheedle, tease, support and comfort Nomax via the medleys of Louis Jordan, the saxophonist and composer from the 1930s, whose musical jazz style is credited as having paved the way for the 1950's rock n' roll era.
The audience was also dragged into the hilarity as the characters encouraged the crowd to sing Push Ka Pi Shi-Pie. Don't' ask what it means…it's simply a light amusing ditty that is fun to sing. Each song aided in telling the story and touched upon the personalities of the Five Guys: The characters sang tunes like: "I Like Em Fat Like That", "Messy Bessy", "Pettin' and Pokin,'" "Azure Te," "Safe, Sane and Single," "Dad Gum Your Hide Boy," "Five Guys Name Moe"" Let the Good Times Roll," "Caldonia," "Hurry Home," " Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" and "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying," to name a few.
"Five Guys Named Moe," was produced by AUDELCO Award winner Carl Clay, founder of the Black Spectrum Theatre, directed by Bette Howard, staged managed by Fulton C. Hodges and Christine Gaines. The costumes by Marcha Tracey were colorful stylish and well coordinated. The set, designed by Harlan D. Penn, was imaginative; the numerous dance routines were choreography by Troy Blackwell.
If you are looking for an evening of fun call the Box Office at 718-723-1800 or check out the Black Spectrum Theatre website: www.BlackSpectrum.com. Show days are Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 4:00 p.m.
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I think you have "Filtered HTML" turned on here. If you switch to "Full HTML," it will probably...


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Tangotiger, November 4, 2010:
On the other hand, my method is to use existing stories as a launching point for what I really want to say and do. My objective is to be timeless.
Tangotiger, Novemeber 18, 2010:
Dean of new-fangled stats
Tangotiger, November 19, 2010:
As for why I bother to highlight [J.C. Bradbury] here, I suppose it's similar to trying to expose the ridiculousness of what the media does as well. A sort of sabermetric Jon Stewart if you will.
Tangotiger, November 19, 2010:
ChuckO/11: I think you perfectly captured exactly what I am about, better than I could have described myself.
You can put that on my sabermetric tombstone when I retire!


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Spark SQL Integration
Spark SQL integration depends on N1QL, which is available in Couchbase Server 4.0 and later. To use Spark SQL queries, you need to create and persist DataFrames via the Spark SQL DataFrame API.
All examples presented on this page at least require a primary index on the
travel-sample data set.
If you haven't done so already, you can create a primary index by executing this N1QL statement:
CREATE PRIMARY INDEX ON `travel-sample`.
DataFrame creation
Before you can create a DataFrame with Couchbase, you need to create an
// Configure Spark
val cfg = new SparkConf()
.set("com.couchbase.bucket.travel-sample", "")
// Generate The Context
val sc = new SparkContext(cfg)
// Spark SQL Setup
val sql = new SQLContext(sc)
Also, you need to make sure that the following import is present:
import com.couchbase.spark.sql._
The easiest way to create a DataFrame looks like this:
val dataFrame = sql.read.couchbase()
While this is the easiest, it has a few shortcomings. It will try to perform automatic schema inference based on the full data set, which is very likely not to hit the right schema (especially if you have a large or diverse data set).
There are two options to solve this shortcoming: you can either provide a manual schema or narrow down the automatic schema inference by providing explicit predicates. The benefit of the latter approach is also that the predicate provided will be used on every query to optimize performance.
If you want to get automatic schema inference on all airlines, you can specify it like this:
val airline = sql.read.couchbase(schemaFilter = EqualTo("type", "airline"))
If you call
airline.printSchema(), it will print:
root |-- META_ID: string (nullable = true) |-- callsign: string (nullable = true) |-- country: string (nullable = true) |-- iata: string (nullable = true) |-- icao: string (nullable = true) |-- id: long (nullable = true) |-- name: string (nullable = true) |-- type: string (nullable = true)
Not only did it automatically infer the schema, it also added a
META_ID field which corresponds to the document ID if applicable.
A manual schema can also be provided if the automatic inference does not work properly:
StructField("name", StringType) ::
StructField("type", StringType) :: Nil
Since now you have a DataFrame, you can apply all the operations that Spark SQL provides. A simple example would be to load specific fields from the DataFrame and print some of those records:
.select("name", "callsign")
+-------+--------------------+ | name| callsign| +-------+--------------------+ | EASY| easyJet| | BABY| bmibaby| |MIDLAND| bmi| | null| Yellowtail| | null| XOJET| |STARWAY| XL Airways France| | XAIR| XAIR USA| | WORLD| World Airways| |WESTERN| Western Airlines| | RUBY|Vision Airlines (V2)| +-------+--------------------+
For a more complete example, imagine you have landmarks in Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) and airports in Couchbase. For each airport code you want to find all landmarks in the same city:
// Load Landmarks from HDFS
val landmarks = sql.read.json("hdfs://127.0.0.1:9000/landmarks/*")
// Load Airports from Couchbase
val airports = sql.read.couchbase(schemaFilter = EqualTo("type", "airport"))
// find all landmarks in the same city as the given FAA code
val toFind = "SFO" // try SFO or LAX
.join(landmarks, airports("city") === landmarks("city"))
.select(airports("faa"), landmarks("name"), landmarks("url"))
.where(airports("faa") === toFind and landmarks("url").isNotNull)
Direct DataFrame access
If you are using
DataFrames from Scala, using the implict imports is a great way to simplify your code.
If you want to use DFs from other languages, direct access is the preferred way to use them.
In fact, the implict imports are mainly just syntactic sugar over the direct access methods.
The following code describes how to create a DF directly, with setting all the options manually:
val df = sql.read
// Define the source, required
// Either set the schema filter for inference. Like this
.option("schemaFilter", N1QLRelation.filterToExpression(EqualTo("type", "airline")))
// Or directly as a string
.option("schemaFilter", "`type` = 'airline'")
// Or provide the schema directly
StructField("name", StringType):: Nil
You can also provide all kinds of options directly, either to spark or for advanced functionality in the N1QL integration. Currently, the following options are allowed:
idField: The name of the document ID field, defaults to "META_ID".
bucket: The name of the bucket to use, which is required if more than one bucket is opened.
DataFrame persistence
It is also possible to persist DataFrames into Couchbase.
The important part is that a
META_ID (or different if configured) field exists which can be mapped to the unique Document ID.
All the other fields in the DataFrame will be converted into JSON and stored as the document content.
import sql.implicits._
val people = sc.parallelize(Seq(
Person("user::michael", "Michael", 27),
Person("user::tom", "Tom", 33)
people.write.couchbase(Map("idField" -> "uid"))
In this example, the DataFrame is persisted into Couchbase and the document ID field is mapped to


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So, maybe you've got the day off to celebrate Veterans Day. You could go to the various sales and spend some money. You could sleep late, relax, watch television all day. But, really, it's Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor all veterans. So you could…
So you can just take the day off, or you can really use Veterans Day to recall our veterans!
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Her professional life began in Iceland and then continued in Sweden where she met her (Swedish) husband who plays the trumpet.
Carol joined the Philharmonia in 1997, but had been playing with the Orchestra regularly since 1989! She has always lived miles away from London, in Bucklebury (made famous by the new Princess Kate) and here she has brought up her two children, one if whom is now a professional bassoonist. Carol's husband helped too - it was a difficult thing, particularly then, to have a family and an orchestral career, but Carol took the children on tour with her a lot - "I think that really widened their world and has given them a hunger to explore the world's riches."
Recently, Carol invested in a flat near Tower Bridge, and this has made life a great deal easier, or it would have if she hadn't recently badly damaged her left arm in a skiing accident.
"I was playing in Klosters at the time for one of the Friends of the Orchestra. I decided to fit in a quick bit of skiing with a friend who is very skilled on the slopes. Unfortunately another skier collided with my shoulder, dislocating and fracturing it. It was the most painful experience of my life and very traumatising for my friend who had to hang onto me whilst I shouted the mountain into a potential avalanche.
But worse, it's left me with a damaged brachial plexus injury. I was left completely paralysed in my left arm, with no feeling or movement at all. I'm making a slow recovery and I'm starting to use my hand more but I've a long way to go, although I've been attempting to play the violin recently as it is easier than the viola! I hope to be back playing as soon as I can but I've warned the 2nd violins that I may have to join them first before I'm skilful enough to go back to the viola!"


text:
Mr. Adnan Oktar's statements on Russian television REN TV, November 5th, 2011
The Turkish researcher and writer Harun Yahya believes that the evolutionist claim that human beings are descended from apes is utter nonsense, because not one single piece of evidence proving Darwin's theory has ever been found.
Ninety-nine percent of the world believed in the theory of evolution, a violation of logic and science.
Paleontologists have to date discovered some 350 million fossils representing 250,000 life forms, and not a single one bears any sign of the slightest change or supposed evolution.
The fossil record shows living species that have remained unchanged for millions of years.
Scientific evidence definitively refutes Darwinism, which maintains that life and human beings came into being as the result of a process of evolution.
Today, even the most known atheists admit Allah's creation.
There can no longer be any question of anyone claiming that life came about through evolution.
Related Works


text:
Celebrity Watch: Pamela Anderson in Las Vegas
We're still fans of the lovely Pamela Anderson, and she made an appearance at Palladium Jewelry this weekend while she was in Las Vegas for the annual Couture Show.
Then she attended a star-studded evening at Azure at The Palazzo Las Vegas last night. In celebration of the JCK jewelry convention and to help The Palazzo Las Vegas kick off it's first ever Carnevale celebrations, celebrity-adored brand Simon G. Jewelry threw its annual Simon G. Jewelry "Summer Soiree." Along with Pam, guests included George Clooney's hot babe girlfriend Stacy Keibler, Giuliana Rancic, Melissa Rycroft, Cheryl Burke, Audrina Patridge, Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin and Patti Stanger of "Millionaire Matchmaker."
After the jump we have a photo of Pam in her tight shorts next to Patti Stanger and the always sexy Lisa Rinna.
You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook for content updates. Also, sign up for our email list for weekly updates and check us out on Google+ as well.


text:
Name: Genius Packer 22-inch Carry-on.
What it is: A wheeled bag with compartments for an umbrella, backup power for devices, a portable speaker, socks, underwear, electrical cords, magazines, a water bottle. The toiletries compartment is removable (Velcro), and the bag even has a laundry chute.
The good: At first I thought this was just a bunch of gimmicks, but the compartments turned out to be very handy. And it helps to have a bag prompting you to pack things like socks, which can be forgotten if you wait till the last minute to pack. You can buy a backup battery, serviceable speaker and micro-umbrella from Genius Packer or provide your own to fit in the designated areas. The surprising plus was the laundry chute, accessed from an exterior zipped portal. The laundry goes into an interior zip-out bag, which can be rolled up and bound with ties, then removed when you get ready to wash the laundry. It gave me more room to buy a couple more garments on a trip. The wheels work easily whether dragging the bag or using the 360-degree feature in a security line. And the bag fit with room to spare in the overhead bin of a 737.
The bad: The bag occasionally would fall over when standing. I'm not sure whether it was how I packed or the fact that most compartments are in the lid of the bag, making it heavier on that side.
Cost: $198
Available from: geniuspack.com


text:
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Excellent product. Excellent Service. And best of all, An Excellent price.
Confident from the info on the site that the new memory would work on my laptop. Fair price, great communications and rapid dispatch. Memory worked a treat.
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1.The website is generally very helpful 2. Delivery was outstanding - 24 hours on standard. 3. It would be useful if links to the online video and had to ask the very helpful *** in customer support. 4. The guide is spot on, and the upgrade process straightforward. 5. A minor point. I was expecting the cloning to take some time but was taken aback by the near-500mb software download. 5. With the drives swapped in just a few minutes, I switched on in trepidation, and it worked first time. Brilliant product, service and backup.
I used the Kingston recommended replacement SSD and additional RAM for my laptop (Dell Inspiron 13 5000 series). Both worked without any problem and I now have much improved performance on my laptop. Order and delivery information was both prompt and accurate. I recommend using Kingston.
Very Good service very helpful personal
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text:
Team of the Week - Aviva Premiership
ESPNscrum Staff
April 19, 2011
Gloucester could not contain the power of Tigers winger Alesana Tuilagi © Getty Images
Steffon Armitage Freddie Burns Martin Castrogiovanni Michael Claassens Ben Foden Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu Ally Hogg Courtney Lawes Wame Lewaravu Matt Thompson Alesana Tuilagi
Bath Rugby Gloucester Rugby Leicester Tigers London Irish Newcastle Falcons Northampton Saints Sale Sharks
After Leicester Tigers and Gloucester shared 82 points in one of the games of the season so far, it may not surprise you that a number of their players make our Team of the Week. But there were also some compelling individual showings elsewhere in the Aviva Premiership this weekend.
15. Ben Foden (Northampton Saints)
The England fullback again added a crucial sparkle for the Saints as he scored one try at Kingston Park against Newcastle, stepping his way through the defence, and created another for Bruce Reihana. Defensively he was very strong as well.
14. Richard Haughton (London Wasps)
The Wasps winger thrives on the fast, hard tracks late in the season and he tore into the Leeds defence and dented their hopes of Premiership survival with two tries at Adams Park.
13. Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu (Gloucester)
A slight rejig is required to fit in the two outstanding centres of the weekend. The Samoan moves to No.13 after a last-gasp interception try to rescue a draw for Gloucester at Welford Road. It was his second try of the game and the hugely influential centre, who also created Olly Morgan's opening try with a terrific flat pass.
12. Billy Twelvetrees (Leicester Tigers)
Drafted into the centres ahead of Anthony Allen, the former Bedford Blues playmaker scored one try but it was his faultless distribution throughout that impressed the most and kept the Tigers' attacking game flowing.
11. Alesana Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers)
The 18-stone Tigers winger scored a hat-trick in 14 minutes as he terrorised Gloucester's defence and revived memories of the way in which he tore the same opponents apart in the 2007 Premiership final.
10. Freddie Burns (Gloucester)
The young Gloucester No.10 laid out a compelling case for his promotion to first-choice fly-half when Nicky Robinson departs for Wasps next season. Burns played his part in a flowing backline showing and crucially kept his head throughout, notably to seal the draw with a conversion.
9. Joe Simpson (London Wasps)
Wasps's season may be all but over, but Simpson still has work to do to guarantee his participation in England's summer preparations for the World Cup. And two tries against Leeds will have boosted his prospects.
1. Matt Stevens (Saracens)
The loose-head prop turned in an impressive performance against Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park, prompting Sarries coach Mark McCall to tip him for an international return ahead of England's World Cup warm-up games this summer.
2. Matt Thompson (Newcastle Falcons)
The Falcons hooker typified Newcastle's fighting spirit at Kingston Park against the Saints, making a remarkable 93 metres with ball in hand and hitting his man at the lineout time and time again in the face of a smart Saints set-piece.
3. Martin Castrogiovanni (Leicester Tigers)
The Italian returned to the Leicester starting line-up after being benched for last weekend's Heineken Cup semi-final with Leinster. And those wondering why he did not start in Dublin, were shaking their heads with greater ferocity as he turned in a terrific showing against Gloucester.
4. Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints)
The England international has reacted in recent weeks to the disappointment of missing the Six Nations with some of the best performances of his fledging career. Once again his work rate was remarkable for a lock and the ferocity of his tackling was exemplary.
5. Wame Lewaravu (Sale Sharks)
The rangy lock utilised his size and the wide Reebok Stadium pitch to great effect as he made 47 metres against London Irish and weighed in with a try for the Sharks as well as two defensive turnovers.
6. Matt Cox (Gloucester)
The blindside flanker was among a number of Gloucester youngsters to impress against the Tigers. He made 40 metres with ball in hand and was among Gloucester's top tacklers. It was significant that as Alasdair Strokosch came on, the youngster stayed on.
7. Steffon Armitage (London Irish)
A day after Toulon claimed they had signed the openside flanker, Armitage proved that his mind was still very much with London Irish's push to snatch a Premiership play-off place. His work at the breakdown was terrific and his last-minute try was a masterclass in finishing - no wonder Toulon want him.
8. Ally Hogg (Newcastle Falcons)
The Scottish No.8 had a hugely influential game for the Falcons against play-off chasing Northampton. He carried for 45 metres, made 11 tackles and was the heartbeat of Newcastle's resistance at Kingston Park.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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text:
Lewiston man's murder trial resumes, body never found
AUBURN, Maine (AP) � A trial involving murder, drugs and sex is resuming in Auburn.
Testimony resumes Tuesday for the fifth day in the trial of Buddy Robinson, of Lewiston. Robinson has pleaded not guilty to murder in the killing of 22-year-old Christiana Fesmire, who disappeared in July 2011.
Prosecutors say the 31-year-old Robinson beat and drowned Fesmire in her bathroom, then dumped her body in a swampy area in the woods. Her body has not been found.
Robinson's attorney has said there's no direct evidence linking Robinson to Fesmire's death, and has pointed to an alternate suspect � Robinson's twin sister, Brandi.
Court documents portray Fesmire as part of an online prostitution ring led by Robinson's sister, who told police that her brother confessed to the killing.


text:
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