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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Bungalow residence in Stevensville, Michigan thought to be that of Fred Dane but on December 14, 1929, after St. Joseph Police Officer Charles Skelly was gunned down, it was learned that Fred Dane was actually Fred "Killer" Burke. Residence is located on Red Arrow Highway south of Glenlord Road on the east side of road. Structure is still standing, however has been converted over to the business of Coldwell Banker Real Estate.
When Deputies made entry into the residence of Fred "Killer" Burke, they forced open a locked upstairs closet and found:
In addition to the arsenal, deputies found trap doors, several disguises, well-thumbed detective novels and $390,000 worth of stolen bonds from a Jefferson, Wisconsin Bank.
Sheriff Fred Bryant and Deputy Charles Andrews pose wearing bullet-proof vests from the Burke residence and brandishing two weapons also confiscated, including one of the Tommy Guns.
Wanted Poster put out by the Michigan State Police for Fred "Killer" Burke in 1929.
Colonel Calvin H. Goddard, first Director of privately funded scientific crime detection laboratory which later became the Chicago Police Department Crime Lab as a result of St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
The gun room at the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
Firearms technician Allen P. Wescott test firing a weapon in a container of cotton at the lab.
Calvin Goddard at work.
Calvin Goddard examining a weapon from breech to muzzle to see whether it had been fired since last cleaning.
Berrien County Sheriff's Office Historian and 911 Quality Assurance Supervisor Chriss Lyon holding one of two Thompson Sub-Machine Guns seized from the Stevensville residence of Fred "Killer" Burke in 1929. Also pictured are Sheriff Leonard Paul Bailey and Quartermaster Lt. Michael Kline. Photo by John Madill, The Herald-Palladium, October, 2006.
Fred "Killer" Burke house in 2008, now home of Coldwell Banker. Photo by Chriss Lyon, 2008.


text: For years, this kind of breeding has fallen by the wayside — the result of a food movement wary of science and an industrialized food chain that eschews differentiation in favor of uniformity. (Why develop and sell 20 different tomato varieties for 20 different microclimates when you can simply sell one?)Does it seem that agricultural monocultures are almost always produced by economic greed?

subset: commoncrawl


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January 7th, 2019, 05:30 #1
[FGDaze] Learn to play GUMSHOE/The Esoterrorists: Six Packed
[FGDAZE] Learn to play GUMSHOE/The Esoterrorists: Six Packed!
- Session Time: 0600 US Eastern (Convert to your time zone here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclo...06&p1=417&ah=4)
- Calendar Link: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/calen...ex.xcp?id=3309
- Number of Players: 2-4
- Short Description: Beginners welcome--no experience required. This one shot mystery will teach the GUMSHOE rules system.
- Text/Voice: Voice via Discord (using the Fantasy Grounds Community channel)
- GM License/Player License: Ultimate GM License (Players can use free/demo client)
- Game System: GUMSHOE
- Genre: Modern Investigation Horror
- Newbie Friendly: Yes! Beginners welcome--no experience required. This one shot mystery will teach the GUMSHOE rules system.
- Pre-requisites: N/A
- Pregenerated characters?: Yes, they are provided.
About the Game
Info on Esoterrorists background: You are elite investigators combating the plots of the Esoterrorists, a loose affiliation of occult terrorists intent on tearing the fabric of the world and letting the monsters in. Unlike other investigative roleplaying games, The Esoterrorists' GUMSHOE rules system ensures that the plot never grinds to a halt due to a failed die roll. As top paranormal detectives, you never fail in your areas of expertise. When necessary, you can expend extra effort to glean more from the evidence than any plodding journeyman could hope to find.
About this Scenario
From Pelgrane Press
A fast-play adventure for The Esoterrorists
A mutilated corpse is found hanging a slaughterhouse, bullet wounds in the shoulders, elbows and knees. It looks like a terrorist punishment killing, but there are subtle clues pointing at Esoterrorist involvement...
Can you stop a terrible chain of events before the world wakes up to headlines which weaken the Membrane and let the creatures of unremitting horror pierce the Outer Black?
Six Packed is a stand-alone adventure for The Esoterrorists, designed to be played in 3-4 hours with minimal preparation. In playtest, hearts were racing as the mystery had to be solved before the deadline.
Six Packed also features creatures designed by Dave Allsop and developed by Adrian Bott.
Last edited by Hector Trelane; January 7th, 2019 at 05:52.
January 9th, 2019, 17:16 #2
THIS GAME IS LIKE CALL OF CTHULU in a modern setting, for those new to it. I liken it to an X-Files-style investigation series, but one in which investigators seek to COVER UP the truth, rather than expose (and dangerously spread) it.
For background, see posts on this thread here and here.
January 14th, 2019, 22:02 #3
Players, here's an advanced peek at the PCs: There are four pre-gen characters in this scenario:
Gwyn Cooper, London Police Officer and Henry Hemming, Scotland Yard Technical Specialist;
also Vivian Valentine, Police Negotiator and Graham Pollard, MI-6 Security Agent.
Last edited by Hector Trelane; January 14th, 2019 at 23:11.
January 17th, 2019, 01:54 #4
- Join Date
- Nov 2018
- Location
- Caerdydd, Cymru
- Posts
- 9
Gwyn is a boy's name. Were you thinking Gwen?
January 17th, 2019, 02:05 #5
Welcome to the forums, Dimbyd!
Gwyn is listed as a Welsh girl's name here:
Gwyn (White, blessed, fortunate)
... and of course, since I found it on the Internet, it must be true, eh?
Thanks for your interest in the game--do you plan to join us?
January 17th, 2019, 02:37 #6
- Join Date
- Nov 2018
- Location
- Caerdydd, Cymru
- Posts
- 9
I'd go for Gwynne as the spelling for a woman- never known a Welsh woman named Gwyn.
(I live in Wales)
I love GUMSHOE, if I'm properly awake on Saturday, I'd be happy to join you, if there's a free space.
January 17th, 2019, 03:37 #7
January 18th, 2019, 03:14 #8
Valarian and starmonkey, would you like to claim a specific character in advance?
January 18th, 2019, 07:33 #9Using Ultimate license - that means anyone can play.
Valarian's Fantasy Grounds Rulesets
January 19th, 2019, 11:42 #10
I'll be logging in in a few minutes!
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Scotland fans urged to travel early for Scotland v Slovenia
The ScotRail Alliance has advised customers heading to the Scottish football team's world cup qualifier against Slovenia on 26 March to leave plenty of time for their journey and get to the ground early.
A normal Sunday service will be in place on all routes, however, there will be several extra services between Glasgow Central and Mount Florida before and after the match. These trains are expected to be very busy, and fans are being encouraged not to leave it to the last minute to head the stadium.
In addition, many services between Glasgow, Newton, Neilston, Ayr, Ardrossan Harbour and Gourock will run with extra carriages to help cope with the number of fans heading to and from the game.
After the final whistle, a queuing system will be in place at Mount Florida station for safety reasons. Customers are asked to take this into account when planning journeys home from the match.
A ScotRail Alliance spokesperson said: "Trains heading towards Glasgow and Mount Florida will be extremely busy, so make sure you buy your travel tickets before you board.
"Please plan your journeys in advance – keeping in mind any connections – at scotrail.co.uk or on the ScotRail app.
"The last trains of the night are likely to be very busy, so please aim to catch an earlier service where possible."
The ScotRail Alliance will have extra staff on the ground to assist customers and, as with most major events, alcohol bans will be in place.


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(visited by Rainer Mautz and Elionora)
17-Jul-2009 -- Driving back in the night from a family holiday in Barcelona, we spend a rainy day in Lyon (35 km beeline distance). A heavy thunderstorm forced us more or less back in our vehicle, which was a rented Campmobile where all the eight of us squeezed in. By the way, I know now what happens if you try to drive through under a bridge with a signposted height of 2.90 m, whereas our Campmobile had a height of 3.30 m. I never had made any worries about the height before, when suddenly, while driving under the bridge two loud bangs occurred. We made it through, but our roof window broke. Luckily no more harm was done than this. We taped it and could continue our trip.
Without any previous preparation, I was able to navigate the huge vehicle directly up to 50 m to the confluence. I had prepared other confluence points, where we ended up not visiting. This one however, we reached relatively smoothly simply by observing the pointer at our GPS hand-held receiver.
The confluence point is located between the town Villars-les-Dombes and the little village Lapeyrouse, 700 m from the interconnecting county road. It can be easily accessed on a minor asphalt road that leads to the old castle La Grange. Parking can be done conveniently 50 m from the confluence at the entrance to a park that belongs to the property of the castle. The exact location is on a meadow with some cows, right next to a barbed wire fence.
Just 250 m from the confluence point, there is the before mentioned old brick castle named "Le Château de la Grange à Lapeyrouse". It dates back to the year 1368. Unfortunately it is a private property that can not be visited officially.
Besides Elionora and me, the others were not interested in getting out of the car into the chill and wetness outside. They rather preferred to stay in the cosy mobile home, being tired of a long day.
After our visit, we stayed the night in a campground in Villars-les-Dombes, just 2.5 km beeline form the confluence point. The next morning, I took a morning-run revisiting the confluence and taking pictures again. However, both visits are combined in this report.
Later that day we continued our drive back home with stopovers in Genève and Lausanne.
CP visit details:


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Mia Hamm
Name at birth: Mariel Margaret Hamm
Mia Hamm was the best-known American soccer player of the 1990s. She became the youngest woman ever to make the U.S. national team when she joined the squad at age 15 in 1987. With Hamm as its star, the team won gold medals at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics and claimed the 1999 World Cup championship. Hamm's talent, good looks and an endorsement deal with Nike combined to make her a familiar face and a popular sports idol. (People magazine named her as one of its 50 Most Beautiful People in 1997.) Hamm scored her 108th international competition goal in 1998, becoming the all-time world leader. She also played for the Washington Freedom of the Women's United Soccer Association, a league which folded in 2003. Hamm graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1994 with a political science degree. She was elected to the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2007.
Hamm and baseball star Nomar Garciaparra were married on 22 November 2003… Hamm was married to Marine Corps pilot Christian Corey, her college boyfriend, from 1994 until their divorce in 2001… North Carolina won four NCAA soccer championships during Hamm's playing years there: 1989, 1990, 1992 and 1993. Hamm sat out the 1991 college season… After her brother Garrett died in 1997, Hamm created the Mia Hamm Foundation to raise funds for bone marrow research… Another prominent University of North Carolina grad was basketball legend Michael Jordan.
Google News offers recent news archives on Hamm (and Nomar)
Official site of her charitable organization
2001 profile of Hamm, with many details and links
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.


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May is about to enter her next Contest on Chrysanthemum Island. Drew is there too, but not only is he not competing, he didn't send her the mysterious note she received in Wisteria Town. During a practice battle between Munchlax and Combusken, May meets Brianna, the real sender of the note. Though she rooted for May in Wisteria Town, she's really a huge Drew fan. May introduces her to Drew, which only makes Brianna determined to beat May and earn Drew's respect.
The Contest begins! Jessie teams up with James' Mime Jr. to perform a hula dance, May and Munchlax take the stage with a risky use of Metronome, and Brianna and her Surskit puts on an amazing ice show. All three will move on, but before the second round starts, Brianna wants to know if May likes Drew! Well, May's not so sure about that. Jessie battles May in the second round, and James is horrified to watch Combusken defeat Mime Jr. with a mighty Sky Uppercut.
Now it's Brianna and May in the final round, and Brianna's brought her Vibrava. Vibrava comes on strong, using Sand Tomb to trap Combusken. All looks lost but Combusken learns Mega Kick, just in time to free itself and then knock Vibrava out! Afterward, as Brianna congratulates May, Drew compliments Brianna and sends her into a swoon. May is sure to see Drew and his smooth moves again, but first, it's on to the Battle Palace!


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Location |
911 Pennsylvania Place |
Office Hours |
Monday 8am-Noon |
Tuesday 1pm-5pm |
Contact |
(530)756-3355 |
email@example.com |
Website |
Features |
Pool |
Instaconnect for a fee |
Pennsylvania Place Apartments are tucked in at the intersection of 8th and the train tracks. They have one- ($1,250) and two-bedroom apartments.
To learn more about rental housing in Davis, check out our Housing Guide as well as our Apartments pages.
You must be logged in to comment on this page. Please log in.
2007-03-27 14:40:36 I called the apartments today [3/27/2007] the rent is 950 a month —JackkiCox
2008-01-29 13:13:26 the apartments are quiet, and the bedrooms are gigantic (minus the space taken up by the built in furniture). No bells and whistles but good for the money (2 bedroom, $950, january 2008). I must reiterate - nothing is new inside. —cognac
2008-01-29 15:34:43 Lived there during the 2006-2007 year. Gotta agree with cognac above. Peaceful living, and the rooms are indeed huge. Fairly low rent for the space you get, and the apartments are within walking distance of the downtown area as well as the Dollar Tree store. Parking space on the street was never a problem either (I could always find a spot within the line of sight of my bedroom or kitchen window) since most of the buildings in that area are single family homes. Also, the train tracks rarely produced any noticeable noise. Maintenance response times were also relatively fast, since the team checks and addresses the requests themselves whenever the manager is not there. —PaulAmnuaypayoat
2008-02-14 12:10:39 I lived here in the 2006-2007 school year and my girlfriend lives here now. The rooms are really good sized, the rent is cheap, the management is great (Barbara is the nicest manager ever!) and the maintenance is fast. The only drawbacks are, no dishwashers and the built in furniture differs by apartment. The model unit had built in desks but the unit I moved into (#12) had a built in bookshelf in one room and a built in dresser in the other. No biggie, but make sure you check out what furniture you actually need before moving in. Also, the railroad tracks are literally 10 feet from the parking lot, so if your window is open, the trains can get loud during the day. Then again, my window faces the parking lot. Apartments on the other side of the complex probably have no problem at all. —William.Peacock
2011-02-18 13:33:41 So like everyone said the complex is not that bad. Upsides it is typically not loud, small complex, and neighbors do keep to themselves. However, if you need work done Billy is really slow and sometimes never actually fixes what you need fixed. The manager Barbara is really nice to people but, does not address concerns unless they are beneficial to her and she is rarely onsite. The place is spacious inside, but everything is old and when they replace something with "new stuff" it may not actually include "new". There is built in furniture, but it limits wall space for your own furniture. The noise from side to side apartments is non-existant, but a couple people downstairs say that the up down noise is ridiculous and goes unaddressed by management. I only know that having to go up and down the stairs all the time is annoying especially with groceries and laundry. Oh, they say no dogs, but they only turned away a gay couple with a dog, four people upstairs have them and five people downstairs have dogs so that is a lie, poor gay couple. Oh yeah and the noise and apartment smells lingers in the central courtyard so it is hard to keep the windows open in the summer. Our neighbors have like 8 people living with them so I feel bad for the people downstairs not to mention a bunch of people upstairs have gyms and stairmasters and kids so I assume it gets pretty loud. There is a lot of gossip here too, the manager tells your business to people in the complex, which if you don't want people to know you shouldn't say it to strangers, but still. Overall, it is an ok place to live if you are upstairs, I don't think I'd be in a downstairs unit, but hey it is Davis little attention is given to renters. Laundry is 2.50 for 1 load wash and dry I usually spend $40 a month on it. 1 parking permit per apartment. The pool makes a loud noise sometimes too. Hope this helps future renters! —LindaHT
2011-03-09 07:39:39 I have lived at Pennsylvania Place Apartments for over six years. I have only good things to say about it. I know the property manager, the maintenance person, and the owners by character and to some extent personally. This is not a newer property with fancy exercise equipment. Rather, things are handled in a personal manner, in a prompt and reasonable fashion. It might be what you want. —RichardHennies
2011-03-18 12:50:01 2-bedrooms are $950 for 2010-2011; $850 for one bedroom. Manager is there on Mondays and Thursdays but will come for an appointment anytime. Quiet, small complex. I know for a fact that there are no dogs allowed and no dogs living there. Only cats are OK. —JanKeith
2011-03-18 12:56:13 the rents are $950 for 2bdroom for 2010-0211; one bedrooms are $850. It is a small complex of 28 units and is usually quiet. The most adults in an apartment are 3. I know for a fact that there have never been dogs allowed; and no dogs living there. Cats are ok and there are several, mostly stay inside. Manager Barbara is happy to come for an appointment, but is only there on Mondays and Thursdays. Place in general is well-kept. —JanKeith
2011-06-16 23:06:34 I live in an apartment in J Street and the trains hook together in the morning right outside my window.. It's REALLY loud... I've talked to people who also live on J street but closer to downtown... does anyone who has lived here have anything to say about how loud the train is? I don't mind the sound of it going by.. it's the slamming them together at 8 AM that I can't stand. —KarinaSnapp
2012-05-29 18:31:06 Terrible phone reception on cells here. It's like a cellular black hole, literally. —Wes-P
2012-06-14 21:37:20 My two years interaction with Barbara and the Pennsylvania place management has been most enjoyable. However, Pennsylvania Place was recently put on the real estate market and sold to a commercial apartment real estate organization (Barco). My experience with the new management has really left a bitter taste in my mouth. The new apartment manger "Glen" is somewhat of a schlemiel. I truly believe his new strategy to generate revenue is going to consist of nickel and diming the current residents. I recently moved from Pennsylvania Place and my apartment went under complete renovation shortly after. Glen took upon himself to charge me 15.00 for cleaning. The 15.00 cleaning charge was not the driving force behind this review however. My rant is because of a bogus couch removal charge of 100.00. Glen charged me 100.00 for "removal and disposal" of a couch. The problem I had with this charge was I removed and disposed of the couch myself the day of the move out. Furthermore, no one from the Barco organization notified me of the charge. I found out when I got my deposit in the mail. This new management may conduct significant repairs to the apartment building to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. However, they are going to systematically run the moral of the residents down into the ground.
It is because of this ****I DO NOT RECOMMEND SIGNING A LEASE WITH THIS NEW BARCO AGENCY****
2012-07-05 15:14:35 I've lived at Pennsylvania Place for almost two years. I had a wonderful experience here until the new management (Baco Reality corp) took over. The main appeal, cheap rent, has increased and is now more comparable to other apartments in Davis. On top of this, the new management is absolutely abysmal. Donna, the manager, is very fickle and unapproachable. Due to the July 4th holiday and their lack of communication with residents, I was charged a late fee for rent — I have NEVER payed rent late before and I tried to get them rent early; however, the new management is split between 3 other complexes in Davis and is almost non-existent at Pennsylvania. They were not apologetic about the "secret" (I say secret because it was not made public knowledge) changes and charged me a late fee anyway. Overall, the management is spread too thin and does not adequately take care of their residents. It also doesn't help that the manager has a very abrasive disposition. I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt but they are not doing anything to save face. I would not recommend anyone rent from either University Square, I St, or Pennsylvania Place under the current management. There are far too many places in Davis competing for residents for anyone to have to deal with lousy management. I will still be here another year (tied down to a lease that was signed before the new management took over) and am hoping for a positive change. The reasons why I could tolerate the loud trains and adolescent children running around crying and playing (cheap rent, friendly and helpful management) are gone. I would never recommend renting here at it's current state. —ChanS
2012-07-09 15:20:18 I've lived here for over a year. I completely agree with the unapproachable new managers. I've talked to them twice - once when I saw them around the complex and once when I called about the new windows they were putting in. The first time we barely even received a "Hello," back. The second time they gave me completely wrong information on the phone (I had asked them when the window crew would be coming, and was told later the same day. Turns out they couldn't make it until about a week later). But, they have done an okay job communicating in general - notes left by our apartment doors are common. However, one of the reasons I decided to live here was due to the on site and friendly management. I don't understand why we can't pay rent at our on site office, which is frequented by management anyway? Also, they had new office times posted for our site office as well, but they took them down shortly after, meaning we have to go to a different complex completely to even talk to them in person. I don't even know when their other office is open, since I would have to go over there to find out (their office is at University Square). I don't have enough negative experiences to condemn them, so hopefully things will get better. I do wish they'd kept Kenny (our old manager after Barbara) as our manager though. —Adalwolf
2012-12-06 10:51:35 They have a guy who walks around with a leaf blower. It's extremely loud. Most of the time he's just walking around making noise and kicking up dirt into the air because there aren't any leaves. This goes on for hours. I live nearby and It's hard to get work done when this is going on. —TheLoneConservative
2014-09-18 23:29:49 DO NOT MOVE IN HERE! There is no management. So people are left to do whatever they want. Issue with noise at night? Cops are your only option. There are people across from us who think the common area is their own white trash front yard. We were told we couldn't have anything out front, and yet these people are allowed to have all their trash all over the place. They say no pets but there are cats and dogs. everywhere. And rent is not cheap either. Everyone SLAMS their doors when coming or going. It's completely ridiculous. Complaints about management are completely justified. They just wanna collect your money and won't even call you back if you ask about something. —UnhappyTenant


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And so on and so forth."Yes, I should get it now before all the bottles are gone""No *slaps face* don't be stupid and pay that for a bottle of polish:"Oh look, this one is only $60, quick I should get it now""No, I can totally franken this using red/green colour morphing powder""Hang on, how will I know if I have my franken recipe is just right if I don't have the real thing to compare it too""Just get Fantasy Fire and be satisfied with that""But the collector in me really needs to own a bottle of 230""Imagine if I found a box full of 230's in some garage sale, I could make a squillion dollars"
What do you do when you get your bottle of Clarins 230, you slap it on and compare it to the other polishes you bought (yes you Fantasy Fire) and made (yes you purple franken with red/green pigment) and see what they all look like.
First I tried just Clarins 230 on it's own. This was three coats, which all looked very smooth and even in real life, although in these photos the index finger looks like it got a thicker coat. So pretty and squishy and the red/green sparkle really is to die for.


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It hasn't taken long for the new regime of the Kansas City Chiefs to make an impression.
The Chiefs announced Monday they signed wide receiver Dwayne Bowe and punter Dustin Colquitt to new long-term contracts and placed the franchise tag on left tackle Branden Albert.
All three of the players were due to become free agents.
The moves come less than a week after new Chiefs general manager John Dorsey and coach Andy Reid acquired quarterback Alex Smith from the San Francisco 49ers for their second-round pick in this year's draft and a conditional selection in next year's draft.
The Chiefs had until Monday afternoon to decide whether to franchise any of their free agents, and they wound up placing the tag on Albert, who will make $9.828 million next season.
A former first-round pick, Albert has developed into one of the better left tackles in the league. He made only 11 starts and appeared in 13 games last season because of injuries, but has otherwise offered dependable blindside protection for Chiefs quarterbacks.
"We felt it was in the best interest of the Kansas City Chiefs to place the tag on Branden," Dorsey said in a statement. "We will continue to negotiate with Branden and his agent to reach a deal that is mutually beneficial. We're looking forward to working with Branden in the future."
The decision to franchise Albert was made easier by reaching deals with Bowe and Colquitt.
Bowe managed to catch 59 passes for 801 yards and three touchdowns despite weak quarterback play.
"We're excited to have Dwayne on the roster for the long term," Reid said. "Dwayne's a big, physical receiver who has had success in this league. He is part of the Chiefs family, and it was important to him to remain in Kansas City."
Bowe sent out a tweet Monday with a photo of him on the phone that said: "On vacation till I got the call that changed my life. I wanna thank the Hunt Family & the Chiefs organization."
Financial terms of Bowe's agreement were not immediately available.
"I'm very blessed to be a member of the Kansas City Chiefs," he said in a statement issued by the team. "The Hunt family and the fan base have been very supportive over the years, and I am looking forward to working with John and Coach Reid in the near future. I'm excited to continue my career with the Chiefs and hopefully help this team reach our goals."
The first-round pick of the Chiefs in 2007, Bowe has already become one of the most prolific pass-catchers in franchise history. He's started 82 games over the past six seasons, with 415 catches for 5,728 yards and 39 touchdowns — 15 coming in 2010, when he made the Pro Bowl.
Bowe has been the Chiefs' leading receiver the past four seasons.
His loss would have left the Chiefs desperately thin at wide receiver, where they've already released Steve Breaston and have yet to see much production from Jonathan Baldwin.
Colquitt's new contract is for five years and $18.75 million, making him the highest-paid punter in the league. The Chiefs did not disclose his contract terms.
Colquitt made his first Pro Bowl last season after averaging 46.8 yards per punt.
"John and I knew right away that we'd like to keep Dustin," Reid said. "He's worked hard at his craft and has become one of the best punters in the NFL. He's got a strong leg and the ability to pin opponents deep in their own territory. We are happy we were able to come to an agreement."
Chiefs sign Bowe, Colquitt to new deals
Professional Sports
Kansas State guard Markquis Nowell signs with Raptors
Kansas State star Keyontae Johnson continues his comeback story as NBA Draft pick
From Wichita to KU, and now NBA, Gradey Dick aims to rep Kansas well
Sam McDowell: How Patrick Mahomes has forever changed the game — and his legacy — in Kansas City


text:
Boost.Range |
The library was under way for a long time. Dietmar Kühl originally intended
to submit an array_traits
class template which had most of
the functionality present now, but only for arrays and standard containers.
I believe this was back in 2001 or 2002.
Meanwhile work on algorithms for containers in various contexts showed the need for handling pairs of iterators, and string libraries needed special treatment of character arrays. In the end it made sense to formalize the minimal requirements of these similar concepts. And the results are the Range concepts found in this library.
The term Range was adopted because of paragraph 24.1/7
from the
C++ standard:
Most of the library's algorithmic templates that operate on data structures have interfaces that use ranges. A range is a pair of iterators that designate the beginning and end of the computation. A range [i, i) is an empty range; in general, a range [i, j) refers to the elements in the data structure starting with the one pointed to by i and up to but not including the one pointed to by j. Range [i, j) is valid if and only if j is reachable from i. The result of the application of functions in the library to invalid ranges is undefined.
Special thanks goes to
The concept checks and their documentation was provided by Daniel Walker.
© Copyright Thorsten Ottosen 2008.
Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)


text:
The projector produces no sound even when it is placed in "HDMI" mode using the dedicated app for mobile devices
Make sure that the audio output setting of the HDMI output device (such as a Blu-ray Disc player) connected to the Wireless unit is set to 2ch LPCM. If it is set to a setting other than 2ch LPCM (such as Dolby Digital), no sound is produced.
Alternatively, restarting the projector may fix the issue.


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Vatican slams new book of leaked documents as 'criminal'
The Vatican is threatening to take legal action against those responsible for publishing a new book of leaked internal documents. The book sheds light on power struggles and corruption inside the Holy See and the thinking of its embattled top banker.
Pope Benedict XVI has already appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the "Vatileaks" scandal. It erupted earlier this year with the publication of leaked memos alleging corruption and mismanagement in Holy See affairs and internal squabbles over its efforts to comply with international anti-money-laundering norms.The publication Saturday of "His Holiness" by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, added fuel to the fire, reproducing confidential letters and memos to and from Pope Benedict and his personal secretary which, according to the Vatican, violated the pope's right to privacy.Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement Saturday the book was an "objectively defamatory" work that "clearly assumes characters of a criminal act." He warned the Holy See would get to the bottom of who "stole" the documents, who received them and who published them. He warned the Holy See would seek international cooperation in its quest for justice, presumably with Italian magistrates.The Vatican had already warned of legal action against Nuzzi after he published letters in January from the former second-highest Vatican administrator to the pope. In those letters the administrator begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's US ambassador.Nuzzi, author of Vatican SpA, a 2009 volume laying out shady dealings of the Vatican Bank based on leaked documents, said he was approached by sources inside the Vatican with the trove of new documents. Most of them are of fairly recent vintage and many of them painting the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.Much of the documentation is fairly Italy-centric: about a 2009 scandal over the ex-editor of the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, a previously-unknown dinner between Benedict and Italy's president, and even a 2011 letter from Italy's pre-eminent talk show host Bruno Vespa to the pope enclosing a check for 10,000 euro for his charity work and asking for a private audience in exchange.But there are international leaks as well, including diplomatic cables from Vatican embassies from Jerusalem to Cameroon. Some concern the conclusions of the pope's delegate to the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order. In a memo sent to the pope last autumn he warned that the financial situation of the order, beset by a scandal over its pedophile founder, "while not grave, is serious and pressing."Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the head of the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican Bank, gets significant ink. His private memos to the pope with his take on the Vatican's response to the global financial crisis and how to handle the church's tax exempt status amid Italian government efforts to crack down on tax evasion have also been published.The bank has been trying for some two years to remedy its reputation as a shady tax haven beset by scandals. One of them is the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano and the death of its head, Roberto Calvi, who also helped manage Vatican investments and was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982.In a bid to show it has mended its ways, the Institute for Religious Works this week invited ambassadors from 35 countries in for a tour and a chat with its managing director as part of a new transparency campaign. The tour came on the same day Holy See representatives were in Strasbourg discussing the first draft of a report from a Council of Europe committee on the Vatican's compliance with international norms to fight money laundering and terrorism financing.British Ambassador Nigel Baker, who went on the Institute for Religious Works tour, later blogged that the Vatican's reputation depends on showing that its institutions are transparent. "Plenty still needs to be done. But the Holy See needs to stick to its guns. It is in their interest, and ours," Baker wrote.


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Source: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
ADAMS, MARY ELECTA, educator and poet; b. 10 Nov. 1823 in Westbury, Lower Canada, daughter of Rufus Adams and Maria Hubbard; d. 5 Nov. 1898 in Toronto.
Of New England descent, Mary Electa Adams moved with her family to Adamsville (Acton), Upper Canada, when she was two years old. There she grew up, receiving tuition from her parents before starting her formal schooling in 1840 in her mother's home town, Montpelier, Vt. A year later she transferred to the Cobourg Ladies' Seminary in Upper Canada and stayed as a teacher after acquiring her diploma of mistress of liberal arts. Adams moved to Toronto in 1847 with the school, henceforth known as the Adelaide Academy, but a year later accepted the position of lady principal of the Picton Academy. Resigning on grounds of ill health in 1850, she then spent four years as a teacher and administrator at the Albion Seminary in Michigan. She returned to British North America in the spring of 1854, and that August took up the position of chief preceptress of the newly established "female branch" of the Wesleyan Academy at Mount Allison in Sackville, N.B. [see Charles Frederick Allison*].
As chief preceptress, Adams occupied the highest administrative office in the school open to a woman. She functioned essentially as a principal even though nominally reporting to Principal Humphrey Pickard*, whose main duties were at the adjoining institution for boys. Women, Adams believed, should be offered a rigorous academic education in a Christian setting and Mount Allison became a testing-ground for these principles. Although she accepted that social convention dictated most educated women would make their contribution to society as wives and mothers, she was impatient with the notion that their education should be limited to "ornamental" subjects of study. "The introduction of the abstruser sciences into a course of study for females," argued an editorial in the Mount Allison Academic Gazette of December 1855 (unsigned, but clearly bearing Adams's imprint), "is of the highest utility." Both in the curriculum of the new institution – which included courses in mathematics, the sciences, Latin language and literature, and moral philosophy, as well as the possibility of studying music and fine arts – and in the advice and example she offered to students, Adams sought to advance the principle that intellectual vigour, artistic achievement, and moral strength should be inseparable as characteristics of the educated woman.
The death of Adams's father in May 1856 led her to contemplate leaving Mount Allison to assist in caring for her ageing mother at her home in Upper Canada. Yet a strong sense of service to "the cause of female education" and to Methodism led her to retain her position for another year. "I dread the idea of living uselessly," she wrote in her journal on 20 July 1856. She did resign in the summer of 1857 to return home but her retirement from her profession lasted only four years. In the autumn of 1861 she became the first principal of the Wesleyan Female College in Hamilton. During her seven years there, despite financial problems faced by the institution and the difficulties of teaching in an imperfectly converted hotel building, Adams established a high academic reputation for the school. Her scholarship and her administrative abilities were, reported Hamilton's Canadian Illustrated News in June 1863, "the life of the institution." Having developed a curriculum based upon her experience at Mount Allison, and possibly influenced also by her visits to women's schools in Great Britain during the summer of 1862, Adams bequeathed to her successor, Samuel Dwight Rice*, in 1868 an institution that would continue to prosper for almost 30 more years.
Following her mother's death in 1868, Adams spent two years in Italy, travelling with her sister and professional colleague Augusta Minerva. On their return to Ontario, they settled in Cobourg, and in 1872 opened the Brookhurst Academy for female students on a site close to Victoria College. Started with the intention, as Adams reflected in her journal eight years later, "of having only an advanced class of students and such as may seek university privileges," Brookhurst functioned in close cooperation with Victoria. Brookhurst students attended classes at Victoria, and in 1877 Mary Crossen became the first such student to have her diploma of mistress of English literature jointly awarded by the two institutions. Financial difficulties caused the closure of Brookhurst in the spring of 1880, before Adams could realize her ambition of seeing women graduate from Victoria with full academic degrees. Mount Allison, drawing on the tradition she had established, had graduated its first woman, Grace Annie Lockhart, in 1875. None the less, Nathanael Burwash*, later president of Victoria, would praise Adams's pioneering work at Brookhurst as "the first step towards the opening to the daughters of the Province of all the privileges of a full university course."
The last 12 years of Adams's professional career were spent as lady principal of the Ontario Ladies' College in Whitby. Despite her disappointment at having to accept employment at a school that she had regarded as a major competitor of Brookhurst, and despite early disputes with the president, John James Hare, to whom she reported, Adams strove at Whitby to advance her characteristic principles of systematic and rigorous instruction in a Christian environment. When she retired in 1892 she was almost 70 years of age, but nevertheless she spent her remaining years assisting Augusta and their nephew Lucius Coleman in establishing cattle ranches at Morley (Alta) and on the nearby Red Deer River. She died in late 1898, while visiting relatives in Toronto.
During her life Mary Electa Adams had been a determined and effective advocate of academic education for women. A painter and poet in her leisure time, she exemplified that combination of trained intellect and creative artistry which, always in the context of her Methodist faith, she endeavoured to foster in her students. Her efforts bore fruit not only in their effect on individual students but also in advancing the general cause of women's education in New Brunswick, in Ontario, and in British North America as a whole.
An original water-colour by Mary Electa Adams as well as poems written in her journal are at Mount Allison Univ. Arch. (Sackville, N.B.), E. M. Pomeroy papers, box 11 (M. E. Adams material). A collection of her poems, From distant shores, was published in 1898 in Toronto.
Victoria Univ. Library (Toronto), Helena Coleman ms coll. Mount Allison Academic Gazette (Sackville), nos.3 (June 1854)–7 (1857). Canadian Illustrated News (Hamilton, [Ont.]), 27 June 1863. Christian Guardian, 16, 30 Nov. 1898. Globe, 7 Nov. 1898. Nathanael Burwash, The history of Victoria College (Toronto, 1927). J. G. Reid, Mount Allison University: a history, to 1963 (2v., Toronto, 1984). E. [M.] Pomeroy, "Mary Electa Adams: a pioneer educator," OH, 41 (1949): 107–17. J. G. Reid, "The education of women at Mount Allison, 1854–1914," Acadiensis (Fredericton), 12 (1982–83), no.2: 3–33. Marion Royce, "A landmark in Victorian education for young ladies," Improving College and Univ. Teaching (Corvallis, Oreg.), 23 (1975): 9–11.
© 1990–2024 University of Toronto/Université Laval
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John G. Reid, "ADAMS, MARY ELECTA," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 24, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/adams_mary_electa_12E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
Permalink: | http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/adams_mary_electa_12E.html |
Author of Article: | John G. Reid |
Title of Article: | ADAMS, MARY ELECTA |
Publication Name: | Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12 |
Publisher: | University of Toronto/Université Laval |
Year of publication: | 1990 |
Year of revision: | 1990 |
Access Date: | February 24, 2024 |


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Hours of Operation
Banks are open weekdays from 9 or 10 am to 6 or 7 pm, with some extending their business hours to coordinate with late-night shopping. Some banks are closed Monday mornings.
Apotheken (pharmacies) are open weekdays from 8 or 9 to 5:30 or 6. There are always pharmacies on call during the weekend.
Most shops are open on Monday 1–6, Tuesday–Saturday 9–6. Thursday is a late-night shopping night—Koopavond (buying evening)—with stores staying open until 9. Markten (markets) selling fruit, flowers, and other wares run from 10 to 4 or sometimes 5. Small avondwinkels or nachtwinkels (late-night shops) selling food, wine, and toiletries, are open from afternoon to midnight or later. Most supermarkets are open daily from 7:30 or 8 am until 10 pm.


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Ford Racing's BOSS 302S, Built on the Production Line and Ready to Race in 2011 - VIDEO ENHANCED
DEARBORN, MI - December 9, 2010 *– It has been 'The Year of the Boss.' This past year has seen the return of the Mustang BOSS 302R to track at Daytona and the unveiling of the 2012 BOSS 302 production Mustang, and now Ford Racing announces the latest addition to its line of turn-key ready to race Mustangs – the BOSS 302S.
Building on the successful race history of the BOSS302, Ford Racing is providing Mustang enthusiasts an affordable way to road race with the introduction of the Mustang BOSS 302S. The limited production BOSS 302S will be the third competition car in Ford Motor Company's history to be built at a Ford production facility and made available for racers to purchase through authorized Ford Racing dealers. The Mustang FR500S was the first race car built on a modern Ford production line followed by the NHRA legal FR500CJ, a.k.a. 'Cobra Jet.'
"Ford Racing is excited to add an additional turn-key ready to race car to our stable, which includes the highly successful FR500C, FR500S, BOSS 302R and Cobra Jet," said Mark Wilson, Engineering Manager Ford Racing. "The enthusiasts who purchase the BOSS 302S will be competitive in both the World Challenge GTS and the NASA American Iron Series. We look forward to adding their names to the BOSS 302's racing history."
The 440-hp Ford Mustang BOSS 302S was developed by Ford Racing engineers, and will be built at Auto Alliance International (AAI) assembly plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, the home of the Mustang. It is based on the street legal 2012 Mustang BOSS 302. The Mustang BOSS 302S is powered by a Boss 5.0-liter 4-valve Ti-VCT V-8 engine and includes a 6-speed transmission sourced directly from the BOSS 302 parts bin. Power is transferred to the rear wheels via a T2 Torsen differential and 3.73 gears. The BOSS 302S suspension features two-way adjustable coil-over dampers and Ford Racing anti-roll bars in both the front and rear.
The BOSS 302S uni-body starts as a Mustang body-in-white, to reduce weight, the factory seam sealer, sound deadener and interior panels are deleted prior to body build. In addition to body reinforcement, a 6 point FIA legal roll cage is installed for driver safety and chassis rigidity. The interior features a RECARO HANS Pro-Racer lightweight race seat, 6-point safety belt, quick release steering wheel and AIM data acquisition system with GPS.
BOSS 302S aerodynamic updates include a unique fiberglass heat extracting hood, adjustable front splitter and adjustable carbon fiber rear wing. A "retro" styled BOSS 302 graphics package is included with each car and mimics the graphics from the original 1969 BOSS 302 program.
Production is scheduled the second quarter of 2011 and orders are now being taken at Ford dealers that participate in the Ford Racing Performance Parts program by ordering part number FR500-B302S (performance white paint) or M-FR500-B302SO (orange paint). MSRP for the BOSS 302S is $79,000.00.
Click PLAY to watch the 2012 Mustang Boss 302 promo video
Click PLAY to watch the 2012 Mustang Boss 302


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EDS, the computer arm of the British government, has banned its staff from using Instant Messenger products in the workplace. It cites security concerns, especially over virus transmissions.
A memo to staff from EDS' security compliance unit leaked to The Register describes "use of Instant Messenger (IM) products through the Internet" as a "risk to Client EDS' infrastructure and network".
The company will block access to public Internet instant message sites at its firewalls from tomorrow (May 8).
Security staff can make exceptions to the rule but the policy means that from tomorrow EDS staff will be unable to use popular IM products such as AOL, ICQ and Yahoo!
Gateway AV tools or managed services providers can be used to block infectious emails before they reach end users, but instant messages go directly to workstations - so skipping a layer of defence.
IM is convenient but it can create holes into an organisation. Instant messaging attacks have become a common method of propagation in recent viral outbreaks, and (as CERT warned back in March) a tool for social engineering, including tricking users into running malicious software (potentially DDoS attack tools) on their machines.
Neil Barrett, technical director of security consultancy firm IRM, said IM products are "implicitly clandestine" and make the exchange of files easier - something likely to be frowned on by security-conscious organisations.
EDS is not noted for its lightness of touch with staff - and it hasn't always been so cosy with the UK government. In 1986, the company was found out ordering staff, American nationals, to lie to British immigration officials. The staff were told to say they were coming to the UK on holiday, when in reality, their real purpose was to work. That cost EDS one measly UK government contract - or, to be precise, the chance to bid for one contract. ®


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Written and Directed by: John Russo
Starring: Debbie Rochon, Grant Cramer, John Mowood, Karl Hardman, and Marilyn Eastman
Reviewed by: Brett G.
His Slay Bells Are Ringing!
Poor John Russo--not only is the guy often overlooked for his contributions to Night of the Living Dead, but his legacy in general is seemingly tarnished by much of his work since then. Sure, he helped to usher in Return of the Living Dead (which, lets face it, is every bit as essential as a zombie film), but hes also known as the guy who unleashed the much-reviled 30th Anniversary edition of Romeros original film. Hes dropped other bombs along the way, one of which was Santa Claws, a mid-90s killer-Santa movie thats really equal parts slasher and softcore porn, and wholly terrifying for all the wrong reasons.
As a child, Wayne was often given sleeping pills by his step-father, just to ensure the creepy old man would have plenty of alone time with Waynes mom. One Christmas Eve, the visions of sugar plums are apparently too much for him to handle, as he decides to murder his parents. Years later, he grows up to be obsessed with a famous Scream Queen (Rochon), who is currently going through a rough patch with her husband. Ever the opportunist, the deranged Wayne offers to help her out, and even takes the extra step of killing off everyone associated with her, including her greasy producers and fellow scream queens.
A steaming lump of coal if there ever was one, Santa Claws is fairly wretched and unentertaining once the absurdity wears off (which happens very quickly). Theres a moment in the film where Rochons character describes her movies as an excuse for guys to see naked girls. This, of course, mirrors exactly whats going on in Santa Claws itself; itd perhaps be a clever meta-fictional moment if the movie werent so obviously terrible, even in this regard. Sure, theres plenty of skin involved, and were obviously the last place to complain about that, but one can only handle so many cheesy erotic photo-shoots that are just there to pad an already thin runtime. These scenes are often awkwardly inter-cut with more serious (okay, as serious as this movie can get) scenes, and the girls involved seem to be as bored as I was while watching them.
So, the movie at least delivers one of Joe Bob Briggss three essential Bs (breasts, and plenty of them), but what about blood? Precious little, which is a shame, because this awful cast (which actually features a couple NOTLD alums) deserves a bloodier and more painful send-off. What we get are some strangulations and plenty of bludgeonings via a garden claw (hence the films pun-ishingly cheesy title); its a pretty dry affair, with some kills even taking place off-screen (the cardinal sin for any crappy slasher movie). This is probably fitting since our killer, Wayne, is a goofy, Norman Bates-wannabe bastard who spouts wooden dialogue at his Debbie Rochon bust and pictures of his mom. To make matters worse, hes only decked out in full Santa garb a couple of times, so the movie even fails woefully as a killer Santa movie. Dont worry though--theres some bad Christmas folk tunes thrown in to keep your spirits bright.
The film cant really boast anything in lieu of the missing slasher tropes. Theres precious little atmosphere or suspense, and almost all of the humor falls flat. There is, of course, plenty of poor acting. When Troma vet Rochon is the films best hope, you can imagine what kind of hands youre in. Thats not a knock on her--shes expectedly lovely in her own charming, B-movie way, but thats about all that can be said for the cast. Horror fans will recognize Bill Hinzmans name as the films cinematographer--he was the first zombie that ever shambled his way through the infamous graveyard in Romeros film. This movie suggests that he probably shouldnt have quit his day job, as theres not much to say about his effort here--it looks as cheap as youd expect, though thats an indictment of the production values as a whole.
Fans will also see a lot of posters and memorabilia for Russos past efforts strewn throughout--its almost as if he put as much effort into promoting those works as he put into the film itself. At any rate, Ei Independent Cinema and Shock-O-Rama thought Santa Claws was worthy of a 10th Anniversary DVD, which is proof that just about anything is possible. When you unwrap the package, youll find a video transfer thats just a step above VHS, though the stereo soundtrack fares better. Special features include outtakes, interviews with Rochon and Hinzman, and a full-color booklet with liner notes. However, theres only one way to enjoy this one, and thats by laughing all the way as you Trash it!
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Paul Hammant's Blog: Continuous Delivery: Professionals vs. Amateurs
A Quote about Professionals vs. Amateurs
"Amateurs [musicians] practice until they can get it right; professionals practice until they can't get it wrong"
This witty and motivational aphorism was said to have popularized by Harold Craxton, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Where a performance becomes automatic for the performer through practice, and where repeated performance has value, then there could well be a transition from amateur to professional for the performer. It fits music very well of course, given the nature of the sequence of notes, that are a song, and the need to not miss even one. Practice, specifically, was the take away if you missed it.
Continuous Delivery?
It seems to me that the saying fits releasing software to production too. If you're dropping code into production, as FaceBook do, multiple times a week, and you're not scared by it, then your release group is professional. Your team has pushed through amateur to get to that professional place through practice. It's not just practice though; One huge key to your success towards that goal was automation. Your individuals, were they to follow a checklist to get the software into production would never qualify for the professional status of the aphorism. By automating the deployment via scripts held under Source-Control (whether a human click was needed for the actual deployment or not), the team is able to repeatedly deploy successfully. Sure there will be mistakes made during deployments. Indeed, there will be occasionally when a release has to be abandoned, or rolled back. Here's the catch though, the release team is professional (through practice) with that too.
Facilitating such professionalism
The release engineers:
- get to practice deployments outside of the actual go-live cycle
- as #1, but for rollbacks
- have at least one non-live environment that's configured the same as live (for practicing in)
- have release scripts under source control too
- have contrived scenarios where a release is nobbled deliberately to test the team
- are comfortable with flipping toggles in a running stack
Actually, the last two also apply to support engineers. It is where someone outside the team does something like secretly yank an ethernet cable, or something more subtle in software, and monitors the reactions and problem solving of the team.
The exact opposite of that professional practice?
Things will go wrong in production pushes and how the organization reacts is key. It was common practice before Agile, and is still makes sense to a certain type of manager, but the 'safety' from adding more managers, or more checklists after a botched go-live is alluring. The correct reaction to a failed go-live is to ask for root cause, and what can be done to automate through the same issue for the next time. It is counter intuitive for that type of manager or stakeholder, but they have to push towards the automation and practice. That will result in the outcomes they want - successful go-lives every day (or more).
Tracking the origin of the "Professionals vs. Amateurs" quote
For forty years Craxton (1885 - 1971) was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. I like to imagine him guiding many students that he oversaw with this aphorism. It could be that he was the first to say it, but did not claim it when he used it. That certainly makes sense if he used it to motivate students. That said, A A Owen, who studied with Craxton for three years, does not remember him saying it once. You'd imagine a great professor would say it to a prodigy or would have said it to a third-party at least once in his presence.
Nigel Rees is a British broadcaster and author who's issued a "QUOTE … UNQUOTE" newsletter since 1992. There is also book spinoff That is where I first encountered his work - various entertaining titles found their way into Christmas stockings and consequentially became well thumbed light reading matter in family homes, if you know what I mean. Before the newsletter, there was (and still is) a radio programme with the panel-game format. It started in 1976 and is in it's 48th season now. Nigel has been collecting quotes for a long time. In April 1994 (Vol. 3, No 2), "QUOTE … UNQUOTE" contained the first internet-visible Craxton citation for the quote. What Nigel Rees emailed, when I queried the Craxton entry:
I think I must have been sent this by a listener to my radio show but I don't think I have used it on the show. It was very definitely "quoted by" rather than "originated by" Harold Craxton.
There's also a single reference for US composer Milton Babbitt for the same quote, but I think that's a mistake. Babbitt wrote dozens of books and had many quotes, but that was not one. "Unknown" is what it seems is penciled in for author of the quote, for now.
[Aug 2013] "Quote Investigator" drilled into it quite a bit with a similar lack of singular author.
One last thought
Jez Humble is the ThoughtWorker who wrote the Continuous Delivery book with former ThoughtWorker Dave Farley. Stuff I say here, shouldn't stop you from reading that definitive tome.
Feb 22, 2013: This article was syndicated by DZone


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HOUSTON – With Deshaun Watson out, Tyrod Taylor's steady play and veteran leadership helped the Houston Texans open the season with a surprising lopsided victory.
Taylor threw for 291 yards and two touchdowns in the Texans' 37-21 win Sunday over Trevor Lawrence and the mistake-prone Jacksonville Jaguars.
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"We expected to win," new coach David Culley said. "We're not surprised simply because we played good football."
Taylor took over at quarterback for Houston with Watson's future with the team uncertain after 22 women filed lawsuits alleging sexual assault or harassment after he requested a trade.
"It was fun," Taylor said. "It was never about me. It was about coming out and doing whatever it takes to help the team win."
Expectations for the Texans were low entering this season with Watson out and star defensive end J.J. Watt gone to Arizona. But Taylor and Houston's revamped running game were more than enough to handle a Jaguars team that didn't look much better than it was last season when it got just one win despite the addition of top overall pick Lawrence.
"We don't care if you doubt us. ... We don't really care all," Houston running back Mark Ingram said. "We all believe in each other. We all have faith in each other. We all hold each other accountable. We believe we have what we need in order to have success."
Lawrence, the former Clemson standout, became the first rookie quarterback to start an opener in franchise history. It was a bumpy debut during which he threw for 332 yards and three touchdowns but also tossed three interceptions, often overthrew open receivers and was the victim of several drops.
It was also the NFL debut for Jaguars coach Urban Meyer, who lost the first season opener of his head coaching career after entering the game having won 17 straight openers as a college coach.
"I love Trevor and we all do," Meyer said. "Trevor is just going to get better and better and better. Offensive football is about 11 guys doing their job."
Meyer's streak was halted by another coach making his NFL head coaching debut in Culley, a 65-year-old who spent decades as an assistant in the league before being hired by the Texans.
Brandin Cooks had 132 yards receiving and Ingram had 85 yards rushing and a TD in his Houston debut.
Ingram gave Houston an early lead with a 1-yard run that made it 7-0 with about seven minutes left in the first quarter.
Josh Lambo missed a 55-yard field goal on Jacksonville's second possession.
The Texans pushed the lead to 14-0 when Taylor connected with David Johnson on 7-yard TD later in the first.
Lawrence put together a nice drive on the next possession and capped it with a 22-yard touchdown pass to Chris Manhertz to cut the lead to 14-7 early in the second quarter.
The Texans led 17-7 later in the second when Lawrence was intercepted by Justin Reid. But Houston couldn't move the ball and had to punt four plays later.
Jacksonville's next drive was a mess, with a penalty for having 12 men on the field on second down before Lawrence was picked off again. Vernon Hargreaves ran the interception back 18 yards to give Houston the ball at the Jacksonville 7.
Meyer was most disappointed in his team's 10 penalties.
"It's inexcusable," he said. "Three preseason games, you'd think we'd have that fixed. So that's something that I would guesstimate you wouldn't see again."
The Texans cashed in on the miscue with a 26-yard field goal to extend the lead to 20-7 with about a minute left in the first half.
Jacksonville had to punt after three straight incompletions by Lawrence, and the Texans took advantage of their last possession of the half.
Taylor connected with Cooks on a 52-yard completion on third down and found Danny Amendola for an 8-yard score on the next play to give Houston a 27-7 lead at halftime.
The Texans pushed their advantage to 34-7 when Ingram took a direct snap and handed it off to Phillip Lindsay, who scampered 5 yards for a touchdown with about 3½ minutes left in the third.
DJ Chark Jr.'s 41-yard reception from Lawrence later in the third cut the lead to 34-14.
Lawrence's third touchdown pass came on a 4-yard throw to Marvin Jones in the game's final seconds.
Texans defensive tackle Vincent Taylor was carted off the field with an injury with about 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Culley said he didn't have any information on his injury and would know more Monday.
New defensive coordinator Lovie Smith's focus on takeaways paid off in the opener. Houston's three interceptions Sunday matched the number the team had all last season.
Jaguars: Host the Denver Broncos next Sunday.
Texans: Visit the Cleveland Browns next Sunday.
More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL


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Humanomics serves as an interdisciplinary program to teach and research a humanistic science of economics. Economics and the humanities are often perceived as fundamentally disconnected. Economics asks why Homo sapiens is the most prosperous species in the history of the planet, but the tools of the discipline are inadequate to account for the wide range of human motives. In economics the human predicates of feeling, wanting, thinking, and knowing have been boiled down to the single motivation of naked "self-interest." What does prosperity have to do with justice, courage, faith, hope, and love? The answer in economics is, "That's for the humanities to ponder."
The humanities do ponder such virtues, and prudence, too. The humanities give voice to feeling and artistic shape to experience. Exploring human stories and ideas helps us make meaning of our lives. Meaning is as much a part of the scientific evidence in economics as is behavior, and, of course, meaning influences behavior itself. Through the Humanities, through literature and film, philosophy and history, we can come to better understand ourselves as human beings, broadening our perspectives of the world as we move beyond the boundaries of our own lives and culture, asking "What does it mean to be human?" And quite fundamentally "being human" includes Homo sapiens' unique propensity to specialize, to exchange, to create markets, the latter of which is often viewed skeptically from the humanities. Humanomics grew out of a desire to explore economics through the lens of the humanities and humanity through the lens of economics.


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This article is more than 1 year old
DHS working on pocket puke-ray
'Light-sabre' to battle alien hordes
The US Department of Homeland Security is working on a torch-like "light-sabre" weapon, designed to leave aliens (illegal ones, that is) stumbling and puking helplessly.
S&T Snapshots, an inhouse journal of the DHS Science and Technology arm, reports that the S&T Directorate's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) office has a contract with Intelligent Optical Systems, a small Californian company. Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov, leading lights of Intelligent Optical, are developing the regurge-rapier tech for DHS.
"There are often confrontations at border crossings with suspected illegal aliens or drug runners," Lieberman told S&T Snapshots. "You don't want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody. With this," he said - apparently with a smile, no doubt a rather sinister one. "They don't need to know English to comply."
The plan is that riot-boffins from Pennsylvania State University's Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology, will try the vomit-dazzle beam out on volunteers this autumn. Hopefully they'll do it on a tiled floor, or put down some plastic sheet or something.
"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," chortled Lieberman, worryingly. "Vlad calls it the evil color."
Good old Vlad. What a card.
S&T Snapshots fed-scribes write that: "The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the cuffs... "
Provided the lawmen didn't slip in the pools of vomit, anyway - or wander into any, erm, projectiles. It's no picnic in the DHS, clearly.
At the moment the sick-sabre module is a bit on the tubby side, at four inches thick and over a foot long. Lieberman and Rubtsov hope to get it down to Mag-lite torch/truncheon* dimensions soon - though there is also talk of a "wide-angle" bazooka-sized device, capable of "immobilising a mob".
This latter option sounds almost too awful to contemplate: hundreds of hapless would-be migrants floundering in a self-generated chunky lake. This type of heavy chunder-cannon ordnance is also under investigation by the US armed forces, as it happens. They want to mount it on a flying robot, naturally.
Still, fearful as the disco hurl-gun may be, its effects could be marginally less unpleasant than being clubbed, shot, or electrified into submission. And it could be relatively easy to circumvent, too.
If, as S&T Snapshots suggests, the chunder-cutlass "could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents, and National Guardsmen" by 2010, we might see big uptake of mirrorshades among the huddled masses. ®
*You didn't think plods carried those things just to light stuff up, did you?


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theHunter Classic Forums - Privacy policy
Privacy policy
Last Updated: March 28, 2018
Expansive Worlds AB, trading as Avalanche Studios, a Swedish corporation, with registered and business offices at Västgötagatan 5, S-11827 Stockholm, Sweden ("Avalanche Studios"), is the data controller. Avalanche Studios respects your privacy and provides you with this Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") so that you understand the ways in which we do and do not use the personal data you transmit when accessing and using the theHunter Classic Forum (hereinafter the "Forum").
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA AS DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS OR PLAY THE Forum.
Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to personal data submitted and collected online through or in relation to the Forum and Forum platforms, and does not apply to personal data that may be collected by Avalanche Studios or its affiliates offline.
To provide the Forum, we will share your personal data with some or all of the following third parties depending on how you use the Forum:
A) The personal data processors, which will process personal data on Avalanche Studio's behalf ("Third Party Processor(s)"):
- Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, for storing and processing personal data; and/or
- Indo-Pacific Technology Co., Ltd doing business as Scandinavian Staffing Ltd., 29 My An 5, 550000 Da Nang, Vietnam for customer support services.
B)To provide sales and marketing services ("Sales Service Provider(s)"):
- Mad Mimi by GoDaddy Operating Company, LLC.
No one under the age of 16 should send any personal data about himself/herself through the Forum to Avalanche Studios without the permission of his/her parent or guardian. We believe it is important to safeguard the privacy of children and encourage parents to regularly monitor their children's use of online activities. If you are a parent and believe that your child under the age of 16 has accessed and/or played the Forum and provided personal data to us, please contact us at [email protected] or the mailing address at the end of this Privacy Policy and we will work to delete that account and any such personal data.
Personal data that Avalanche Studios collects
In order to access and play the Forum you must create an account on the Forum's web page or on the Platform Service Provider(s) platform that hosts the Forum. To create an account, you are required to provide certain mandatory personal data such as your name, your email address and account login. This is mandatory in order to be able to establish an account.
Legal basis for using personal data related to your technical use
We collect and process this personal data in order to provide you with the best user experience possible and the legal basis for this is legitimate interest.
Avalanche Studios will also collect and process certain personal data when you as an account holder interact with the Forum. The personal data is then derived from your personal profile, the relationships you form in the Forum, the messages you send, the groups you form, the events you set up, the applications you add and the information you transmit through various channels.
Legal basis for using personal data related to your account
We collect and process this personal data in order to provide you with the best user experience and the legal basis for this is legitimate interest.
Avalanche Studios is always looking for ways to improve your experience in the Forum. Avalanche Studios may at times solicit additional personal data to offer new Forums, products and services that may be of interest to you.
Use and Disclosure of Personal Data
When you register an account in the Forum, you create your own profile and privacy settings. Your name, email and profile picture may be displayed to others in the networks, depending on your privacy settings.
Avalanche Studios will from time to time send you Forum related announcements through the general operation of the Forum, including product placements in the Forum. Further, we may occasionally use your name and email address to send you information that we think is of interest to you, including information regarding the Forum, new products and services, updates, campaigns, promotions, faults, issues relating to technical aspects and/or the usability of the Forum and payment methods offered. This includes sales offers and advertising regarding our Forums, products and services and/or business. We may also send out surveys.
Regardless of your setting for email announcements, Avalanche Studios will send you notices about changes to your account.
Generally, the personal data collected by Avalanche Studios will only be used for the particular purpose for which it was collected. However, Avalanche Studios may also transfer, disclose and/or share your personal data with partners, affiliates and other third parties who facilitate the operations of the Forum. These third parties only have access to personal data as needed to perform their work.
In the event of a corporate reorganization (if, for example, all or substantially all of the assets relating to Avalanche Studios are transferred or sold to another entity), personal data submitted to Avalanche Studios will be transferred to the acquiring entity.
Avalanche Studios will also disclose personal data to third parties in order to comply with international, national and regional laws and regulations, in response to requests by law enforcement agencies, to enforce its End User License Agreement, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Avalanche Studios, the Forum and End Users. We will use personal data and records for defense of any lawsuit, investigation or other actions if such personal data, records or profiles are relevant to a lawsuit, investigation or action.
Avalanche Studios will only keep your personal data as long as necessary for the purposes of which the personal data was collected for. This means that we will keep your personal data as long as you have an active account with us. If you have not used your account for more than 36 months, or your account has been terminated by you or us, all personal data will be deleted.
Sharing Your Personal Data with Third Parties
We do not share your contact information with third party marketers without your permission. We only share your personal data with third parties in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) necessary to provide the Forum and related services, 2) where legally required or 3) when permitted by you.
When using the Forum, your personal data will be processed by Third Party Processor(s). We will enter into a data processing agreement prior to sharing your personal data with such Third Party Processor(s). As we are a global company and are using Third Party Processor(s) working outside of the EU/EEA, personal data will be processed in the US and other countries. We are committed to protecting your personal data and where local laws do not provide an adequate level of protection of that data we have signed data processing agreements, and included the EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses as necessary.
You may connect your Forum account to certain connected third party services as available. If you connect your Forum account to such connected services, the Connected Service Provider(s) will process your personal data. The Connected Service Provider(s) may require you to sign up to their own license agreements/user terms, privacy policies or other policies, which may give the Connected Service Provider(s) additional rights or impose additional obligations on you.
We may be required to disclose your personal data and other information pursuant to legal requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants etc. meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with applicable laws, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Forum or misuse of the Forums name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm etc. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies etc.
As many other websites interacting with third party sites, we may receive some personal data or information even if you are logged out from the Forum, or that pertains to non-Forum users, from those sites in conjunction with the technical operation of the system. In cases where Avalanche Studios receives personal data or information on users that are not logged in, or on non-Forum users, we do not attempt to associate it with individual End User accounts and will discard it.
When you use the Forum, certain information you post or share with third parties (e.g., a friend or someone in your social network), such as personal data, comments, messages, photos, videos, or other information, may be shared with other End Users in accordance with the privacy settings you select. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal data in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, or other items, this information may become publicly available.
A cookie is information a website places on your computer so that the website is able to remember your preferences and/or which pages you visited on the website and make your visit more efficient and enjoyable. Avalanche Studios uses cookies to determine the number of unique visitors to the Forum over a given period, or to remember user account details, so that the need for multiple logins is reduced.
Avalanche Studios will combine information collected through cookies with your personal data submitted online when using the Forum, to help personalize your experience when accessing and playing the Forum.
Cookies may be disabled on your computer by indicating this in the preferences or options menu in your browser. Please note, however, that by disabling cookies some features might not work as intended.
Avalanche Studios has taken reasonable steps to ensure that the personal data it collects is secure and that we protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the personal data. Personal data is stored in secure operating environments unavailable to the public and only accessible to authorized employees and contractors. We also have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. However, there is no such thing as perfect security. As a result, although we strive to protect personal data and other information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any personal data or information transmitted to us through or in connection with the Forum, that we store on our systems or that is stored on our service providers' systems.
Avalanche Studios normally keep backup copies relating to the Forum and User Content to enable reversion to a prior version when necessary.
You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal of any User Content, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored such User Content.
Please note that Avalanche Studios may provide links to other Forums and websites that are operated and hosted by third parties who may have their own policies relating to their collection and processing of personal data Those Forums and websites are governed by their own privacy policies, which may be substantially different from Avalanche Studios' policies. Visitors to other Forums and websites are encouraged to review the privacy policies and information collection practices of those websites.
Any improper collection or misuse of User Content, personal data or information provided in the Forum is a violation of the Terms of Service and should be reported to Avalanche Studios at [email protected].
Your Rights in Relation to your Personal Data
You have the right to request access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, right to object and right to data portability. Access and control over most personal data in the Forum is readily available through the profile editing tools on the web page or the gaming platforms. You may modify or delete any or all of your profile data at any time by logging into your account. Your changes will be updated as soon as possible.
If you wish to deactivate your Forum account you may do so in your account settings, either on the web page or the gaming platforms. Removed information may continue to exist in backup copies but will not be generally available. You cannot however remove communications made in the communication features in the Forum, which have been shared with other End Users (for example sending personal messages to another End User).
If you wish to exercise any of your right please contact Avalanche Studios at [email protected] or using the contact details below.
International Data Transfers
Avalanche Studios will collect and process your personal data in accordance with applicable Swedish data protection laws and the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) and any applicable national legislation and/or regulation implementing or made pursuant to it, or replacing, re-enacting or consolidating it (including the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 and any applicable national legislation and/or regulation implementing or made pursuant to it). Avalanche Studios is part of a global organization. For the purposes explained in this Privacy Policy (see section 3, Use & Disclosure of Information, above), Avalanche Studios will transfer and share your personal data to Avalanche Studios group companies (including service providers operating on their behalf) and with other third parties which are located in countries outside the European Union ("EU") and/or the European Economic Area ("EEA") which may not have the same level of data protection laws as those in the country where you are located. Where your personal data is sent to a country outside the EU/EEA that is not subject to an adequacy decision by the EU Commission, your personal data is adequately protected by EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses and/or other transfer mechanism such as the Privacy Shield. A copy of the relevant mechanism can be provided for your review by contacting us at the address indicated in Section 12 below.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to all personal data collected by us or provided by you on and after the Effective Date. This Privacy Policy is subject to change and we may make any changes to this Privacy Policy as we see fit. Avalanche Studios will notify you of material changes by posting them in the Forums, or on the websites etc. You are encouraged to check back and review this Privacy Policy from time to time so that you will always know what personal data is collected how it is used and to whom it is disclosed. Your continued use of the Forum subject to this Privacy Policy will signify your acceptance of Privacy Policy changes.
Governing Law, Disputes
Any dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or in connection with this Privacy Policy, or the breach, termination or invalidity thereof, shall be governed by the law as stated in sections 23-26 of the End User License Agreement and the venue of such dispute resolution shall be as stated in section 23-26 of the End User License Agreement.
If you have any questions, complaints or comments regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact Avalanche Studios at:
Västgötagatan 5
S-11827 Stockholm, Sweden,
Email: [email protected].
You may also contact the Swedish Data Protection Authority if you have any complaint regarding Avalanche Studios processing of your personal data.
Phone: 08-657 61 00
Mail: Datainspektionen, Box 8114, 104 20 Stockholm
Email: [email protected]


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Over the past 8 months or so, I've reviewed several newborn diapers (you can find them all under the newborn diapers heading in my review archive), but I don't have a newborn!
So, how do I do it? Well, those who have been reading for a while know that I do pretty detailed reviews with close up photos of features, and measurements of the diapers. I can't review fit on an actual newborn, nor absorbency, but hopefully I can give you a good idea of how each newborn diaper compares as far as the features and sizing.
I've had to use a stand-in model, since I don't have a newborn of my own:
To compare a cloth diaper's size, I picture my model in a similarly sized disposable diaper.
Either preemie:
or size 1:
I realize though that not everyone knows how disposable diapers fit. Maybe you're a first time expectant mom, maybe you've never used disposables, maybe it's just been a while!
I have not had a very tiny baby or a very large one, but I think I've had one at each end of average! My daughter was born at about 6 1/2 pounds, though that was a grossly inflated weight thanks to all the fluids I had pumped into me during labor. Her true weight was closer to 6 pounds, and she was 21″ long, so rather slender. My son was about 8 pounds and 20.5″, so definitely chubbier!
I thought it might be a little helpful to be able to refer to pictures of real babies in disposables, so you can keep that in mind when viewing newborn cloth diapers, and how they fit on my "model."
Here is my daughter as a newborn, 6-6 1/2 lbs and 21″ in a newborn disposable diaper (notice the diaper still had to be folded down under her umbilical cord.)
Here is my son as a newborn, about 8 lbs, 20.5″ and in a size one disposable diaper (also folded down…newborn diapers fit him better until his cord stump fell off.)
Lastly, just to show that most of the newborn cloth diapers I've been reviewing won't fit a really, really big baby well, here's my son at 3 months old, about 13 pounds and 24.5″ in a size 2 disposable.
I have several more newborn diapers to review for you, so you will see them photographed, measured and pictured on my "model," below him modeling a similar size disposable diaper. Hopefully seeing how disposable diapers fit different size babies will help you picture how each cloth diaper will fit your newborn.
When I have a real model at some point, you will see the same diapers on a baby, at the lowest weight I can manage, and the highest weight I can get the diaper to fit. You'll also hear opinions on the performance and absorbency.
I hope my photo reviews will help the expectant and new moms choose newborn diapers, even though I don't have a baby to try them on yet!


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After cleaning up my project and compiling a tex file 10 times in a row:
rm temp.toc temp.pdf temp.out temp.html temp.aux
xelatex temp.tex # executed 10 times!
I still get bad references with hyperref. In the table of contents, I see the hyperlinks. The page number in the TOC is good. But the reference points to a different page.
I cannot provide a minimal working example, because the problem only occurs with long documents. (There is no point in making a table of contents for a two page article at all.) Upon request, I can upload the whole document, but that might not be necessary.
UPDATE: The problem is still there. I have uploaded the complete example here: https://rapidshare.com/files/1197222879/output.zip - contains all tex files, aux files and the generated final pdf file. Engine is xelatex. I have executed the compilation 10 times but the hyperrefs are still wrong. In the table of contents, when you click on a link that says "page 25" then you are directed to page 23. In other words, the page numbers in the TOC are correct, but the hyperref references are incorrect.
UPDATE: This is a bug. If I use \usepackage[hungarian]{babel}
and \usepackage{hyperref}
together, them the references are wrong. If I remove hungarian babel, then references become good (but then hypenation is wrong, and paragraphs look awful)


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Red Cross Blood Drive
Making an appointment is easy. Go to https://www.givelife.org and enter your email address and date of birth. If you have used the online appointment system before, your information will display for your approval. If you have not used our online system before, you can fill out the form with some basic information that the blood bank will need. Then click the "Continue and View Blood Drives" button. You will see our blood drive. If you went to the site without using the link and don't see our drive enter "caltech" where it asks for the sponsor code. Click the circle to the left of the day you would like your appointment. On the next page, pick a time. Then you will receive an email confirming your appointment.
For more information, contact Christine Boyle at 395-1745 or [email protected]. To donate blood you must be at least 17 years old, weigh 110 lbs. and be in good health.


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Both the committee and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation of the leak, which took the form of an article published Monday by the influential neo-conservative journal, The Weekly Standard. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts characterized the leak as "egregious," noting that it might have compromised "highly classified information" on intelligence sources and methods of collecting information, as well as ongoing investigations. He also said he did not believe the leak came from his committee or its staff. The Pentagon issued an unusual press statement declaring that the leak was "deplorable and may be illegal." The article, "Case Closed," is a summary of a lengthy memo sent to the committee Oct. 27 by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. He had been asked by the senators to provide support for his assertion in a closed hearing last July that US intelligence agencies had established a long-standing operational link between the al-Qaeda terrorist group and Baghdad. That, and similar assertions by senior Bush officials before the war, have long been considered questionable, more so after the war when the administration – as with its prewar contentions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – failed to come up with evidence to back its case. Investigative reporters and Iraq war critics have accused Feith's office of having manipulated or "cherry-picked" the intelligence on Iraq's purported ties to al-Qaeda and WMD programs before the war to persuade Bush and the public that Saddam posed a serious threat to the United States. The leaked memo consists mainly of 50 excerpts culled from raw intelligence reports by four US intelligence agencies about alleged al-Qaeda-Iraqi contacts from 1990 to 2003. Some of the reports include brief analysis, but most cite accounts by unnamed sources, such as "a contact with good access," "a well placed source," "a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer," a "regular and reliable source," "sensitive CIA reporting," and "a foreign government service." Although the article's author, Weekly Standard correspondent Stephen Hayes, concludes that much of the evidence is "detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources," the only example of real corroboration is with respect to several reports regarding contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraqi agents in Afghanistan in 1999. Most of the excerpts deal instead with alleged meetings or less direct contacts in which sources claim that al-Qaeda agents are requesting certain kinds of assistance, such as a safe haven, training or, in one case, WMD. While supporters of the war in Iraq, such as the New York Times' William Safire, have jumped on the Hayes' article as proof of what the administration had alleged, retired intelligence officers have criticized it, both because of the security breach of the leak itself and because its contents are anything but "conclusive" of an operational relationship. W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post the article amounted to a "listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship." At the same time, he added, it raises the question: "If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?" Other retired officers stressed that, to the extent that virtually all of the excerpts consist of raw intelligence unvetted by professional analysts, the article appeared to prove precisely what critics had been saying: Feith's office simply picked those items in raw intelligence that tended to confirm their preexisting views that a relationship must have existed, without subjecting the evidence to the kind of rigorous analysis that intelligence agencies would apply. "This is made to dazzle the eyes of the not terribly educated," Greg Thielmann, a veteran of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) who retired in 2002, told IPS. "It begs the question, 'Is this the best they can do'? If you're going to expose this stuff, you'd better have something more than this," he said, adding, "My inclination is to interpret this as probably a very good example of cherry-picking and the selective use of intelligence that was so obvious in the lead-up to the war." Melvin Goodman, a former top CIA analyst, said the leak is a sign of desperation. "To me, they had to leak something like this, because the neo-conservatives (in the administration) have nothing to stand on." "They're trying to get the idea out there that, 'Hey, there was a case for war', and they have 'useful idiots' like Safire who say they're right." The notion that the leak was "friendly" or "authorized" by hawks in the Pentagon or their allies in Vice President Dick Cheney's office – as opposed to an unauthorized leak designed to embarrass the author – is widely accepted here. The Standard, particularly Hayes and executive editor William Kristol, have acted as a mouthpiece for administration hawks like Feith, his immediate boss, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and their friends in Cheney's office, particularly his powerful chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, since even before the administration's "war on terror," declared after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. But at the same time it raises serious questions about the judgment of those responsible for the leak. Not only does the intelligence contained in the article fall embarrassingly short of "closing the case" on Iraq-al-Qaeda links, the leak itself of such highly classified material might fuel the impression that the neo-conservatives, if they were indeed the source, are willing to sacrifice the country's secrets to retain power. "It shows a cavalier and almost contemptuous regard for the national security rationale for keeping information classified," according to Thielmann. "The objective of silencing the critics is so overwhelming that you have to throw national security secrets to the wind." Both he and Goodman noted striking similarities between this latest case and the leak last July of the identity of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer. Wilson had just embarrassed the administration by disclosing his trip on behalf of the CIA to Niger to check out a report that Iraq had bought uranium "yellowcake." He charged that Bush's assertion about the yellowcake in his 2003 State of the Union address was false and that the White House knew it or should have known it at the time. The evident purpose of the leak to columnist Robert Novak was to discredit Wilson by suggesting that his mission to Niger was suggested by his wife. In fact, the leak provoked enormous anger in the intelligence community as a major security breach that effectively ended Plame's career as a covert officer, and potentially endangered her life and those of people who had worked with her abroad. The FBI is currently running a criminal investigation on the matter. "It's obvious that if you cared about the real national security interests of this country, you wouldn't reveal an asset," said Goodman. "That shows this is a venal and desperate group who are not considering the real national-security interests of this country." Jim Lobe is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service. He can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com Other Recent Articles by Jim Lobe
Murder of UN Worker Spotlights Resurgence of Taliban * Brave Face Belies Administration's Panic * One Meal a Day for Most Palestinians * Relaxed US Rules Fuelled Toxic ''Ghost Ships'' * Rumsfeld Takes More Friendly Fire * Hawks Fleeing the Coop: Does the Departure of a Recent Pentagon Hawk Foreshadow a Policy Shift? * "What's Gonna Happen With Feith?" * Postwar Casualties Rise Amid Disarray in US Plans * Bush Stance on Syria Hit Shows Neocons Still Hold Sway * US Dominates Arms Sales to Third World * Sharp Increase in US Military Aid to Latin America * Is the Neocon Agenda for Pax Americana Losing Steam? |


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Few months back I purchased a second hand tripod.
Later on I noticed that the head (which holds the camera) of the tripod doesn't move freely.
I mean I have to apply some pressure to make it move left and right, and even when it moves left/right it jumps some fixed x degrees, i.e I can't make it move x+1 degree, it moves straightaway to x+5 degrees.
I don't know whether this is normal or not, but this is very annoying.
Is there a way that I can fix it? Perhaps by oiling at some right spots?