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WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he respected consideration to lift the ban on women serving in combat roles, though a fellow Republican expressed concerns.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was said to be lifting a ban on women soldiers serving in combat. Women in recent years have served on the front lines as helicopter pilots and emergency healthcare professionals.
McCain, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he respected Panetta's position.
"Many (women) have made the ultimate sacrifice and our nation owes them a deep debt of gratitude," he said in a statement.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., serving on the same committee, said he didn't believe there would be a significant combat role for women in the armed services because of physical barriers.
McCain expressed similar concerns, saying it was "critical" for defense leaders to hold women to the same performance benchmarks as men serving in a similar capacity.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D- N.Y., also on the armed service committee, said the Defense Department's expected decision was a step in the right direction as women seek to advance their military careers.
"This decision finally opens the door for more qualified women to excel in our military and advance their careers and obtain all of the benefits they have earned," she said in a statement.

subset: commoncrawl


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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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Ruday , my scores aren't showing for anyone but me , remember ]:, ?
Well i can only speak to my name. I don't know what RFF has. I'm playing with the same group of people i have played with for years. It was hard to get registered and I played alone the first week. Then my invitation from her came so I joined them. Had i not been personanally invited I would play alone. That was a decision I made last year. I will always play alone unless I get a personal invitation. :t-up:
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"As I take over this program, I'm looking for something that's never been done before," […] "Frankly, there's very little left. It's intimidating, but it's also challenging."
"Southern Miss is special, from the time I worked here, it has held a special place in my heart. It's a place where I am convinced you can always be successful."
"I want to take Southern Miss to a BCS bowl game and win it."


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Eve Beres brauchte ein neues Website Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 28 Designs von 11 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
I am a boutique high end interior design firm that wants a sophisticated, sexy steamlined website. A website that showcases my work in a timeless, elegant manner and one that generates new business. http://www.barbarabarry.com, -This is my ulimate, favorite website and designer! http://www.victoriahagan.com- I like the simplicity and elegance of this site.
I want a beautiful, simple-yet-elegant website that is easy to navigate and one that showcases my work in a beautiful way. I want clients to feel comfortable navigating through the site, because of the ease of how it is set up. I want it to be beautiful and one that I can point people to, to get an idea of the style of work I am capable of.
Simplicity, Beauty, Light colors-Taupes, Seaglass, Celedon, White.
Logo, and simple font (or the same as my corporate package). Pictures fading in and out.
Lots of text, clutter, too much information.Bright colors, complex navigation scheme.


text:
- Read about the grammar rule.
- Play the two grammar games to help you practise.
- Print the reference card, activity sheet and test for more practice.
- Remember to leave a comment!
Grammar Rule
I will be a teacher.
He'll travel around the world.
You won't have any problems.
We can use 'will' or ''ll' to talk about the future and make future predictions. For the negative, we can say 'will not' or 'won't'.
I'll live in a big house when I'm older.
She will have lots of pets.
Children won't go to school in the future.
We will not drive normal cars.
Be careful!
The main verb is without 'to'.
My friend will be a vet to help animals.
I won't forget my friends when I grow up.
We say... We don't say...
People will drive flying cars in the future. (NOT People will to drive flying cars in the future.)
I won't live at home when I go to university. (NOT I willn't live at home when I go to university.)
My father won't be happy when he sees this broken window! (NOT My father won't to be happy when he sees this broken window!)
PinkTambourine90 replied on Singapore Permalink
This exercise is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Anyone could do this.
WowPlasticGigan... replied on Vietnam Permalink
it is easy
BronzeGoldJellyfish replied on Russia Permalink
LadySlugRock replied on Azerbaijan Permalink
FierceQuartz2 replied on China Permalink
I like the second game the best. It's interesting and exciting.
FierceQuartz2 replied on China Permalink
It's so easy. Ten out of ten. :) Woohoo.
CyclingClubMonday replied on Vietnam Permalink
so cool!
FierceQuartz2 replied on China Permalink
Do you think the questions are easy?
StrongSapphireP... replied on Mexico Permalink
TurquoiseBirdBubble replied on Mexico Permalink
They were good games for practise the english use of "will".


text:
aaggarwa necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 180 diseños de 53 diseñadores freelance.
Riley Grace
Riley Grace is an up and coming singer/songwriter with a rock edge who is about to launch her new album and take the world by storm. Think metallica meets fionna apple meets the twilight movies series. Riley is a strong and powerful singer with a good mix of strength and vulnerability. We have attached an mp3 track so you can get a better idea of the artists genre.
Our target audience is a young and edgy music lover. The typical fan will be from the ages 15 - 30 year old and will appeal to both men and women. Also a typical fan would be the type of person who is also a fan of the Twilight and Underworld movies series.
A logo is required for the artists name "Riley Grace". This will be applied on the web page as well should be able to stand on it's own.
To keep it simple I have listed some keywords that represent what we are and aren't looking for:
- Seductive
- Elegant
- Forbidden
- Mystical
- Velvet accent colors (burgundy, forest green - look at attached screenshot )
- Gothic
- Scary/Freightning
- Evil
Examples -
In terms of examples, we like the general look of the Twilight movie series, Underworld movie series, Interview with a Vampire, and True Blood HBO series. These all have a certain dark edge to it but also very elegant and sophisticated at the same time. Also, a little bit of the Bram Stoker's Dracula, but less evil and bloody. The logo should have elements of all of these without being a copy. Needs to be original and really stand out from the crowd
Attached -
1. Listen to the mp3 track for better sense of music genre
2. Look at images attached of the artist - forbidden forest look.
3. Screenshot of homepage attached - Logo must fit with the general look of this page and will be placed above navigation bar.
The sky is the limit, Go nuts who knows. We might like it. Just keep in mind the above mentioned and you should be ok.
Thank you!!
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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The Washington Capitals had two games this week against the despised Philadelphia Flyers to try to turn their season around and move into a playoff position.
The final result of those two games: Flyers 4 points, Capitals 1 point.
After blowing a 4-2 lead and losing in OT on Sunday the Capitals went onto Broad Street on Wednesday and promptly laid a big colossal egg for 40 minutes. They were outskated, out hit, out coached, and outscored, 4-1, before staging a furious third period comeback that fell short, and they lost, 6-4.
The optimists will brag about the heart the team showed in coming back in the last frame.
I want to hear NONE of it.
This is the Flyers, the most hated team the Capitals have played since their inception in 1974. Playoff positioning was on the line against a team that plays as dirty as its' smelly city.
And this is the effort you put out for a rabid fan base who has been supporting you with over 200+ straight sellouts?
This entire team, including the coaches, needs to look in the mirror after these two games and collectively figure out where each can improve to make this group of players better than the sum of its parts.
Right now, despite the obvious roster issues on defense, they are still underachieving.
It is unacceptable and it starts with effort.
You cannot play one period in a hockey game and expect to win. In the 6+ periods of this home and home the Capitals played hard in two of them, the first period on Sunday and the last on Wednesday. It wasn't close to good enough against a mediocre, at best, Flyers club.
It is pitiful. There are too many mental mistakes along with the lack of effort.
It is maddening to watch and disappointing considering some of the high end talent on this club.
The entire crew should feel shame.
The overall effort stinks and there is not enough focus and that borders on being unprofessional.
A few more performances like this one and the only thing these guys will need to focus on for mid-April and beyond is tee times at their local country clubs.
The season is getting late and the Caps are on the outside looking in. It's going to take some serious commitment from every guy on this team and the coaching staff to find a way to get on a run to make the post season.
The schedule is really tough, but with poor efforts and the lack of focus seen in the last two games, it doesn't matter who you play, you will likely lose.
They've dug themselves a deep hole with this awful two game set that they gave away to the armpit squad of the Metropolitan Division.
I'm disgusted.
I sure hope the players and coaches are too.
Now excuse me while I go find some Swami Baha records to listen to in an attempt to try and cheer myself up.
One with the universe…
Notes: Today the Caps traded Michal Neuvirth and yesterday's acquisition, Rotislav Klesla, to Buffalo in exchange for goalie Jaroslav Halak… General Manager George McPhee was unable to swing a deal that made sense for defensive help…the best news with all of the trades over the last two days is that the Capitals now have $17+M of salary cap space available for 2014-15.


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The Florida panther, an endangered subspecies of cougar, is a creature of big, wild country. Once it prowled most of our Southeast, but now it's restricted to southwest Florida. There are about 100 left. "This animal is on a collision course with extinction," declared Larry Richardson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on the steaming afternoon of June 21, 2004, as we bounced on a big-wheeled swamp buggy through and past oak hammocks, slash pine, cabbage palm, cypress domes, sloughs, mixed swamps, and sawgrass prairies.
Richardson is the biologist at the 26,400-acre Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, 20 miles east of Naples. It's wild country all right, but "big" only by human standards. An adult male panther requires and defends a hunting territory of something like 130,000 acres; a female, 50,000.
Panthers also use nearby tracts of wild land such as the Everglades, Big Cypress National Preserve, Corkscrew Swamp, and Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. But even this isn't enough for recovery, and there are few if any regions of the United States where privately owned wild land is being more rapidly developed.
In southwest Florida nothing stands in the way of a developer—certainly not federal law. If a developer proposes to destroy wetlands in panther country and has not demonstrated proper "avoidance" or "minimization" or offered reasonable "mitigation," the FWS can ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the dredge-and-fill permit. On rare occasions the FWS asks; never does the Corps deny. When Fish and Wildlife finds that a project will jeopardize an endangered or threatened species, it must issue a "jeopardy opinion," which means the project can't happen unless the developer implements "reasonable and prudent alternatives." The last jeopardy opinion the FWS issued for panthers was in 1994.
Two adult male panthers and two females, one with four kittens, had been passing through the refuge, but my chances of seeing one were nil. In 15 years here, Richardson has seen only three panthers he hasn't gone after with dogs or radio-telemetry equipment. Florida panthers closely resemble their western cousins in behavior and appearance, but they're smaller and darker, with longer legs and larger nostrils. They are widely perceived as semimythical; in fact, as recently as the 1970s there was serious debate in the scientific community about whether they still existed.
But panthers are just a little part of what makes panther country so special. They're an "umbrella species." That is, you can't have them without having most everything else. In a clearing, Richardson switched off the engine, and we sipped Gatorade beneath a massive live oak where a butterfly orchid, one of 43 species in the area, was in full bloom. A pileated woodpecker swooped up into the same tree. A ruby-throated hummingbird perched on one of its branches. Great-crested flycatchers shouted all around us. Earlier, we had flushed a barred owl; later, a red-shouldered hawk, a swallow-tailed kite, a limpkin, a doe and her fawn, and a Florida softshell turtle. The refuge supports crested caracaras, sandhill cranes, bald eagles, wood storks, snail kites, all wading birds native to south Florida, river otters, Big Cypress fox squirrels, eastern indigo snakes, and other rarely seen creatures, many on state or federal protection lists.
Panthers live in what's called the "western Everglades," an apt name when you consider that all the ill-planned, unregulated development that's now costing Americans $8.2 billion in restoration funds in the eastern Everglades is under way here. "People don't realize that panther habitat produces their groundwater," said Richardson, pointing out that the invasion of cabbage palms in the past 30 years is the result of water-table depletion.
"We know how to save panthers. The problem is convincing the public we need to. This cat has to have habitat. If it doesn't, we're going to keep spending millions on a remnant population. And for what? To look at them in a zoo?"
"We know how to save panthers," he continued. "The problem is convincing the public we need to. This cat has to have habitat. If it doesn't, we're going to keep spending millions on a remnant population. And for what? To look at them in a zoo?" Ten years ago FWS biologist Andy Eller coauthored a habitat-acquisition plan for an additional 370,000 acres. It might have cost $50 million—not much compared with the billions earmarked for the eastern Everglades. The Clinton administration sat on its hands; the Bush administration said no.
Eller showed me the rest of panther country from a Cessna 172. From Naples we flew north past Bonita Springs and Fort Myers—over rock mines and sprawling new developments in various stages, from raw dirt wounds to swaths of fresh asphalt and cement. Many were named for what they are destroying—for example, 584-acre Wildcat Run, 196-acre Southern Marsh, 239-acre Cypress Creek, 1,797-acre Hawk's Haven, 1,000-acre The Habitat, and 1,928-acre Winding Cypress. When Eller reviewed this last project, he determined that the Corps of Engineers had misclassified 370 acres of wetlands as uplands. But the developer complained to his superiors. "I was ordered to back off under threat of insubordination," Eller says. Just since 2000 the FWS has issued 20 biological opinions that have permitted major destruction of panther habitat. About 16,000 acres were destroyed or degraded in 11 of these projects; losses in the remaining 9 weren't calculated.
Eller says he was told to rewrite his biological opinion for Winding Cypress with a "positive" spin and that, when he refused, it was rewritten for him. Recently, when he has set out to write jeopardy opinions, he says he's been told that it's Bush administration policy that they don't get written for any species. Eller's real trouble began after June 25, 2002, the day The Washington Post quoted him as calling the nonenforcement of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act "heinous." His work before that had always been lauded with good performance reviews; it even earned him a major award from the Collier County Audubon Society. After June 25, 2002, however, he metamorphosed into a slacker, at least according to his superiors. Eller was taken off panthers, placed on a "performance improvement plan," and suspended for five days, allegedly for being late with a biological opinion. "They backdated the start of consultation and gave me roughly 60 days to do what normally takes 135 days," he says.
In January 2004 he was suspended for 14 days, allegedly for being discourteous to a developer's consultant who, according to written testimony by other biologists, had a reputation for being "difficult" and "demanding," and had even threatened a libel suit. According to FWS documents written before anyone could have talked to Eller about the complaint, Eller was said to have been guilty of "verbal abuse," and the consultant had been given an apology for his "actions." But Eller is fighting back. On May 4, 2004, he and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a joint complaint under the Data Quality Act of 2000, which requires federal agencies to ensure and maximize "the quality, objectivity and integrity of information" on which they base management. On July 13, Eller was informed in writing that he would be terminated within 30 days.
Half an hour into our flight the wounds faded and we banked east into agricultural land, mostly orange groves. The conservation strategy by which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission jointly manage panthers assumes that they avoid agricultural lands; therefore no compensation is required when developers convert them to malls, golf courses, and housing units. ("We can make more money growing Yankees," the farmers like to say.) But panthers depend heavily on ag lands. The conservation strategy, based on daytime telemetry data from the early 1990s, assumes that panthers are restricted to forests. But panthers are nocturnal; they bed down in forests to avoid daytime heat, then range broadly through open country at night. The conservation strategy is a developer's dream, reducing compensation by throwing out not just ag lands but forest patches smaller than two square miles. It even throws out forest patches of any size more than 90 meters from another forest, based on the ludicrous fiction that cat behavior doesn't change after sunset. There is no "academic disagreement" here. The scientific community is virtually unanimous in condemning the conservation strategy as a prescription for panther extinction. Yet politicians and developers parade it around, propping it up by the waist, arms, shoulders, and neck, as if it were Leonid Brezhnev.
At length the orange groves gave way to cattle range—open grasslands interspersed with clumps of live oaks and cabbage palms, far more valuable to panthers. But the conservation strategy also absolves developers of providing any compensation when they hack this up. The conservation strategy defines cattle range as "avoided habitat," a term developers quickly seize upon. But it's "avoided" only by day.
From cattle range we swung south over the Big Cypress National Preserve, wet woods of dwarf cypress with taller trees on scattered domes. At Route 75—"Alligator Alley"—Eller pointed out a panther "undercrossing." Highways are probably the second biggest source of panther mortality, after the cats themselves, which kill other cats in defense of shrinking territories.
The underpasses have helped. So has habitat acquisition by the state. But what has made panther recovery biologically feasible is the injection of genes from eight Texas females released in 1995 into a population so inbred that extinction seemed imminent. At the time most Florida panthers had low sperm counts, deformed sperm, poor sperm motility, undescended testicles, cowlicks, heart problems, and right crooks at the tips of their tails. Today the cats have none of those defects. They're bigger and more vigorous. Now when biologists tree them with hounds, they don't crouch and snarl; they leap wildly from tree to tree. In nine years the population has more than doubled. The conservation strategy considers everything in Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades south of Route 75 "marginal habitat," but now almost half the panther population occurs there. Before development isolated them, Florida panthers exchanged genes with Texas cats, so "gene-pool pollution" isn't a concern.
Panthers are just a little part of what makes panther country so special. They're an "umbrella species." That is, you can't have them without having most everything else.
"Genetic restoration is an enormous success story that hasn't been told," remarks Jane Comiskey of the University of Tennessee, one of the scientists appointed by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1999 to a nine-person team charged with drafting a new conservation strategy. "This is at a time when only 9 percent of endangered species are showing improvement and usually for reasons not related to intervention." The fact that panther recovery is now feasible biologically, and isn't happening, is precisely what Comiskey, Eller, and Richardson find so maddening.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service is stonewalling," Comiskey told me. Before her team's 12th and last meeting, in August 2002, Comiskey learned through the grapevine that the service had dropped a chapter she had coauthored with famed biologist and panther tracker Roy McBride. The chapter (which offered an alternative view to that of David Maehr, the state's former panther leader on whose research the FWS based its panther-recovery effort) was reinstated after Comiskey threatened to inform peer reviewers about the censorship. But she says the team report now before the public does not include the definition of habitat members agreed to, includes material added by the FWS without the team's consent, and is rife with contradictory statements and uncritical references to Maehr's work. 'They're trying to call it a 'team strategy,' " says Comiskey.
The peer reviewers' comments on the team's draft document, which have been available for almost two years, confirm the main points Comiskey, McBride, and other team members had made about the research on which the recovery effort is based. But the FWS, which seems more interested in protecting itself than panthers, won't allow the team to include the comments.
An independent scientific panel convened by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the FWS to vet existing panther literature dismissed the recovery effort as a failure, using words like "untenable, "egregious," "inexcusable," and "bad science" to describe Maehr's research, and noting that he had deleted key data that would have undermined his assertions. (When I asked Maehr about this charge, he said: "We left out animals from the Everglades because we felt this wasn't good panther habitat. At no time has there been intent to go around something by excluding data to get an answer we were looking for.") In the final editing of the panel's report, released in December 2003, "bad science" was dropped, and "particularly egregious conclusions" became "particularly unsound conclusions." But the central message survived. Maehr, himself a member of the team on which Comiskey served, offers this defense: "Much of the research that has been criticized was done in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time when personal computers were just beginning their rise (i.e., no one in the Naples office of the [Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission] had a computer assigned personally to them)."
Still, even before Maehr left the commission, there had been "issues about how he handled data," reports Tom Logan, his supervisor at the time. "Obviously those issues have persisted in some of the reviews of his work." Maehr's research for the commission and the conservation strategy it spawned made him especially attractive to developers engaged in destroying panther habitat. Immediately on leaving the commission, he signed on with a consulting outfit.
One of his first assignments was Florida Gulf Coast University, to which real estate and agribusiness mogul Ben Hill Griffin III of Alico Inc. had arranged a donation of 760 acres, thereby vastly increasing the value of the company's 11,000 nearby acres. Eller helped draft a jeopardy opinion. But when Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) forwarded the FWS a letter from Griffin's lobbyist, and when Maehr wrote a letter of support for the developer, Eller's superiors rejected the draft, changing the opinion to "no jeopardy." Now, instead of panthers, the area supports two megamalls, a sports arena, the Ben Hill Griffin Parkway, and three sprawling residential communities with so many golf links the institution—which specializes in, of all things, environmental education—is waggishly called Florida Golf Course University.
In 1999 Eller and his colleagues determined that a three-mile extension of Daniels Road into the Fort Myers airport would destroy or degrade 1,540 acres of panther habitat. The biologists agreed not to write a jeopardy opinion if Lee County would protect just 250 acres of habitat. The county vowed to offer no compensation beyond the 69 acres the water management district had already required it to protect as wetlands mitigation. It then got senators Connie Mack (R-FL), Bob Graham, and Slade Gorton (R-WA), plus Representative Porter Goss (R-FL), to write letters to then FWS director Jamie Clark. Consulting for the county and using his discredited research, Maehr proclaimed that only the 69 acres of mitigation was necessary to offset the 1,540-acre loss. Accordingly, the FWS reduced its compensation demands to 94 acres.
By 2001 there were an estimated 78 panthers in Florida. In that year, misquoting the 1989 statement of one of its contracted biologists, the FWS stated that 50 cats were needed for a "minimum population," whatever that meant. The way the FWS saw it, this meant they had 28 extra animals. "No one who understood cats would ever say such a thing, especially when we only had 16 breeding females," Eller told me. "But I was ordered to write this into the biological opinion for a new terminal at the [Fort Myers] airport." Later the state's lead panther biologist, Darrell Land, informed me that the FWS's south Florida field supervisor, Jay Slack, has personally advanced this "absurd" argument to him.When I asked Slack about this, he said he doesn't recall saying such a thing.
Floridians have come far since 1885, when they authorized a $5 bounty for each panther scalp. Now they support protection by purchasing Florida panther license plates. A professional hockey team has taken the name of this erstwhile varmint. The Florida Advisory Council on Environmental Education reports that 91 percent of people it polled want to "save the Florida panther from extinction."
Now instead of panthers, the area supports two megamalls, a sports arena, the Ben Hill Griffin Parkway, and three sprawling residential communities with golf links.
Just about everyone inside and outside the state loves Florida panthers. Until, of course, they interfere with business; then they're suddenly friendless. Florida panthers aren't just smaller than their western cousins; they're shyer. They don't attack humans, or at least they haven't in recorded history. Yet when a mother and her two kittens were spotted early in 2004 near Pinecrest, the business council of the Miccosukee Indians demanded their removal. As of late June business council chairman Billy Cypress had written 10 voluminous screeds to the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and even the governor, with copies to sundry politicians. "Our children are afraid to go outside and may become traumatized," he has proclaimed. The cats threaten nothing save, perhaps, business opportunities in the unlikely event that the FWS enforces the law. At this writing, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the FWS have obediently tranquilized and relocated one of the kittens—about five months before it would have ceased depending on its mother. Eller, Richardson, and Land are furious, and they agree there's little chance the kitten can survive on its own.
Now that the Florida panther is genetically healthy, the only thing it needs is habitat. Managers have long agreed that real recovery can't happen unless they establish three separate, viable populations in the species' historic range. They had hoped that one of these populations would be in Arkansas. In that state the FWS has identified four enormous blocks of prime habitat—one in the Ozark Mountains, one in the Ouachita Mountains, and two in the southern flatlands. But when panther managers approached the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, they were told to forget it. "Deer hunting is really big in Arkansas," explains Land.
Panther managers also had hoped to establish a separate, viable population in north Florida. So as an experiment, they placed 19 sterilized Texas cats on the Osceola National Forest in 1988 and 1993. The public was outraged. A father held his daughter in front of TV cameras and gushed about how he hoped to preserve her from being eaten. Deer hunters ranted to an insatiable press, and one, who had drenched himself with doe scent, reported that a panther had looked at him hungrily. Protesters held an anti-panther rally, formed an anti-panther organization called Not-in-My-Backyard. At least two cats were shot; one died in a snare. Finally, the state evacuated the survivors, eventually turning them over to a Fort Lauderdale man who sold them across the country. Nine died in transit, and one wound up on a caged "hunting" preserve.
Basically, it comes down to this: Popularity doesn't count for much if you're a Florida panther who doesn't skate. The nation has rallied to the cause of this beautiful and elusive cat, this icon of the Southeast's remnant wild. The vast majority of Americans favor recovery. They just want it done with someone else's money "somewhere else."
Ted Williams reported on the Florida panther's western cousin in "The Lion's Silent Return," Audubon, November 1994
Join Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge (www.floridapanther.org) and the Florida Panther Society (www.panthersociety.org/panther.html). Educate yourself about panther issues on the same website and by logging on to the state's panther website (www.panther.state.fl.us). Tax-deductible contributions to panther recovery may be sent to the Wildlife Foundation of Florida, Box 11010, Tallahassee, FL 32302. Endorse checks to "Florida Panther Fund."


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If I missed this info in another thread feel free to point to it, I've been browsing and reading for several hours today and haven't come across these answers. But learned a ton of other stuff in the search! :-)
I'm working on a MIDI router device that bridges several "5-pin DINs" (via serial UARTs) to the "USB device port" and the "USB host ports via 4 port hub".
I was hoping to get some feedback on optimizing the softserial library when only MIDI messages are needed to be transmitted (Tx'ed). I edited the Softserial library removing as much RX code as possible, but still leaving return values as if the input buffer is empty. The program creates 8 softserial objects using the same Input pin and they seem to be working fine. FYI There are a total of 14 MIDI outputs, the first 6 of which are using UART serial ports.
Question: does each instantiated object create its own interrupt timer to manage the outbound pulse train? At what cost w.r.t. starving other interrupt threads? Maybe I'm even asking the wrong question... can somebody describe the theory of operation for the soft serial transmit, and what the pitfalls might be for running eight of them. The warnings are strong but a bit vague on the PJRC website on this matter.
Thanks in advance!


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Greenwich, Massachusetts
|This article is a stub. Help us to expand it by contributing your knowledge. For county and town page guidelines, visit U.S. County Page Content Suggestions.
Greenwich is a town in Massachusetts. It was formed in 1754 and was previously called Quabbin plantation. It can be found in Hampshire county and is a part of the Northampton registry of deed district. Greenwich became part of Hardwick/New Salem/Petersham/Ware, 1938.
For information about the state of Massachusetts see Massachusetts Family History Research.


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For more than 10 years, Symantec (VeriSign)Internet infrastructure enabling key transactions and protecting valuable data. Symantec (VeriSign) SSL Certificates enable secure commerce, communications and interactions by providing encryption and authentication services to Web sites, intranets and extranets.
Symantec (VeriSign) is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Symantec (VeriSign) is the company of choice for over 97% of the world's 100 largest SSL-using banks. The Symantec (VeriSign) seal is viewed up to 250 million times a day on more than 90,000 web sites in 160 countries and in search results on enabled browsers as well as partner shopping sites and product review pages.
Rating exhibitor is made on the basis of five factors: the speed of issuance, the average amount of the guarantee, supported languages, the diversity of the offer and the price level.


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The products include complete ranges for concrete and compaction, such as plate compactors, tandem rollers and concrete vibrators. The transaction includes the production facility in Ruse, Bulgaria, and production assets in Nashik, India, along with sales and service operations worldwide.
Looking for static or submersible dewatering pumps? We have a solution for your needs.
Looking for a reliable and uninterrupted power supply? Find out which generator fits your need.
We offer hydraulic, petrol and pneumatic handheld equipment. You select the power source, we have the tools you need.
Our range of towable air compressors is ready to go, and ready to move – when you are.
Atlas Copco Customer Center's info
3 Bessemer Street
Blacktown, NSW, 2148, Australia
Mailing address :
PO Box 358
3 Bessemer Street
Blacktown, NSW, 2148, Australia


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More about me
Vivek Mehra
I am currently the MD & CEO of SAGE Publications India. But I wear many hats that make me the person I am. Between the (public) professional life and the very deep and private recesses of my brain lies a universe of thoughts, actions and beliefs. These have been shaped by events, people and perhaps Karma. It's this universe I seek to put in words. When everything else failed me professionally, it was the power of my words that not just resurrected a career but brought back life to life. It is with these words that I continue to make a difference with those whose karma connects mine. Sometimes it's direct and most times it's not. But the essence of who I am never changes and I remain a person searching for himself. Update: In 2014 I published my first book on Kindle. It was written in 1999 and it never saw the light of day. Reader input welcome... http://tinyurl.com/7shadesofgrey
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Tag Archives: memories
A New Beginning
As a year (2016) readies to say goodbye it is normal to reminisce and be grateful for many things. It is also the time to look forward and think about what can and will be. I don't want to dwell … Continue reading


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aren't allowed to post what is kind of an owner surrender here I don't think but mods can clarify
here is a good resource for you about re-homing http://www.pbrc.net/adoption/owners.html
is he fixed? if not he should be before being placed - but given the illegal biz not sure how you would go about it there...
you can post on PBRC http://www.pbrc.net/submission.html
you can post I think on petfinder http://www.petfinder.com/
but again the legality really complicates things and I would be careful about how you went about a search for a new home with everything so public these days- needless to say he could not and should not go to a BSL area.
vinny needs a home
Why buy from a breeder when there are plenty of homeless pups in shelters???
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Categories: Grain Sorghum, Specialty/Vegetable, Precision Ag
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If mountain views and hot tubs, cozy fireplaces and sprawling living quarters appeal to you, Asheville has some incredible home rentals for families, couples and holiday-seeking groups. If rustic privacy appeals, you might opt for a family-friendly cottage with magnificent views, outdoor decks, cherished privacy and plenty of room. Or, choose a spacious downtown condo loft with handsome brick features and luxury décor in the heart of Asheville's cosmopolitan city scene.
A year-round destination, Asheville delivers a range of activities for all seasons and interests. Families love summer in and around the city with berry-picking hikes and a short trip to popular Sliding Rock to repeat the plunge into cool mountain water over and over again. Autumn lovers take to the foliage and delightful mountain craft festivals. Just 30 minutes from Asheville, the popular Wolf Ridge Ski Resort delivers hours of winter fun for skiers and snowboarders, weather permitting.
Just off the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway where the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers meet, Asheville is home to America's largest home and the city's most cherished attraction - George W. Vanderbilt's incredible 250-room Biltmore House. You can easily spend a day exploring the historic estate, stunning gardens, winery and village shops and restaurants. You'll find other architectural jewels around the city, from Queen Anne to fabulous Art Deco. The Trolley Tour is a great way to see all of the historic districts as well as the stately Grove Park Inn.
Dining options are as eclectic as the population with every type of chop house and grill, southern-style inn and, wine bar and neighborhood Italian. An insider tip you won't want to miss is the Moose Café. It's located right on the grounds of the Farmer's Market offering reasonable farm fresh meals, southern hospitality, buttermilk fried chicken, and home-made biscuits and apple butter arrive when you do. Throughout the city, you'll enjoy a family-friendly, laid back hospitality.Art galleries and city-wide music performers, unique village shops and specialty boutiques deliver a vibrant cityscape. Combined with the great outdoors, delightful Parkway drives and exceptional mountain golf courses, you'll want to return to Asheville many times over.
We take the mystery out of holiday rentals to provide safe, verified information with credible user reviews and complete details of what to expect. Once you and your family enjoy the comfort of holiday rental stays, you'll rarely want to return to cramped hotel accommodations!


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Jane's Breastfeeding Resources is an information website dedicated to the promotion of breastfeeding. We believe mothers all over the world should have access to informed choices when it comes to feeding their children & to that end we continue to gather that information so our visitors can be best placed to make those choices. We have been running since 1996.
Jane's Breastfeeding Resources is run by Jane, a mother of 3 breastfed children who is a Breastfeeding Supporter & Tutor with the Breastfeeding Network, a registered charity in the UK. She has been helping mothers to breastfeed for over 18 years.
Jane's husband, Garry, designed & runs the website.
Come & join us! We have a Breastfeeding Discussion Forum. If you wish to post or join in the discussions, you will need to register with the Forums. We are always looking for contributors to Jane's Breastfeeding Resources. We love to hear about your experiences of breastfeeding, if you'd like to share them with our visitors & can send us your thoughts, we'd love to hear from you....


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OMG the invitations are beautiful thank you so much Bronwyn. I'm so excited.
Debra + Brett | Gold Coast 22.10.17
The invitations were amazing, everyone who has received them cannot compliment them enough. They love the way it was designed with the 3x cards and some have even kept the invites just to show others. I'm sure when the time comes for whomever to get married they will request the supplier I went through.
We are very pleased with how they turned out, it actually looks better in person then through emails. Far exceeded our expectations on the final product.
We are very happy to have Evergreen recommend Love Notes.
Thank you so much once again for the best wishes and the lovely invitations.
Perry + Nasa | Gold Coast 9.10.17
I've just seen the invites and am so happy!!! For a guy, Ben is actually excited about them as well! Thanks so much for such a beautiful product and awesome service :)
Looking forward to more monumental invites and stationary in the future!
Angie + Ben | New Zealand 07.03.18
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This add-on package allows for three days in the Borders. Although stationed in
, trips will be made to Hawick and the Hawick Heritage Hub (archives), Kelso, Jedburgh, Langholm, and Canonbie. Tours of the battlefields of Melrose Flodden, Solway Moss and Ancrum Moor are also on the itinerary. There will be an opportunity to visit the Borders Family History Society as well.


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Bristol Proms:Jan Lisiecki, A View from all Angles
Pianist Jan Lisiecki performs Chopin and Bach 'from every angle' in Bristol's Georgian theatre
While I was sitting in a packed Royal Albert Hall to hear the last part of Wagner's Ring cycle at the weekend, I wondered why the classical music world ties itself in such knots worrying about dwindling audience.
What had brought this to the forefront of my mind was the advent of the Bristol Proms, a new festival curated by Bristol Old Vic, the Watershed and Universal Music (home of Decca, DG and other record labels), that sets out to make classical music more accessible and shake up stuffy concert conventions. So the season – the first of its kind – includes a choral concert in the dark, a performance by violinist Daniel Hope with specially designed visual and – on the opening night – a recital from pianist Jan Lisiecki simultaneously filmed from an array of angles and broadcast to the Watershed cinema.
A brand new classical music festival is brilliant news and Tom Morris, director of the Old Vic, and Clare Reddington at the Watershed are to be applauded for their courage and invention. Because the Bristol Proms programme not only includes some of the world's best artists – violinist Nicola Benedetti and cellist Guy Johnston appear – there's also a healthy vein of innovation running through the season too.
But in their efforts to tear up the rulebook, I wonder whether the Bristol Proms have forgotten why people go to a concert in the first place, whatever kind of music's on offer: to listen.
I have never, for example, listened to Chopin's Etudes and thought 'what this is missing is a laser display and some dry ice'. But that is precisely what we got during Jan Lisiecki's recital.
Lisiecki is a fire-cracker of a performer – technically meticulous but with a dusting of showmanship which perfectly suited both the theatrical setting and Chopin's heart-on-sleeve Romanticism. The audience lapped it up. And for all Morris's assurances that this was an informal concert, the audience were one of the quietest I've ever been a part of. I think I heard two people cough. Once each. And, thanks to the fact that we were welcome to applaud anywhere, we politely applauded after everything.
The programme for the evening was JS Bach's Partita No. 1 followed by Chopin's 12 Etudes Op 10, Messiaen's La Colombe and Chopin's 12 Etudes, Op. 25 (plus Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor Op. Posth as an encore). Lisiecki was phenomenal in every piece (even battling with a surprisingly out-of-tune piano) – his touch in the Bach was breathtaking, his shaping of in every Etude was masterful and there were touches of humour and, especially in the later Etudes of Op. 25, plenty of fireworks.
While all this was going on, there was a modest laser display taking place in front of Lisiecki, over the audience, and a large screen behind him showing close-up shots of him playing, the piano hammers striking the strings and computer-generated simplified graphics of his movements. The close-ups of him playing and the shots of the piano mechanism were fun and interesting; the laser display distracting and superfluous. His playing was more than enough to keep this audience enrapt.
I am a cheerleader for anything that welcomes more people into classical concerts, but I've yet to be convinced that lasers are key.
The Bristol Proms continues until Saturday 3 August. For more information, visit the Bristol Old Vic website. To read more about the Bristol Proms opening night, click here.
- Article Type: | Blog |


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The Living Room was created to satisfy the needs and comforts of travellers and local Torontonians alike. Windsor Arms' newest restaurant is opened from 7AM until 2AM every day. The restaurant features over 60 local craft drafts and beers including a new menu full of delectable comfort foods. The Living Room also has a premium international wine selection, which is the proud recipient of the Award of Excellence by Wine Spectator for five consecutive years. Interior designer Jacques Dinel of Dinel Designs brought British influence to the restaurant, setting the atmosphere of luxurious comfort. The Living Room is decorated with original print art from the UK and a formal dining area with original Charles Pachter paintings. Furnished with oversized Chesterfields and comfortable leather seating, The Living Room is perfect for conducting your meetings, get togethers or hosting formal dining events. We also have a unique self-pour draft table for your use when reserved for a party of four or more. Our mission is to provide you with exceptional comfort cuisine and service and hope that you will come to make The Living Room a part of your life. 416-971-9666
Open for Online: Bloor-Yorkville Businesses Offer Digital Solutions
While many Bloor-Yorkville businesses have had to close their doors due to COVID-19 in Toronto, the below list includes businesses that are offering alternative services.


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Former Congressional candidate Gary Smith spent the night in jail with charges of stalking a former rival.
Two hand grenades have been found in checked baggage in the past week at Albuquerque's airport.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is suing the NCAA over sanctions imposed over Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
Murder in Rio Arriba County appears to be payback for a stolen PlayStation.
New rule makes it easier for immigrants to gain U.S. citizenship if they have immediate family who are already citizens.
Sandy Hook students return to classes for the first time today at a new school.
Starbucks to sell reusable plastic cups at a dollar apiece and will offer discounts on coffee when customers bring them in.
Israel finally finished their ridiculously huge, nearly impenetrable wall at the border to Egypt.
I would so eat a Cool Ranch Doritos taco.


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Darrell Antwonne Arthur (born March 25, 1988 in Dallas, Texas) is 6'9", 230 lb (100 kg) American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA. He plays the power forward and small forward positions. Arthur played for the University of Kansas in college for two seasons, including the 2007–2008 national championship team. Arthur was originally drafted by the New Orleans Hornets in 2008 but after two trades ended up with the Memphis Grizzlies, with whom he signed on July 8, 2008.
In high school he guided South Oak Cliff High School to back-to-back Texas 4A state titles in 2005 and 2006 and was the tournament's MVP both years. However, it was later determined that the school illegally changed player's grades to keep them eligible and the titles have since been forfeited.
Arthur was a McDonald's All-American in 2006.


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I had an issue with autotest where the tests would just keep running, even when all the tests passed. After doing some searching I found the following code helpful from this post:
Put this in your ~/.autotest, leave out the growl line if you're not using that.
require 'autotest/growl' Autotest.add_hook :initialize do |at| %w{.git vendor rerun.txt}.each {|exception| at.add_exception(exception)} end
When I initially tried this code it didn't work. To figure out why autotest thought it had to keep running I ran the following:
find ./ -cmin -1
This will show you any files that changed in the last minute. I had to add db, log, system and public to the list above. Depending on your configuration you might run into other files or folders that need to be excluded.


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what i made for monday-Reese's stuffed oreos.
This is awesomeness in amazingness covered in heaven.
And easy to make as one two three. And yes, it seems like it might be too much.
But it's not. It. Is. AWESOME.
Double stuff oreos, full size peanut butter cups and Baker's dipping chocolate.
All found at the grocery.
Top with crushed "empty" oreo cookies. Allow to set.
And if you are going to gain weight for the holidays anyway, might as well make it worth it right?
(Idea credit goes to Cookies and Cups)
12 comments:
- Jennifer said...
These are so wrong, but yet somehow oh-so-right! Happy Thanksgiving Week!
- November 21, 2011 at 10:39 AM
- Phyllis said...
Oh my! Two of my favorite things together. Should I? They do look soooo good!
- November 21, 2011 at 12:45 PM
- Amy said...
My husband is going to leave me for you. He already loves the doughnuts. And now this?! ;)
- November 21, 2011 at 1:04 PM
- LibraryGirl62 said...
ummmmm...yes please!!!I am going to make these to take to the college girls!
- November 21, 2011 at 4:50 PM
- sassypackrat said...
Oh yum! Totally stealing this to make for xmas!
- November 21, 2011 at 5:28 PM
- Cora Anne Designs said...
I bought Oreos at the store today (which I never do!) and I totally blame it on seeing your Instagram picture yesterday with the Oreos...behold the power of suggestion!
- November 21, 2011 at 9:18 PM
- Alice Darkling said...
Ohhhhh these look SO GOOD!!! I live in the UK and have not seen tubs of dipping chocolate before... I'm guessing just normal melted choc will do the trick? Will be making these ASAP! Thanks for sharing :)
- November 22, 2011 at 4:27 AM
- Kim said...
Those look... so so good... and I'm pretty sure I can't get *any* of those ingredients in Australia... which is probably for the best. :)
- November 22, 2011 at 5:09 AM
- blueschoolmomma said...
Oh.My.Goodness!!! This made me laugh and my mouth water!! I'll let you know if I try it...*grin*
- November 22, 2011 at 9:02 PM
- .jimaie.marie. said...
I showed these to my husband and I swear you just blew his mind with this crazy goodness. I think I'm going to have to make these for his bday next month- SO CRAZY!!
- November 23, 2011 at 1:37 AM
- Tiffany said...
Whoa!! Can't wait to try this! Headed to the grocery store tomorrow - just for these ingredients! Thank you for sharing!
- November 29, 2011 at 8:03 PM
- Lisa said...
stop! Are you trying to kill me with this goodness? nom nom nom!
- January 18, 2012 at 4:32 PM


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Before you read this, close the door, draw the curtains, and turn out the lights. If you are reading on your laptop, momentarily close the lid.
Now that you are back, think about how it felt. Chances are it was not too disorientating or frightening. After all, you were in a familiar room with a light switch close by.
Now imagine that days earlier there had been a massive earthquake. Thousands are dead. Entire towns have been flattened. Resources are in short supply and something as simple as turning on a light is not an option,
Two years ago, that was the situation in Haiti, following a catastrophic quake. The country's infrastructure, already minimal, was badly affected.
But along with the influx of aid agencies, technologists, engineers and designers all offered their help to Haitians to try and rebuild their homes and their nation. One of them was Andrea Sreshta, who was working toward her master's degree in architecture at Columbia University in New York.
She immediately spotted an area where she could help.
"Lighting was something that seemed a little bit overlooked," she said. So for a class project on designing around disaster, Sreshta teamed up with classmate Anna Stork, who had a background in engineering. Together, they decided to create lighting for the thousands of Haitians living in the so-called "tent cities" that sprang up around the country, particularly on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
"We read stories about how people felt very unsafe at night, especially women and children," says Sreshta. Given Haiti's shaky electricity grid, the two women turned to the idea of solar power. They designed a number of solutions, large and small, but one idea really stuck; a small solar light they called Luminaid.
The idea, like the product itself, couldn't be simpler. Luminaid is an inflatable plastic bag, about the size of a small pillow. In an exterior pocket, Sreshta and Stork fitted a solar cell, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and one single LED. It has one switch, which can be set to off, low and high. Depending on the sunlight, the battery can fully charge in two to three hours. On the low setting, Luminaid can give light for about six hours. On the high setting, it lasts around four hours.
The Luminaid light is also waterproof, meaning that the unit can float. The plastic itself can be printed on, which means instructions can be written directly on to the product itself.
But the Luminaid's distinguishing feature is the handle. When it is inflated, it can be hung or carried easily. Stork explains: "We heard that in the tent cities people really wanted something they could easily take to the latrine at night, so it was very handy to have a handle to carry it around."
There are, of course, other low-cost solar lighting solutions for disaster situations out there. Glowstar makes a solar lantern, while d.light makes a solar flashlight and Nokero a low-cost solar light bulb. But Sreshta and Stork think that Luminaid has certain advantages. For starters, they say, the uninflated lights can be packed, shipped and deployed to affected areas much more efficiently than lanterns or flashlights. Fewer moving parts mean less breakage during transport. Those factors, say Stork and Sreshta, could make the product attractive to NGOs working in disaster areas.
Luminaid has gone through limited field testing. Professors from Columbia took some of the lights to Haiti to get feedback, while Stork and Sreshta themselves went to test the lights in India.
"Kids loved it," says Stork. "We visited a lot of schools and a lot of orphanages. Children were just so excited about the prospect of having their own light to study with."
But the children also provided valuable feedback. They all wanted it to be brighter, Stork says, so she and Sreshta looked at ways to change the positioning of the LED to provide better light without adding an extra bulb. "There's always a balance between keeping the cost really low, and also making it competitive with some of the similar solar lanterns that are out there in terms of its brightness and performance," says Stork.
For example, the pair originally wanted to use a flexible solar panel, but it drove the cost too high, so for now they are using a rigid panel. Stork and Sreshta estimate that, in volume, they can get the cost of each Luminaid unit to below $6. The d.light, in comparison, is around $10.
There are, of course, questions about durability. The lights need to be designed to go into some very difficult situations. Stork and Sreshta say the Luminaid is designed to last, with heavy use, for about two years. And disposal? Well, you would just throw it away.
When I asked them if they worried about used Luminaid lights eventually lining roadsides around the globe as litter, they admitted it was a concern and said they were working on a new design that would incorporate biodegradable plastic.
The team are also looking at ways that the Luminaid can be used in situations beyond natural disasters. With more than a quarter of the world's population without access to electricity, there seems to be plenty of room for a low-cost lighting product like LuminAID. They also don't see any reason why their product could not be sold in outdoor stores, and used by hikers and campers.
Luminaid just completed a funding drive on the crowd funding platform IndieGoGo. The project asked for $10,000, but raised more than $51,000. Taking inspiration from the low-cost computer project One Laptop Per Child's "give one, get one" campaign, they also ran a "give light, get light" campaign – if you bought a LuminAID light for someone in the developing world, you got one for yourself as well.
Individuals in 25 different countries bought lights, and more than 3,000 units were distributed to 10 organisations in Africa and Asia.
Not bad for a student project.
If you would like to comment on this story or have an idea that you would like Clark to investigate, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.


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Subscribe to our e-newsletter mailing list to keep up with NCCCO news and industry headlines.
The following candidate fees are effective for practical exams taken after January 1, 2020.
Get complete instructions on how to apply for and take CCO certification practical exams. The information below is specific to the Mobile Crane Operator program.
The Practical Examination fee for testing on one crane type is $60. For each additional crane type applied for and taken at the same time, the fee is $10. The appropriate fees must be submitted with the practical exam application through the Test Site Coordinator. The same fees apply for retest exams.
Practical Exam Candidate Fees—Mobile Crane Operator:
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Ah Belkin, you want to be the Cheers for home peripherals, don't ya? The new Home Base connects up to four USB devices —printers, external hard drives, etc. — and makes them wirelessly accessible from any computer.
Just plug an Ethernet cord into the Home Base and when you plug any USB device, including gaming consoles, into those nicely aligned ports on the back it will automatically become wireless. You can access an external hard drive over the air and even make a non-wireless printer wireless. It will also work the opposite way: you can back up files from your computer wirelessly to a hard drive that is plugged into the Home Base.
If you think your peripherals need a wireless home you can pick up the Home Base today for $130. [Belkin]


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Continuing resolution could be the least terrible road through election season, some say.
Conservatives hate the idea of the lame duck session so much that many of them are willing to support a six-month continuing budget resolution at a higher spending-level than called for in their sacrosanct Ryan Budget.
"This is conservatives saying that we're willing to vote for the 1047 number," said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Id., in reference to the $1.047 trillion discretionary spending caps set by the Budget Control Act. "This is the number that we all have voted against until now. We're saying that in order to prevent a crisis we are willing to vote for that 1047 number. But let's get to the next year."
As Republicans internally discussed the possibility of voting on a CR to avoid a possible government shutdown before the election, there were questions about whether the most conservative members would come on board.
Labrador, speaking at a press event called Conversations with Conservatives, said that many of his colleagues would support an extension, but only if it was six months. That would fund the government through the lame duck, but wouldn't lock them in to the higher level of spending much beyond that.
"Anybody that would not vote for a long term CR that puts government funding passed the election, passed the lame duck, then their desire is to hold the American people hostage and the hold American government hostage to get their last minute liberal push for bad policy," said Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.
Part of this plan is clearly to get ahead of the Democrats in the blame game for who is most holding the country hostage: "This idea is going to come from the conservatives, because if you listen to the Democrats they're saying it's the tea party conservatives who want us to get to a government shutdown. We don't want that and we're going to do everything we can to prevent that," Labrador said.
The idea, in other words, is basically to skip the lame duck session, so Democrats don't have the ability to go forward with their agenda ahead of a possible Republican-run Washington.
As Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., put it, he' d be willing to support the CR as a trade off for "not having the lame duck session."


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If EA is making another Dead Space — and it's starting to appear that it is — it may be a radical rethink of the sci-fi horror series. Gone may be the dark corridors of space ships and far-flung planetary settlements, replaced by an icy wasteland inhabited by an all-new strain of monster.
Siliconera reports that it has first details on the fiction of Dead Space 3, claiming that the next entry takes place on the planet Tau Volantis. The planet's "white-out blizzard conditions" may trade the blackness of previous Dead Space games for pure white, a new method for keeping the beasts of Visceral Games' horror franchise well hidden from view.
Those beasts, according to Siliconera's mole, are known as "the hive mind" in Dead Space 3.
EA and Visceral are rumoured to be already hard at work on Dead Space 3, but none of this is official yet.
More rumoured details on the story, potentially spoiler-ish, at Siliconera.
Dead Space 3 Takes Place On A Frozen Planet, First Details Inside [Siliconera]


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Commissioners OK paying for part of an initial study on connecting trail to Payne Park
When the Legacy Trail opened in April 2008, then-county commissioner Jon Thaxton ran its length among a delighted crowd "and did four speeches along the way."
For more than a decade, Thaxton and other county commissioners — especially former commissioner David Mills — and numerous other outdoors enthusiasts pushed to get the linear park built on an unused railway from Palmer Ranch to Venice.
Now they are excited to hear the trail may be extended north to Payne Park in Sarasota. "It's one of those assets that define a community," Thaxton said.
This time, though, enthusiasm among the current commissioners for what some call "Legacy Trail 2" is not at the same pitch.
When the Friends of the Legacy Trail recently requested a feasibility study about a northward extension that could cost an estimated $150,000, the commissioners unanimously agreed to pay $75,000 out of a trails fund that comes from sales taxes — but no more.
Trail advocates will have to raise donations to pay for any study expenses that exceed $75,000, the commissioners said.
"There is no question that any extension of the Legacy Trail will be a positive for Sarasota County," County Commissioner Christine Robinson said this week. "But we have to keep an eye on our spending right now."
Despite the economic recovery, the county spent $9 million in reserves last year and will have spent $18 in reserves during the current fiscal year that ends this month, Robinson said.
The county must avoid being the sole source of dollars for any new big-ticket project that could lead to deficit spending, Robinson said.
Although the cost has not been determined, acquiring right-of-way and building a northern extension of the trail will be in the millions.
"If we can leverage our tax dollars with the private sector, that would be a great way to get this expedited," Robinson said.
An unexpected twist
Advocates of the extension are just glad that the commissioners authorized the study, the first step toward making that Sarasota connection a reality. County engineer Jim Harriott said the study is for preliminary work such as title searches, environmental reviews, a conceptual layout and construction cost estimates. In November 2003, the county agreed to partner with the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit organization working under the federal Rails to Trails Act, to acquire the current 12.8-mile corridor from CSX Transportation for $11.75 million. So far, more than $30 million from various sources has been spent on the existing trail — including bridges over Dona Bay and Roberts Bay in Nokomis and an overpass at the U.S. 41 Bypass in Venice, where the trail connects with the Venetian Waterway Park. Creation of the trail took an unexpected twist when numerous landowners along it joined in a lawsuit against the federal government. They claimed that when CSX sold the land to the county and the tracks were removed, it nullified easements for the railway that dated back to 1914. They sued the federal government for compensation for their property — citing the National Trails System Act of 1983, which allows railroads to abandon their unused routes for entities such as local governments to use as recreational trails. A federal judge agreed that the landholders should be compensated for the taking of their properties and that the federal taxpayers should be responsible for damages. Hugh Culverhouse Jr., the developer of Palmer Ranch, has been awarded $3.2 million. At least 48 other property owners are to share in a $6.5 million claim. Another dozen or more claims may still be pending. For the northern extension, the proposed study calls for leaving the railroad tracks intact along those eight-mile easements — which date back to 1911. The county could lease a 40-foot-wide strip within the railroad's right of way, which is generally 100 feet wide, for the trail. That could avoid grounds for another lawsuit against the federal government and the payment of millions in damages. Excited but patient
Mike Gippert of Friends of the Legacy Trail told the county commissioners that the trail "has a lot of community impact and it's all good." Gippert insists the trail is not just for fitness but for socializing. Unlike traveling by car, he said, a trail in which walkers, bikers and others encounter each other provides "an opportunity to have human interchange." An estimated 120,000 people a year use the current trail. That number will rise significantly with the extension, said Mike Lasche of the Sarasota-Manatee group Bicycle Pedestrian Advocates. Compared with the existing trail, "this would run through a lot more neighborhoods," Lasche said. It would also serve as "a long, skinny park" for those neighborhoods, "a place to take your baby for a stroll," Lasche said. "I think commuters would use it particularly because of the link to downtown," he noted. Lasche said the northern extension will also greatly improve safety in the Sarasota area, where pedestrians and bicyclists dread using Tamiami Trail and other roads. With more than 1,040 accidents involving bicyclists and pedestrians reported during the previous six years, Sarasota County ranks among Florida's most dangerous counties to travel by foot or on two wheels. Cyndee Reynolds — co-owner of Real Bikes, a shop near the Legacy Trail in Venice — said bicycling enthusiasts will have no qualms about making the 40-mile round trip. "Most people go about 10 to 15 miles per hour" on a bike, Reynolds said. "I think everybody who rides a bike will like to go the distance." Thaxton said supporters of the extension should not lose their enthusiasm but should remember it can take years to get such a project completed. "I'm excited," Thaxton said. "But I'm patient."


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LPL Financial (LPLA) said early Wednesday that its RIA platform now has $50 billion in assets under custody, nearly doubling its asset base of a year ago.
"The $50 billion milestone caps five years of remarkable growth for our RIA custody business," said Derek Bruton (left), managing director for LPL Financial, in a press release.
LPL's RIA platform was used by 152 firms with $27.1 billion in assets as of March 2012. In late May 2013, 208 firms with $50 billion in assets were doing business on the platform.
"We made a calculated decision to focus on this area back in 2008, based on the anticipated success of the then-new hybrid RIA model, which enables both fee- and commission-based revenue opportunities for advisors who operate under their own RIA firm," Bruton said.
"Our recruitment efforts have been wildly successful, as the number of RIA firms on our platform, and their ability to attract assets, has exploded. We have become the destination of choice for the most successful and sophisticated RIA firms in the industry."
(LPL doesn't disclose the number of advisors on its RIA platform, just the number of firms.)
In early May, for instance, LPL Financial said the Ingham Retirement Group became an affiliate of its broker-dealer and RIA custodial platforms. The Miami-based group has some $1.5 billion in assets under administration ($1.1 billion of which it manages); it includes 12 financial advisors and about 38 other financial profession staff members.
RIA firms on LPL Financial's custodial platform have the highest average assets under custody—at $214 million per RIA firm—compared to the top five largest custodians at $136 million in AUC per firm, as measured by Cerulli Associates in the group's RIA Service Agent Survey 4Q '12.
In addition, LPL says its offers advisors the "only fully integrated trading and rebalancing system" in the custodial space that allows RIA firms to move easily from model management to trading in one consolidated platform.
Breakaway Brokers
RIAs like Ben Marks, president and chief investment officer of Marks Group Wealth Management in the greater Minneapolis area, which oversees about $500 million in assets, say they are pleased with what the platform can do for their business.
"As the first significant wirehouse breakaway team to become a client on the RIA custodial platform … we are delighted to be part of the platform's continued success story," Marks said in a statement. "While the vast majority of our business is fee-based, we find the dual registration to be convenient and seamless for our clients whenever they need to undertake a brokerage transaction."
According to Marks, who formerly worked as an advisor for UBS (UBS), the wealth-management firm he leads has been wrestling with the amount of time and resources it spent on non-client-facing activities, rather than growth. "LPL Financial solves our challenges—from marketing and practice management support, to strategy and turnkey investment management solutions—and frees us to focus on making smart investment decisions for our clients," he said. "As a result, the growth and expansion of our business has happened at a rapid pace that would not have been possible with any other custodial partner."
When it released its first-quarter results in late April, LPL said assets under custody on its independent RIA platform grew 72.3% year over year to $46.7 billion as of March 31.
"Ultimately, success today in the custodial space comes down to providing independent RIA firms with maximum levels of choice, flexibility and integration of services and solutions," Bruton said. "Through our broker-dealer structure, corporate RIA and RIA custodial platform, advisors with LPL Financial seek to grow their business under one seamlessly consolidated technology and service infrastructure."
He says that with capabilities such as retirement plan support, high-net-worth wealth management and business-processing functions (such as LPL's fully integrated trading and rebalancing platform), it can serve "a broader spectrum of large RIA firms with diverse strategic needs than ever before."
Find out where LPL ranked on 12 Best & Worst Broker-Dealers: Q1 Earnings, 2013 on AdvisorOne.


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In 3rd grade, it was the Lisa Frank trapper keeper with the unicorn prancing on a rainbow. 7th grade brought baby tees and pleather mini skirts from Contempo Casuals (thank you, Cher Horowitz). High school was all about, well, anything from Abercrombie + Fitch (for the tourists on 5th Ave, that ship has apparently never sailed).
For better or worse, grade school is tucked safely in our pasts but the annual tradition of back-to-school shopping is one just as predictable as fantasy football and fashion week. There's something about shorter days and that subtle chill in the air that stirs the souls of even the most reserved retail consumers. WE. MUST. SHOP.
Unlike my adolescent self, I've learned — oft the hard way — the difference between a flashy fad (Delia's pink plaid bell bottoms, what what?!) and a trend that's here to stay. It's time to turn up the Black Sabbath and embrace heavy metal. From shiny blazers to silver accessories, metallics are the perfect edgy accent to amp up your existing fall wardrobe. Don't believe me? Check out these key pieces from fashion's brightest stars and what they're looking forward to most this school year.Rock on, kids.


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Vernal,Ut,United States
Member Since:
Aug 29, 2015
Goal Type:
Local Elite
Running Accomplishments:
Freshmen Year- When I started on Uintah I really didn't know how I would do. Ran a 5k or two and then just started running with the team. The older kids really liked me and called me the good freshmen. I then made varsity, which kinda ticked Nathan off but I was happy with it. Time trials I ran like 18 flat. Along with Mason,Connor, and other people. The first few races went really good then I went to the doctor and he told me to get fat because he thought I was too skinny so the second part of my season was pretty crappy. I didn't get to go to state and was ticked because Nathan beat me at region.
Sophomore Year- This was the year that I got that dark Cherokee blood running through me and then I decided to just haul butt the whole season because I was ticked at what happened to me freshman year. The first few meets of cross country and the whole season was great. I was able to go to state and got a low seventeen for 3 miles. And track went better too. Because normally I love cross country more than track. It was a pretty good year for this Cherokee kid.
1600m: 5:08
3200m: 11:05
3 mile: 16:56
5k: 17:41
Half Marathon: 1:15:30
Marathon: 3:01:23
Plank PR: 20:04
Short-Term Running Goals:
Short term goals
Sub 3 hour marathon
Sub 17:00 5k
Qualify for the Boston Marathon 2020
PR in the mile
Long-Term Running Goals:
Long term goals
Run a 50 mile ultra race
Run in all of the World Marathon Majors
Sub 1:13 half
Sub 2:40 marathon
Favorite Blogs:
AM- 10.5 miles on the treadmill. Listened to some more Kobe inspired podcasts this morning. That guy was just driven!
PM- 4 miles on Naples. 8:14 average. Core work and hip mobility afterwards.
You're right about Kobe. His work ethic and drive were incredible.


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Dark Harbor returns in October with a new haunted maze and a motley crew of morbid characters inspired by ghost stories from the Queen Mary's haunted history.
> Photos: Dark Harbor haunted mazes at the Queen Mary
The Dark Harbor haunted event in and around the permanently moored Queen Mary cruise ship in Long Beach will feature six mazes filled with 250 monsters.
I skipped Dark Harbor in 2011 because event organizers offered nothing new, recycling the exact same mazes and themes from the previous year. Since then, Dark Harbor's creative team has doubled the number of monsters in hopes of increasing the scare factor and improving the mazes.
Dark Harbor 2012 adds a new maze with an intriguing Queen Mary theme and a cast of characters that promise to tie the event's back story more tightly to the cruise ship's legend.
The new haunted maze, Deadrise, takes visitors inside a World War II escort ship that helped guide the Queen Mary until a fatal collision in 1942. Trapped in a watery grave, sailors still haunt the sunken escort ship. The Captain, the lead character created for Dark Harbor 2012, still commands his undead sailors.
What follows are my reviews of the five returning Dark Harbor haunted mazes, ordered from best to worst:
The Cage – A confounding yet simple series of black curtains sets the nonlinear ball-of-confusion tone for this caught-in-a-cage maze. You never know where to go or what to expect next. The amazing lighting effects take full advantage of the cavernous space. (Inside the former Spruce Goose dome)
Village of the Damned – Mutated monsters scared me 10 times in a row in this well-themed maze set in a haunted seaside town. The highlight: tarp-covered air walls that pressed against visitors as they pinched through a narrow, pitch-black passageway. (Inside the Queen Mary Seawalk shops)
Submerged – A multilevel sinking-ship maze filled with fantastic water effects, many of them activated by hidden triggers on the floor. Unfortunately, the living monsters (and scares) weren't as plentiful. For me, the Queen Mary swimming pool filled with fog was the most memorable moment of the night. Graceful Gale, a beautiful passenger looking for a dance partner, searches the sinking ship this year as a new key character. (Bow of the Queen Mary)
Hellfire – Lots of long and boring black hallways through the ship's hull with hardly any scares. The lamest maze of the night was saved only by the coolest effect of the evening: the elevated walkway five stories above the "engine room." Half-Hatch Henry, a firefighter crushed in an onboard accident, roams the maze this year as a new key character. (Midship of the Queen Mary)
Containment – The monsters and scares were few and far between in this medical-ward-gone-mad maze. Highlights: The crazy woman in the wheelchair and the old man with the walker left lasting impressions. Samuel the Savage, an inmate found ripped apart in his cell, joins the psycho ward this year as a new key character. (Stern of the Queen Mary)
Dark Harbor 2012 at the Queen Mary runs from 7 p.m. to midnight on October 5-7, 12-14, 18-21, 25-28 and 31.
Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood: Preview | Walking Dead maze | Photos
Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm: Preview | Photos
Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain: Preview | Photos
> Follow the Los Angeles Times Funland theme park blog on Twitter, Facebook and Google+


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Today I'm going to take you on a little tour of our in-progress decorating in our home. I'm making an effort to not be a decorated-in-a-day person for Christmas this year, as I like to keep adding layers each week/day as we get closer to Christmas. We'll display Emma's "artwork" as she creates it, add more fresh greens in a week or two, string more lights when the mood strikes, and just take our time enjoying the process. This year I'm in the mood to do lots of old fashioned homemade crafty projects with Emma (popcorn stringing, gingerbread ornaments, cranberries & oranges, pinecone garlands...) and we'll look forward to working on those little by little each week.
In this little tour, you'll notice a lot of pillows and throws : ) In fact, it might feel like the entire house is decked out - but really, it is just to the credit of pillows. They are the first thing I do each season (along with the tree) and they add instant warmth and coziness. So, in celebration of our first layer of holiday decorating, I'm offering 30% off all Pillows & Throws today. The pillows are perfect for your own home and the throws make great gifts.
We put the lights up right before Thanksgiving (so we could switch them on that night after the feast!) which is why you still see a giant pumpkin and "signs" welcoming everyone to Thanksgiving...
I'm in the mood for big and full greens this year - the more wild, unruly and natural the better. Our tree follows suit, as well.
I love how this 30" frasier fir wreath has taken over the entire door.
Ignore the string of light from the tree straight to the outlet... still rounding up extension cords.
Pillows : Clay Velvet, Large Snowflake Hooked & Leaf Block Print Rectangle
Pillows : Clay Velvet, Large Snowflake Hooked & Leaf Block Print Rectangle
I love this cozy view. This year I have lots of layers of color, not just red. I love the deep green of the "Family Tree" Hooked Pillow, the warm Amber Velvet and the colorful hooked stockings.
Pillows & Throws (Left to Right) : Heathered Grey & Cream Throw, Amber Velvet Pillow, Family Tree Hooked Pillow.
This is my absolute favorite cozy corner in the house. I picked up that tree top at the florists and strung some darling star wire lights on it. It took 3 minutes and makes this little corner sparkle - my kind of christmas decorating.
Pillow : Classic Navajo Embroidered Pillow ($48,
I picked up those red stockings at our favorite local antique store. I'm not sure they are actually old, but I love the long simple lines and old fashioned feel it gives the mantle. I'm sure they would be so simple to make.
Pillows : Hooked Snowflake Lumbar, Clay Velvet, Slate Wreath Block Print
Pillows : Hooked Snowflake Lumbar, Clay Velvet, Slate Wreath Block Print
Paperwhites time!
Again, the power of pillows. Just adding these two Navajo Embroidered Pillows has transformed our room into a cozy Christmasy feeling space.
I love how this little pillow made a very pink girly room into a festive spot.
These gold stars are up all year long, but they feel especially festive this time of year.
Notice, no photos of the floor... covered in toys : )
My office/mudroom gets the a tiny little Starflake Pillow and the whole room feels festive.
Can't wait to make these Nativity cookie cutters. For now, I love that they are my kitchen Nativity set.
Love these twins on our french doors!
(photo from last year)
If you are new here, you can visit this link to see my Christmas Kitchen Tour from last year to see more of our kitchen. It looks similar this year... but just not as clean so I didn't photograph : )
Love these star twinklers.
The tiny tree has moved to the kitchen corner... just love it so much that I move to wherever I am.