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The former Navy SEAL who wrote an unauthorized account of the Osama bin Laden raid also participated in the development of an upcoming video game that features real-world U.S. anti-terrorist tactics, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Matt Bissonnette, who wrote the bestselling book "No Easy Day" under the pen name of Mark Owen, was among two dozen other active and retired special forces members who consulted with Electronic Arts Inc. to help make "Medal of Honor Warfighter" as authentic as possible, these people said. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Military personnel are required to receive authorization to work on such projects to prevent classified information on military tactics, strategies and protocols being made public, officials said.
No such requests were made for the "Warfighter" game, according to Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart and Col. Tim Nye, a spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command that oversees the Navy SEALs.
"In general terms, if any of these … service members signed a nondisclosure agreement, then that agreement would most likely be as binding for an electronic game as it is for a book or movie," said Nye. "Having never played the game, I have no idea if it discloses any classified information or sensitive … tactics, techniques or procedures."
Bissonnette could not be reached for comment. Earlier this month, he was rebuked by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta for writing his detailed account of the May 2011 raid in which Bissonnette and fellow members of SEAL Team Six invaded Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
Jeff Brown, a spokesman for the Redwood City, Calif., game publisher, confirmed that retired and active-duty special forces members, including several SEALs, had worked on the game that is set for release Oct. 23. He said his company, which released a similar version of the game in 2010 called "Medal of Honor," was not required to make sure the consultants had obtained the necessary government clearances to work on the game.
"The Department of Defense has never asked to vet the games or the contribution of veterans and active service members," Brown said.
The use of veteran military experts in developing video games is potentially troublesome because they could inadvertently reveal information that could give enemies a window into actual weapons and their capabilities, how troops maneuver and communicate with one another and the tactics they use in combat situations, said Mike Zyda, founding director of USC's GamePipe Laboratory.
"When soldiers sign an agreement with the government, they have to live up to it," said Zyda, who developed a game called "America's Army" that the U.S. Army used to recruit soldiers when he was a professor of computer science at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate Institute.
But as a practical matter, Zyda said, games typically focus on action sequences that are less likely to reveal military secrets.
"In all of these games, they don't simulate the intelligence infrastructure, which is where most of the classified information sits," he said. "The goal of a game is to be fun and exciting. Some amount of realism is necessary to achieve that, but a lot of [what happens in missions] isn't in games because it's just not that interesting."
"Medal of Honor Warfighter," which was developed at an EA studio in Playa Vista, takes players into combat in Afghanistan and several other true-to-life conflict zones including Somalia, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf and the Philippines. The single-player mode lets players take on the part of a Tier 1 soldier as he navigates through one deadly skirmish after another with his squad in order to track down an underground web of terrorists distributing pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a potent explosive used unsuccessfully in 2001 by Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber." Players are able to choose from an arsenal of weapons used in real-world combat and select from a range of authentic military tactics to defeat their enemies.
Devoted players of the highly competitive military shooter genre, which generates well over $1 billion in sales each year from such franchises as "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor," judge games by their levels of realism and accuracy — at least for the combat scenes. With powerful game consoles, developers are more than ever able to deliver on those fronts.
Some game technologies are so advanced that they are also being used by the military to train forces. For example, a game engine called CryEngine used to develop "Crysis 3," an upcoming shooting game also being published by EA, is used to create training simulations used by firefighters and service members.
But technology is only one requirement for creating a shooter game. Also critical are the visceral nature of combat and the psychological effect on troops. To re-create this, game companies routinely hire current and former special forces members, such as Tier 1 Units, the elite troops within Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, who are called upon to conduct sensitive counter-terrorism missions across the world, to advise developers on making their games feel as close to the real thing as possible.
On its promotional website, "Warfighter" claims its "motion capture technology combined with input from Tier 1 consultants, immersive lighting and beautifully rendered environments create a visual representation of human action in combat that takes authenticity to a new level."
To drive the point home, EA brought on stage two former Navy SEALs — Kevin Vance and Nate Brown — at a game developers conference panel in San Francisco in the spring, according to people who attended the presentation.
Vance and Brown could not be reached for comment.
In an interview with The Times in March, Vance and Brown said they developed the script that formed the kernel for "Warfighter" while on an anti-terrorism mission around 2006. At the time, the two would not reveal their last names.
EA's Brown would not confirm the names of the former troops. Asked about Bissonnette, who went under the name of Mark Owen in his work for EA, Brown said, "EA did not directly remunerate Mark Owen for his input on 'Medal of Honor Warfighter.'"
A person who has knowledge of the work said EA didn't hire Bissonnette directly, instead paying a company called Silent R. EA's Brown acknowledged that his company used Silent R "to produce a series of promotional videos on authentic combat experiences in the war on terror."
Messages to the North Carolina company were not returned.
It's not unusual for the U.S. government to advise book writers and film studios. The upcoming film "Zero Dark Thirty" received help from the Pentagon and the CIA. Another film, "Act of Valor," released in February, used active-duty SEALs as actors.
By contrast, neither "Warfighter" nor "No Easy Day" received government assistance or clearance.
The Pentagon in August threatened Bissonnette with legal action, saying he violated his nondisclosure agreement by revealing classified information in his book. Pentagon attorneys did not say which details were considered classified.
Panetta denounced the book on Sept. 11 in an interview that aired on "CBS This Morning."
"I cannot as secretary send a signal to SEALs who conducted those operations, 'Oh, you can conduct these operations and then go out and write a book about it … and/or sell your story to the New York Times,'" Panetta said. "How the hell can we run sensitive operations here that go after enemies if people are allowed to do that?"
— Alex Pham
'Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn': 1st 'Halo' movie
'Borderlands 2' survives with a sense of humor
Review: Cash is king in 'New Super Mario Bros. 2′
'Street Fighter' box aims to land a punch with fans
Sending video games to the battlefield
'Book of Spells' will charm Harry Potter fans
'Sound Shapes' brings the beat to PS Vita
'LittleBigPlanet' gives gamers creative power
Ellen Page in 'Beyond': a 'subversive' game


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We are united by our powerful purpose. By the values that guide us in our work. And by the unlimited resourcefulness that helps us solve our customers' problems. We Are Ecolab – and together, we make the world a better place.
Ecolab Deutschland GmbH
Ecolab Allee 1, 40789 Monheim am Rhein
Customer Service
Tel. +49 (2173) 5991900 | Email: email@example.com
Monday – Friday, 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
We make the world cleaner, safer and healthier. We protect vital resources. Ensure water and energy are available everywhere. Our products and services prevent disease and infection. Keep food supplies safe. Protect the places where people eat, sleep, work, play, and heal. We touch what is fundamental to quality of life: We keep people healthy. We enhance well-being. We provide assurance, so life can be lived fully. We help our customers succeed. Reduce risk and worry. Free them to grow.
We work with purpose. When there's a goal, we reach it. When there's a problem, we solve it. We work safely. Take care in all we do. We strive to do what's right, what's fair, what's honest. We take action together. In teams. Teams made stronger by diverse perspectives. We find inspiration and energy in what we do and how we do it. In growing, learning and celebrating together. In making a difference and serving the greater good.
Ecolab is Everywhere It Matters. Because what we do – and how we do it – matters everywhere.

subset: commoncrawl


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Buzzcocks 'Buzzkicks': £80, Kick Hi Lumberjack: £70.
Brand hyping is usually dull PR fluff but at a Kickers presentation yesterday I learnt some Very Interesting Things I Didn't Know Before. Here they are:
- It was started in France in '68 (which has special significance) by Daniel Raufast who wanted something for hippies to wear on their feet.
- Famous Kickers wearers include David Bowie, Buzzcocks and Ian Brown. The shoes enjoyed a renaissance in the late '80s on the casuals scene -which I'd put money on making a return very soon btw.
- Jarvis Cocker wore Kickers so much the company made him a special pair which were dubbed 'Cockers'.
The company installed a shed around UK festivals where you show off your moves and ended up in an amazing stop-frame vid made by Lovebite, aka Nottingham duo Nick Cobby and Allan Buxton, soundtracked by a nice little CSS remix of Chromeo's Fancy Footwork. Phew! If you're not intrigued after that little intro then you're dead, the video after the jump.


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- Inside Athletics
- Tickets
- Fan Zone
- Media Zone
- Social
- Shop
- E Fund
PRIMM, Nev. (Sept. 15, 2009) - ETSU sophomore Nina Muehl (Vienna, Austria) fired even par 72 for the second time in three rounds, moving up three spots to tie for 11th on the individual leaderboard following third and final round action Tuesday in the Golfweek Conference Challenge at the Primm Valley Resort's Desert Course.
Muehl's efforts led the ETSU women's golf to a solid ninth place finish in a competitive 18-team field comprised of conference champions from the 2008 season. Meanwhile, Pepperdine took the team title by one stroke over California.
Individually, Muehl finished 14 strokes off the pace set by Oklahoma State's Caroline Hedwall, who led wire-to-wire to take home the championship by five strokes over Pepperdine's Joy Trotter.
Along with Muehl's 72, the Bucs got a trio of 78s from Laura Jansone (Jurmala, Latvia), Sinead O'Sullivan (Galway, Ireland), and Mayte Vizcarrondo (Cadiz, Spain) on the final day of action. Jansone finished the event tied for 36th, while Vizcarrondo placed tied for 46th.
The Bucs will return home Wednesday, but will make the quick turnaround and begin play Friday in the Paladin Invitational. For more on ETSU women's golf throughout the season, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the women's golf link.


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Read our full press release here
Back when we started GroupCard in 2007, the goal was to create the world's best way to say "we care about you" . So far we have helped millions of people do just that!
An important part of our goal is to help people combine forces and give gifts together as a group. In 2008, we became the first service to offer a group gift card. Today, we're introducing GroupCard Merchant Social Gifting Service, which moves group gifting beyond groupcard.com and enables to retailers launch and promote social gifting applications from their own Web sites and Facebook Pages.
GroupCard now directly helps retailers increase their gift card sales. Our new service is easy to implement and affordable. Most importantly, it helps customers gather friends together on the retail site or Facebook Page to engage with the brand, and send a meaningful gift card to a lucky recipient.
People often ask what we mean by "Social Gifting Service". Simply put, a gift is social if it is shared and open where many people can join in the joy of giving together. In fact, people are three times more likely to give to a gift if it's done together as a group. GroupCard's Social Gifting Service uses powerful technology platforms like Facebook® Connect, which enables people to see upcoming events and post a gift on a friend's Facebook wall where others can view and contribute together. We also will tie in services like twitter, and of course email, to help each gift be circulated broadly.
Here at GroupCard, we think every gift should be social. We believe the best way to achieve this is by leveraging our trusted brand and powerful technology across a distributed network of merchants that people appreciate. We're starting with a few retail gift card partners that mean a lot, personally, to our team:
Terrapass is possibly the most environmentally positive gift that a group can give. With a Terrapass gift card, the recipient can offset the carbon footprint of their day-to-day life.. whether it's for a car or travel.
After saving mother earth with Terrapass gift card, there's reason to celebrate. In Milwaukee, WI, AJ Bombers is the perfect restaurant to share a gift card, and bring the whole group to celebrate together.
Gang up on your favorite geek with a ThinkGeek gift card. Whether it's an ipad arcade or a molecular gastronomy starter kit, ThinkGeek is simply the most fun place for geeks to shop
Actaea is an awesome Milwaukee-based hair and spa center. It's the perfect gift card that lets the whole group say "go pamper yourself, on us"
So, what retailer gift card would YOU like to group gift? Let us know!
For you PR folks out there, here's the full word doc release: GroupCard Release04082010


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Alert 2013-3
Subject: Counterfeit Cashier's Checks
Date: April 29, 2013
Description: Broadway National Bank
Counterfeit Cashier's Checks of Broadway National Bank, San Antonio, Texas
To: Chief Executive Officers of All National Banks and Federal Savings Associations; All State Banking Authorities; Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Conference of State Bank Supervisors; Deputy Comptrollers (districts); Assistant Deputy Comptrollers; District Counsels; and All Examining Personnel
The above-named bank has reported that counterfeit cashier's checks issued in the bank's name and using a correct routing number of 114021933 are being presented for payment nationwide in connection with various scams, including but not limited to lottery and mystery shopping.
The counterfeit items resemble the bank's authentic cashier's checks but may be identified by the following: Counterfeit items vary in color and have a black colored serial number. They contain a darkened top border with a security statement that reads "WARNING THIS DOCUMENT HAS SECURITY FEATURES IN THE PAPER" and a security padlock notice along the right border. The counterfeit checks are missing the bank's telephone number of "210.283.6500" as well as the "Preparer" signature line along the left border.
For additional information and guidance and to verify the authenticity of Broadway National Bank's cashier's checks, please contact Renee Ybarra, Loss Prevention Specialist, by mail at P.O. Box 17001, San Antonio, TX 78217; by telephone at (210) 283-6734; or by e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com. Consumers who receive a counterfeit or fictitious item and associated material should file complaints with the following agencies, as appropriate:
Additional information concerning this matter that should be brought to the attention of the OCC may be forwarded to
For additional information regarding other types of financial fraud, please visit the OCC's anti-fraud resource at www.occ.gov/fraudresources.htm.
Ellen M. Warwick


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Bail increased for Mass. man charged with sex assault in Plaistow store's toy aisleBy JASON SCHREIBER
Union Leader Correspondent
March 18. 2013 9:34PM
PLAISTOW - A judge increased bail to $50,000 cash Monday for a sex offender accused of sexually assaulting a girl in the toy department at the Plaistow Walmart last week.
Ronald R. Beausoleil, 33, of 972 Amesbury Road, Haverhill, Mass., appeared in the 10th Circuit Court in Plaistow Monday morning where a prosecutor asked a judge to increase bail from $25,000 to $100,000 cash only, saying he was a threat to the community and has a criminal history requiring him to register as a sex offender.
"The state and the police department have grave concerns as to the danger (to) the community should bail be posted," police prosecutor Jennifer Kunsch told the court.
Judge Sharon Devries raised bail to $50,000 after an hour-long probable cause hearing where details of the alleged assault on a 9-year-old girl were discussed.
Beausoleil faces two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault for allegedly touching the girl's buttocks and genital area, as well as charges of shoplifting and operating after suspension.
Beausoleil is a Level 3 sex offender in Massachusetts who was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14 in 1999 in Grafton County and convicted again in 2007 of attempted open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior.
Police were called to the store on Route 125 around 8 p.m. on March 10 after the girl reported the incident in a toy aisle.
The lead investigator from the Plaistow Police Department testified the girl had asked her mother if she could look at toys while her mother was just a couple of aisles away. Her mother agreed. While the girl was alone, police said Beausoleil approached her and began a conversation.
"She felt he was creepy because he kept coming up and down the aisle," the investigator said, adding that the girl "had a feeling he was circling her and waiting for a moment."
After the incident, the investigator, whose identity is being withheld because he's an undercover officer, said the girl immediately told her mother and store management, but Beausoleil allegedly fled the store before police arrived.
While both the girl and Beausoleil were seen on surveillance camera footage viewed by police after the incident, the investigator said the alleged assault wasn't caught on camera.
In an interview with police, the investigator showed the girl an image of the man on the surveillance video and she said it looked like him. She also gave police a description of what he was wearing and said he smelled like smoke. The investigator said the surveillance video shows a man police believe is Beausoleil smoking a cigarette before he entered Walmart.
Beausoleil was arrested the next day after information about the incident was released to other law enforcement and the media providing a description of the suspect and a truck that he was believed to have been driving that night.
Rockingham County Sheriff's Deputy Matthew Caracciolo saw a man matching the description in the Walmart parking lot and he was arrested and charged in connection with the assault.
Police later interviewed Beausoleil's wife, who said she was with him at Walmart and claimed that he had stolen spark plugs and that "she was with him the whole time and he didn't do anything that was being alleged," the investigator said.
But, the investigator said, Beausoleil told another police detective that he was at Home Depot that night and not at Walmart.
After walking out of Walmart, the investigator said the surveillance video shows Beausoleil sprinting through the parking lot and almost getting hit by a vehicle.
Public defender Tony Naro asked the investigator if it's "uncommon" for a shoplifter to run.
The investigator said it wasn't uncommon, but then reminded Naro that Beausoleil claimed he wasn't in Walmart that night. Naro then asked if it was uncommon for thieves to deny they were in a store.
"That is correct," the investigator said.
Naro asked the court to dismiss one of the felonious sexual assault charges alleging that he touched the girl's buttocks area over her clothing. He argued that the law used to bring that charge applies only to genitalia. The judge has not yet ruled on the request, but found probable cause for his arrest on the other sexual assault charge.


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My Personal ProfileName:
Today's date:
Height (in.):
Weight (lb.):
Waist size (in.):
BMI: Use the BMI chart from Chapter 4 or use this equation:
BMI ranges:
My BMI indicates that I am: (Please circle)
My risk factors are: (Please circle)
My physical activity level is: (Please circle)
A healthy weight range for my height is: (Based on the BMI chart)
Estimated daily calorie needs, my goal:


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CHICAGO, July 9 (UPI) -- Luis Valbuena keyed a big eighth inning with a go-ahead two-run double Monday, lifting the Chicago Cubs to an 8-2 interleague win over the Chicago White Sox.
The game was tied 2-2 in the eighth when the Cubs erupted for five runs, ignited when Alfonso Soriano and Dioner Navarro got aboard with one out against Matt Thornton (0-3) and Valbuena sent them both home with a double into the left-center field gap.
Dave Sappelt (4-for-5, two RBI) later added a run-scoring hit and Cody Ramson capped the uprising with a two-run single as the Cubs sent 10 men to the plate during the frame.
Soriano finished 3-for-4 with a solo homer and four runs scored as the Cubs took the make-up contest of a rained-out May 28 game.
Matt Garza (5-1) racked up his fourth win in four starts, stifling the White Sox on two runs (one earned) on five hits over seven innings.
Josh Phegley homered for the Chisox, losers of four straight.


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Hello all, I have a few questions, that I'll sort of roll into one post.
I'm currently enrolled in a technical school, but I've had two years of Henle Latin and hated it, even though I love the Latin language and want very much to learn it and become as fluent as I possibly can. (My ultimate goal is to be able to effortlessly think and converse in the language ---modest, I know!) I'm thinking my best bet is to purchase the Lingua Latina books and read/study them religiously, over and over, supplementing them with other Latin stories, old theology books, etc. to gain more confidence and ability in the language. Ideally, I would also like to listen to some spoken Latin. However, for the last several years, I've very carefully nurtured an Ecclesiastical pronunciation, such that it's very difficult for me to listen to classical recordings. Obviously, going for fluency, as much immersion as possible is best. To that end, does anybody have any suggestions? I know many in the Classics field tend to look down on the Ecclesiastical pronunciation, but I am a Catholic, and my main interest is the gigantic corpus of mediaeval Latin writings, as well as day-to-day conversation. So, for me, Ecclesiastical Latin (basically, the heir today of Mediaeval Latin) makes the most sense. I haven't been able to dig up much online.... it seems that almost everything is recorded or filmed in Classical pronunciation.
Thank you all for your help!


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Guns in a household significantly increase the likelihood of related injuries and deaths, and the American Academy of Pediatrics' stance is that a gun-free home is the safest home for children and teens, according to its renewed policy statement. Firearm-related injuries is one of the top three causes of death in children, and teens in households with guns are at an increased risk of suicide.
Plus: Gun Safety Age by Age
While pediatricians offer prevention and safety tips to the estimated 38 percent of American families who own guns, the AAP reports that many household still store guns loaded and unlocked. "Young children are curious, and are often unable to remember or follow safety rules," says said Marion Burton, MD, FAAP, immediate past president of the AAP. "Older children and teens naturally tend to be moody and impulsive. When you combine these traits with access to guns, the consequences can be tragic and permanent."
Do you keep guns in your home? How do you keep your children safe from them? Tell us in the comments (#comments).


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"Automotive Intro" is an inspiring, glitch, rythmic, powerful and modern Logo Ident which well suited for videos, presentations, openers, brands, games, jingles, commercials.
Please check it out and if you purchase it, please rate it ! Thanks for listening.
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Trombone Shorty, Aaron Neville close Jazz Fest
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — For more than two decades, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has closed with a performance by the city's own Neville Brothers.
On Sunday, that tradition changed. Aaron Neville performed on a stage with his new band while young brass band frontman Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews closed the festival's biggest stage — where the Neville Brothers once held court the last day.
Andrews and his band, Orleans Avenue, entertained a jam-packed crowd as the festival ended its 2013 run. A sea of faces stretched to the track's back fence.
Neville said he views the closing lineup change as kind of a "passing of the guard.
"Trombone Slim, as I call him, will do a great job," Neville said of Andrews. "I remember when it was Professor Longhair out there and then we did it for a long time. It's time. Slim is a big musician and I'm proud of the way he's handled himself."
Neville is promoting his new album, "My True Story," released earlier this year. At 72, he says it's the right time to focus on a solo project.
"My brothers and I have been performing together like 35 years," Neville said. "I wanted to do some other things and I couldn't do both because of my age and my health, so I decided to back off the Brothers and focus on what I wanted to do. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here and I would be mad at myself if I didn't take the time to do me."
His brothers — Art, Cyril and Charles — performed during the festival's first weekend under a new name, The Nevilles.
Still, he wasn't completely without family on stage. Charles Neville plays saxophone in his quintet. Aaron Neville gave fest-goers a good sampling of the new music which covers a musical genre close to his heart — doo-wop.
"If you listen to any of my music, there's a doo-wop essence to it," he said. "Since I was a little boy, I've listened to people like Clyde McPhatter and the like. Everything I've ever done has some doo-wop in it. It's innocent music. Music that tells the story of boy meets girl. Music I can listen to with my granddaughter and my grandmother and nobody gets offended."
Another closing day act was Hall & Oates, who made their Jazz Fest debut Sunday under sunny skies and a cool breeze that the crowd reveled in after several days of rain and muddy ground conditions.
John Oates said he and his longtime musical partner, Darryl Hall, have always wondered why this festival was never on their schedule.
"I can tell you, both Darryl and I haven't been more excited about a gig in about 20 to 30 years," Oates said. "We're really psyched and excited about the opportunity."
Adam Butler, of Lisle, Ill., said he came a long way for his first Jazz Fest, and Hall & Oates delivered. Their set included old favorites such as "Out of Touch," ″Method of Love," ″Maneater," and "Say It Isn't So." They closed the set with "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)," but came back for encore performances of "Rich Girl," ″Kiss On My List," and "Private Eyes."
"Their music is timeless," said Butler, who sipped a margarita as he took in the music with friends from California, Indiana and Nevada.
Other closing day acts included Irma Thomas, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, The Black Keys, Taj Mahal and Pete Fountain.
Fans cheered and stretched their hands to the sky as Thomas sang bluesy numbers such as "Let's Stay Together," ″It's Raining," ″Forever Young" and "Let It Be Me."
During her upbeat medley of New Orleans favorites such as "Iko Iko" and "Hey Pocky Way," Thomas asked the thousands packed before the stage to wave a towel or handkerchief in a New Orleans tradition known as a second-line.
"We're so happy to see the sun, we don't know what to do," she said.
Many in the crowd were on their feet dancing.
"You can't sit still when you listen to Irma," said Cecelia Wright of San Diego, Calif., who has attended Jazz Fest every year for the past 30 years. "This festival has so many wonderful types of music. I don't come for the big names. I come for the jazz, the blues and the funk."
Among the music was a touch of romance as festival spokesman Matthew Goldman exchanged vows with Elise Gallinot on the front porch of a shotgun house on the festival grounds. The wedding party later second-lined to one of the music stages where a crawfish boil reception was held as the day closed.
Weddings are not uncommon at Jazz Fest, where couples in years past have gotten married between sets in the Gospel tent and other locations around the grounds.


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It's the morning after the divorce filing heard around the world and America is still trying to pick up the pieces, you know, after realizing they have been bamboozled!
Just to bring you up to date, Kim Kardashian, 31, married NBA player Kris Humphries, 26, back in August after only 9 months of dating. Kimmie Kakes pocketed over $17 million from the wedding only to file for divorce a mere 72 days/10 weeks/2.5 months later!
Fast forward to today, and Kim, star of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, is on the receiving end of some major criticism while most media outlets are simply trying to figure out what went wrong.
According to TMZ, who first broke the divorce news yesterday to both the public and Kris, reported those close to Kim are claiming she truly agonized over her decision to file for divorce and went back and forth this weekend. That agony is clearly evident in Kimmie's last tweet from Monday morning, you know, the same one she used to promote her newest Kardashian store!
Sources close to Kim tell TMZ she didn't make her final decision to file for divorce until Sunday night and that she cried all weekend as she kept going back and forth on whether or not to file. Perhaps if one is having this much doubt after only 10 weeks of marriage they should have held off on filing!? Something tells me Kimmie was already picturing the publicity and magazine covers!
As for why Kim decided to file on Monday, it was because hubby Kris wanted to hire a Hollywood publicist over the weekend. Kim reportedly told one of her friends, "He's not in f**king Hollywood. He plays sports." Oh the irony of a famewhore divorcing her husband over being an alleged famewhore!
Yes, those close to Kim are now claiming she went through with the divorce because she now suspects Kris was simply in it for the fame. TMZ reports Kim's friends are scoffing at Kris' claims that he simply wanted a simple life with Kim in Minnesota. They're saying he's full of BS because once the marriage fell apart he immediately started "chasing fame."
Camp Kim claims that once the couple started talking about the possibility of divorce last week, Kris went into full Hollywood mode, and started talking about "branding" the Kris Humphries name with cologne, nightclub appearances and what not. Not quite seeing the big deal with that but let's continue!
Camp Kim also claims Kris was pushing to keep their connection going whether they ended their marriage or not which apparently threw up red flags with Kim. They, however, claim the breaking point for Kim was Kris' decision to hire a Hollywood publicist over the weekend to work on his image. Why would this be such a bother to her??? Sounds like Camp Kim is grasping at straws here!
The HollywoodLife also has their take on things stating Kim decided to end her marriage after Kris decided to quit filming for Kim's E! reality show Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
"Kim and Kris got into a huge fight last week because Kris told Kim he was sick of the cameras following him around and that he had had enough," said a Kardashian family insider. "Kris said the reality show was ruining their marriage and it obviously took its toll on their relationship. But for Kim, it was the last straw. Kris had promised her that he would be on the show and that he was OK with all the cameras. Now that he is pulling out, Kim is throwing in the towel. She has had enough as well. They were only married for 72 days. Basically, the marriage should never have happened. There was too much of an emphasis on the wedding TV special rather than on their actual relationship. I think Kim was more in love with the whole idea of the wedding than she was in love with Kris."
The insider also claims Kris isn't the nice guy he's portraying himself to be adding that he would always threaten Kim with a divorce. "Kris has been getting nastier and nastier and has been threatening Kim," the source claims. "He has basically given her an ultimatum, 'Move to Minnesota with me or I will dump you!' This is really immature behavior. I honestly don't know why they got married in the first place. They are so different." The source goes on to state the obvious adding that "Kris was in over his head and Kim was so desperate to get married."
Following the backlash from the public yesterday, as we predicted, Kim's sisters Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian took to their twitter pages to defend their sister. Khloe tweeted, "Reading some these comments r so hurtful. Im grateful 4our fans who understand & r being respectful. Hate is disgusting. Love is everything." Kourtney also tweeted: "Our sister is going through a difficult time but we're a close family and are sticking together like always."
Kim and Kris both released statements yesterday and in Kris' statement he makes it clear he still wants to work on his marriage to Kim, stating he is "committed to this marriage" and "willing to do whatever it takes to make it work."
When it comes to the criticism, Kimmie remains the butt of jokes both by the media and the public. The twitter topic #ThingsLongerThanKimsMarriage has been the top trending topic on twitter for over 24 hours. And many in the media are now speculating on whether the marriage was ever even real, and well, just check out today's cover of the NY Post below!
As for Kim, she has dipped out of the country and was photographed (below) at the LAX on Monday night boarding a flight to Australia with Khloe. The two are headed there to promote their new Kardashian handbag line.
A masseuse was also spotted outside of Kimmie's LA mansion yesterday bringing a massage table into her home. That poor little rich Kimmie…
[Photo credit: WENN]


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Keiichi Tanaami, a Japanese artist and toy designer has released these typically crazy Japanese prints and vinyl toys through Paul Smith's website and London stores. Prices start at a very reasonable £10 for a surreal and slightly scary vinyl "Wonder Girl" ornament, all the way up to £950 for a limited edition, framed print, inspired by Japanese family crests.
I love contemporary Japanese art, but unfortunately I don't have £950 burning a hole in my pocket. I just hope they use some of the designs from both the prints and the toys for tee shirts, as I'm getting a little bored of the whimsical Americana prints and slogans or Banksy style images that seemingly adorn every single men's t-shirt today… I just want sumfin a little different, ya know?


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Amanda Harrington: Inspiring Youth
British glamor model, Amanda Harrington knows it isn't easy being beautiful. That's why the former Miss Liverpool offered a modeling school for aspiring models. Her official website described the course as an "intense" three week program. Of course, for a model "intense" means two hours a week. Anything more and it would cut into their time of not eating and staring blankly into space. Some of the highlights of the course will teach girls how to walk on the runway and make it through a grueling modeling interview. The website doesn't provide any information on what kind of SAT scores are required for acceptance.


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Annette M. Lerner, age 62, of Berkley passed away Nov. 18, 2013.
She was the beloved wife of Robert; loving mother of Angela (John) Murphy; cherished daughter of Richard and the late Wilma Herr; dear sister of Michael (Nancy) Herr, Edwin Herr and Mary Herr; proud grandmother of Hannah, Eleanor, Benjamin and the late Dylan. Also survived by many loving family and friends.
The family will receive friends from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Sawyer-Fuller Funeral Home, 2125 12 Mile Road, Berkley (two blocks west of Woodward). Mrs. Lerner will lie in state on Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. until the time of Mass at 10 a.m. at the National Shrine of the Little Flower Catholic Church, 2100 W 12 Mile Road, Royal Oak (northeast corner of 12 Mile and Woodward). Burial will be at 2 p.m. at St. Mary's Cemetery in Adrian.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Fr. Solanus Casey Center and/or Pewabic Pottery. Share your memories at www.sawyerfuller.com.
Annette M. Lerner
Annette M. Lerner, age 62, of Berkley passed away Nov. 18, 2013.


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EDMONDS email@example.com_current.manitoulin_expositor 2004-02-11 published
Dorothy May ADDISON (HOPKINS)
Dorothy ADDISON (October 22, 1914 - February 8, 2004,) a resident of Silver Water, passed away at her residence on Silver Lake on Sunday, February 8, 2004, at the age of 89 years. She was born at Silver Water, daughter of the late John and Elma (EDMONDS) HOPKINS. Dorothy lived her entire life on the family farm at Silver Water. She was involved in the community, at church as a member of Saint Andrew's United church and attended Saint Peter's Anglican church where she played the organ until recently. Dorothy was also a life member of the United Church Women, the Women's Institute and a Community Hall board member. Music played an important part of her life as she played for the Old Time Orchestra, church and at various occasions at the nursing home. Her hobbies included: knitting, crocheting, quilting, gardening. Aside from her family and community, Dorothy's greatest love was her music. She will be sadly missed, but many memories will be cherished by all who knew her.
Beloved wife of the late John (Jack) Elwood ADDISON who predeceased in 1982. Loving and loved mother of Jack and Alice ADDISON of Caley of Port Elgin, and Lyle and Ann ADDISON of Silver Water. Dear grandmother of Mike and Laurie ADDISON, Lindsay and Lisa ADDISON, Lori and John MASTELKO, all of Manitoulin, Sharon and John LLOYD, Lianne and Brad PAGE, Jim and Sue CALEY of Southern Ontario, John and Jean ADDISON, Marc and Kathe ADDISON, Tina and Ralph RUSCHECK and Jim ADDISON, all of Ohio and 20 great grandchildren. Loving sister of Edna HAZZARD of Silver Water, Kathleen TRICK of Gore Bay, Norman HOPKINS of Dundas, Eileen COLLENS of Etobicoke, Leila McDONALD of Gore Bay and sisters-in-law, Ann HOPKINS of Owen Sound and Ruth HOPKINS of Oshawa. Also survived by many nieces and nephews. Predeceased by three brothers, Alan, Stanley, and Murray, brothers-in-law, Darrel HAZZARD, Reece TRICK and Norman McDONALD and sisters-in-law Pearl HOPKINS and Peggy HOPKINS. Friends called at the Culgin Funeral Home, Gore Bay, after 7: 00 pm on Tuesday. The funeral service will be conducted in the William G. Turner Chapel on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at 11: 00 am with Mr. Erwin THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON and Reverend Beth TOPPS officiating. Spring interment in Silver Lake Cemetery.
E... Names ED... Names EDM... Names Welcome Home
EDMONDS email@example.com_current.manitoulin_expositor 2004-08-18 published
Frances Gertrude COLVILLE
In loving memory of Frances COLVILLE, a resident of the Manitoulin Lodge, died at the Lodge on Monday, August 9, 2004 at the age of 98 years.
She was born at Silver Water, daughter of the late Arthur and Rhoda (JEWELL) EDMONDS. Frances had taught school, first at Cockburn Island then many other schools on Manitoulin, then
retiring a number of years ago. She was a member of the Uunited Church Women, the Women's Institute and the Teacher's Federation. Frances had a variety of interests including reading, writing and knitting. Frances had written a book on the history of West Manitoulin through the perspective of the United Church. Her favourite times were spent traveling. She spent winters in Florida and had traveled to countries such as Russia, China and Japan. Frances was a true pioneer, and her knowledge and presence will be sadly missed by all. Frances was predeceased by her first husband George ROBINSON, and then by her second
husband William COLVILLE who also predeceased. Frances was predeceased by sisters Mae TENNISWOOD and Hazel ADDISON and brother Clarence (Pete) EDMONDS. Survived by half sister Naomi HARPER of Centennial Manor, Little Current and a number of nieces and nephews. Visitation was held at the Culgin Funeral Home on Wednesday, Aug. 11. The funeral service was conducted at the St. Andrew's United Church, Silver Water
on Thursday, August 12, 2004 at 11am with Mr. Erwin THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON officiating. Interment in Silver Lake Cemetery.
E... Names ED... Names EDM... Names Welcome Home
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It's funny with a drawing sometimes how you can start out with something in mind and then find yourself in a completely different place. Sometimes that's because you couldn't pull off what you intended but sometimes it's because something inside just pulled you off in another direction. I thought it would be nice to do a very flat sort of painting today, sort of like the foot I did last week, a base of blue with some sharp white highlights, very graphic and chiseled like my beer mug. Then I would draw on top with a thick pen, a Sharpie or a bamboo.
I mixed up some bright blue gouache and loaded up my brush. Then I fell into an observation of all the highlights and the different blues that reflected through the prisms of the glass… A few minutes later, I had ended up here, with essentially a watercolor painting without lines, not very gouachey and not at all the graphic, screen printed thing that had been in my mind.
I considered doing the heavy line drawing on top of the painting, just to hold on to some of my vision but before i uncapped my inkwell, I asked Jack his opinion and he insisted I leave it just as it is. So i did.
I like to try out different techniques and media, but sometimes I can't escape my inner me, a person who gets into the details, who's more prone to fiddle, who isn't inclined to the simple, who likes the process more than the result. I can wrestle myself off my usual path, but in the end, I yam what I yam.


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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Stoppard is sitting on the patio of a Sunset Boulevard hotel, bathed in California winter sunshine, framed by bamboo landscaping and looking very much out of his element in Hollywood.
The acclaimed British playwright professes to feeling that way as well, despite having pocketed a Writers Guild of America lifetime achievement award the night before for his screenplays, including the Oscar-winning "Shakespeare in Love."
"I was always nervous coming here. The first time I was terrified," he said. "I'm trying not to sound nauseatingly self-deprecating, but I don't think of myself as being a terrific screenwriter or even a natural screenwriter."
Combine that, he said, with the local entertainment industry's perception that "I'm some different kind of animal," a high-minded artist to whom the words "intellectual" and "philosophy" are freely applied.
But if Hollywood can be forgiven anything, it should be that. Stoppard has created a remarkable wealth of two dozen-plus plays, including "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," ''Travesties" and "The Real Thing," and he's counting on more.
He looks like a proper man of letters, with unkempt gray hair, a comfortably unstylish cardigan and a delicately shaped mouth that hesitates, slightly, before dispensing exacting thoughts on the art of writing (without pretension: he relishes a snippet of "Ghostbusters" dialogue.)
Stoppard also is the master behind "Parade's End," a five-part HBO miniseries (airing Tuesday through Thursday, 9 p.m. EST) that was lauded by U.K. critics as "the thinking man's 'Downton Abbey'" after its BBC airing.
Adapted by Stoppard from a series of novels by British writer Ford Madox Ford, "Parade's End" features rising stars Benedict Cumberbatch ("Sherlock Holmes" and the upcoming "Star Trek" movie) and Rebecca Hall ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") in the juiciest of roles.
Like PBS' "Downton Abbey," it's set in the early 20th century among aristocrats and encompasses World War I's shattering effect on the social order. Romance is provided by the triangle of Cumberbatch's tradition-bound Christopher, his unfaithful wife, Sylvia (Hall), and a suffragette (Australian newcomer Adelaide Clemens). The uniformly impressive cast includes Janet McTeer, Miranda Richardson, Roger Allam and Rupert Everett.
Stoppard rejects the oft-made comparison to PBS' "Downton" as unfair to it and its writer-creator, Julian Fellowes: "I was embarrassed by it because it's so condescending of Julian's work. He's a good writer and he's done a superlative job," he said. It's also a misguided comparison because "Downton" is heading toward season four and "Parade's End" is "five episodes and that's it, forever."
The self-effacing Stoppard leaves it at that. But there's a wider gap between the two: "Downton" is an easy-to-digest soap opera, while "Parade's End" is a challenging, nuanced view of a slice of British society and a set of singular characters, all dressed to the nines in the heady language of literature.
"There's a wonderful richness to the language and a beauty, which I think is the brilliance of Tom Stoppard, and also this very beautiful language of Ford Madox Ford," said director Susanna White.
The heedless, acid-tongued Sylvia has dialogue to relish, something Stoppard cannot resist.
"The line I like best comes straight from Ford: (the public) likes 'a whiff of sex coming off our crowd, like the steam on the water in the crocodile house at the zoo,'" he said, adding gleefully, "What a line!"
Although careful to credit the novelist with that particular zinger, Stoppard said "Parade's End" is the first adaptation in which his dialogue and that from the original text have become intertwined in his memory.
He attributes that to the year he spent forming Ford's intricate novels into a screenplay, often crafting original scenes, and the several more years he spent helping bring the series to fruition with the producers and White ("Generation Kill").
"It's the closest thing to writing a play which isn't a play that I have ever been involved with," he said.
The stage has been the Czech-born Stoppard's chief occupation since leaving journalism in his 20s. But he's made a number of detours into film, either as a screenwriter or a behind-the-scenes script doctor. His latest big-screen project is the adaptation of "Anna Karenina" with Keira Knightley.
Stoppard's insistence that he isn't an outstanding scriptwriter stems, in part, from his reticence. Then there's what he calls the differing "schools of eloquence" represented by film and plays.
"I envy and admire movies which are eloquent without recourse to long speeches," he said, citing several lines to illustrate his point. One comes from "The Fugitive" ("I don't care," Tommy Lee Jones says after Harrison Ford insists he didn't kill his wife), another from "Ghostbusters."
Bill Murray is confronted by "this kind of Amazonian ghost goddess, spooky thing, and he goes, 'This chick is toast,'" Stoppard said, with a delighted smile.
"It's the sense that precisely the right words have been uttered," he explained.
That's how fellow scribes feel about him. One L.A. film and TV writer said she regularly rereads the famed cricket-bat speech from "The Real Thing," about the challenge of writing, for joy and inspiration: "If you get it right," the character Henry says, "the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly. What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might travel."
For now, the right words for Stoppard would be those of a new play, the first since "Rock 'n' Roll" from seven years ago. He has no regrets about immersing himself in "Parade's End," but is ready for the solitude needed to find the right story for the stage.
He used to steal away to a house in France until the air travel became too much. Now he makes do with a "small, shabby cottage an hour-and-a-half from London, which in theory is supposed to be my French house. But it's not far enough away" to evade commitments, social and otherwise. ("I'm Mr. Available," he laments.)
It's welcome assurance to hear the guild lifetime award he received Feb. 17 doesn't signal a halt for Stoppard. It did pull him up short, at least briefly.
"I was quite surprised. Though I am 75, so I shouldn't be surprised. But I haven't thought of stopping yet."
Lynn Elber is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. She can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org and on Twitter (at)lynnelber.


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Engineering with a Mission
The Stories
See stories, historic pix, and more on the Centennial website
There's something wonderfully appropriate—at least in terms of metaphor—about the fact that the first engineering lab at Santa Clara opened in 1912 in an old seed warehouse. Plans and ideas and ambitions planted and nurtured have yielded remarkable fruit in their first hundred years—including work today in fields such as bioengineering and nanotechnology that were entirely the stuff of imagination a century ago.
The president of Santa Clara at the time, James P. Morrissey, S.J., saw the opening of a college of engineering as instrumental to building "a great Catholic University." Indeed, the same year the program in engineering was inaugurated, Santa Clara College officially became a university.
The first dean of engineering, George L. Sullivan, guided programs for 43 years and, in 1936, earned it accreditation for programs in civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering—making it the first Catholic university west of the Mississippi with accredited engineering programs. After World War II, those programs put seasoned veterans who were coming back to school on the GI Bill in the classroom alongside fresh-faced 18-year-olds. And, as the Santa Clara Valley was transformed from the Valley of Heart's Delight to Silicon Valley, new programs and technology and a spirit of entrepreneurship kept Santa Clara abreast of the changes. The arrival of a 7-foot-tall, 200-square-foot mainframe computer in 1960 was big news for the local press.
But the grounding of engineering at a Jesuit university means that more than know-how comes into play in teaching and learning. For example, the 1970s saw the creation of the Department of Engineering Management and Mission Leadership, and amid the energy crisis Professor Dick Pefley led groundbreaking research in alternative fuels.
In recent years, Santa Clara has found itself on the world stage through programs that include graduate studies in sustainable energy and projects like the Department of Energy's International Solar Decathlon, in which teams from Santa Clara competed in 2007 and 2009—and, with two third-place finishes to date, are at it again for 2013—to build and operate an energy-efficient, functional, and livable solar-powered house.
Recently the school has also teamed up with the Center for Science, Technology, and Society on the Frugal Innovation initiative, which focuses on designing and building projects to help the developing world. That certainly fits with the engineering school's declared mission: "Be known and treasured, in Silicon Valley and beyond, for the impact of its graduates and faculty on improving the human condition through engineering education, practice, and scholarship."
The past several years, Santa Clara's engineering program has earned a few special distinctions. Among them: In terms of the percentage of women on its engineering faculty, it's tops in the nation. And this past February, Dean Godfrey Mungal was invited to the White House to meet with President Barack Obama. The occasion, which included a handful of deans from other engineering schools: recognition for Santa Clara's commitment to retain and graduate more engineering students, since this serves not just the community but the nation and the world at large. The four-year graduation rate for engineering students at SCU is about 66 percent, compared with 22 percent nationally at public schools, and 45 percent at private institutions.
Where do we go from here? On the pages that follow, explore a few fields that illuminate some of the trajectories of where engineering is headed—with a couple glances of where it's been: soaring over California fields with an early pioneer of heavier-than-air flight, carrying men to the Moon in a Saturn V rocket, and landing the heaviest, most complex interplanetary robot ever built by NASA on the surface of Mars.
Fall 2012
Table of contents
Engineering with a Mission
The engineering work being done today was the stuff of imagination when the School of Engineering started a century ago. Where do we go from here?
We, robots
Adventures with the Robotics Systems Laboratory by land, sea, and sky. And in orbit.
Can you stand the heat?
It took months of space flight for the Curiosity rover to reach Mars. And, to survive the heat of entry, it took a shield that a team led by Robin Beck '77 designed.
Mission Matters
A grand new gateway
Step inside the Patricia A. and Stephen C. Schott Admission and Enrollment Services Building.
A rivalry like no other
It's only a game, right? Not if we're talking soccer and USA vs. Mexico.
Player of the year
Computer engineering major Katie Le '14 becomes the first Bronco to battle in the NCAA women's singles tourney.


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Tsunami and "natural rights" in property
תַּחַת כָּל-הַשָּׁמַיִם לִי-הוּא
— Iyov 41:3 (Tanakh)
Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is Mine.
— Job 41:11 (Authorized Version)
It's said that the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 had a profound effect on the thought of Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and others. Having occurred so far from Western intellectual centers, the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami and the 2011 Japan tsunami are unlikely to be so influential. The first fits easily into the discourse of "underdevelopment," and evokes our pity. The second occurred in a country more "like us" in many ways, but was soon overshadowed by just one of its effects, a so-called nuclear "catastrophe" that fits easily into the discourse of energy politics and money, and that resonates with our bi-polar attitude toward technology.
While I can't speak to the 2004 tsunami, I did spend time earlier this month investigating the impact of the Japanese tragedy first-hand. Obviously, the effects of seeing one erased town or neighborhood after another, in three dimensions and 360 degrees, and of smelling them, and of sneezing or choking on their dust, were more than intellectual. But an unavoidable by-product of the experience is that it's hard not to think some of our cherished intellectual positions are vain, self-serving and simply wrong. And among them, our notions of property.
My first chance after the quake to visit the northern prefectures, just like that of most other people here, was during the "Golden Week" holiday period from late April to early May. Traditionally this is the peak time for recreational travel, both domestically and internationally. The shinkansen high-speed train line from Tokyo to Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori had suffered structural damage in more than 1,100 locations during the earthquake and aftershocks. Despite an initial estimated repair time of two years, it re-opened on April 30. The main highways in the region were also re-opened to civilian traffic, with greatly-reduced tolls. Tens of thousands of Japanese used their vacations to volunteer in the clean-up from the tsunami. Local authorities were overwhelmed, and wound up turning some away.
My wife and I were not quite so selfless: our priority was to see our family in Morioka, inland capital of Iwate Prefecture. This city of 300,000 had suffered some of the worst shaking anywhere in the region, but emerged mostly intact. Fortunately, too, the earthquake hadn't woken up the active volcano that towers over the region. The damage inland was more indirect: power outages for several days, gasoline and food shortages for weeks, and a month of isolation from the country's elaborate door-to-door delivery infrastructure, on which most Japanese households rely.
It was clear that neither staying in Morioka nor even visiting just one or two of the coastal towns most frequently mentioned in the media – the usual drill for politicians and visiting foreign dignitaries – could give an adequate idea of what had happened. One reason is that the affected coastline on the main island of Honshu was at least 500 km in length (though in light of its irregular shape, this is certainly an underestimate). Another is that the character of the coast changes radically as one travels from the Chiba peninsula in the south (which, roughly speaking, plays the role of Long Island to Tokyo's New York City, though the NY metro population is much smaller) up to Aomori Prefecture in the north. The southern portion, including Chiba, Ibaraki, Fukushima and about 2/3 of Miyagi Prefecture, is a smooth plain. From roughly the city of Onagawa in northern Miyagi, the coast northward through Iwate and Aomori Prefectures has a deeply scalloped form known as ria, from the Spanish word for 'river'. Although usually caused by the submergence of river valleys, in this case an undersea mountain range is being pushed upward by a subducted plate – the one that caused the March 11 quake. When a tsunami hits a ria area, it cumulates to terrible heights, but its inland progress is usually impeded by mountains. When it hits a flat area, it stays lower, but can penetrate several kilometers farther.
My wife and I spent one day visiting coastal cities and towns in Iwate, and another visiting sites in Miyagi. All told, we drove along roughly 120-150 kilometers of coast, in both the rias and the coastal plain. Eight weeks had elapsed since the tsunami, so we knew that most of what we would see would have already been highly processed by the Jietai, Japan's Self-Defense Force (who deserve a lot more credit than they get for the tough job they're doing). As it turns out, even those places were disturbing.
In many of the rias, the roads were open, the debris cleared down to the bare soil, and the carcasses of automobiles neatly arranged in rows. But you could still see where the ocean had bitten chunks from the walk to the seawall, whose railings were twisted or fallen away, as in Oomoto (Iwaizumi City, Iwate). In other fishing towns, giant tsunami gates still stood, with nothing left to protect behind them.
Some, though, remained terrifying despite the long lapse of time. At Ryoushichou, a village in Miyako City, Iwate, we first encountered debris scattered along the sides of the highway, high on a hill more than a kilometer from the sea. As we descended into the ria, the rubbish not only surrounded us, but was plastered against the trees and hillside retaining walls 10 or 20 meters above us. The tsunami here had been 18 meters (nearly 60 feet) high when it entered the settlement. Houses far up the hillside were destroyed. The wall of another hung flattened on a retaining wall, like a squashed bug. Close to my car window, some of the tangled mounds of refuse were planted with red flags, signifying that human remains had recently been found there. And directly in front of us, giant chunks of the roadway hung precariously over the sea.
In some denser urban areas, the signs were mixed, or even encouraging. Some familiar places in downtown Miyako, including a port-side food complex where not long ago we'd enjoyed sea-salt flavored soft ice cream, were now totally gone. Near the sea wall, we had to drive around a boat sticking into the traffic lane. But some downtown areas had been spared – it seemed that a meter or two of extra elevation had made all the difference. In others, we could see owners cleaning up even though the businesses on either side of them looked damaged beyond repair, their metal shutters banged and twisted. In downtown Kamaishi, looking up sidestreets we could see that the destruction penetrated for many blocks. Yet amid the gutted shops on one main road, someone had set out a maneki neko – a "beckoning cat," with left arm raised to attract guests and customers.
Two days later we headed to Sendai, the capital of Miyagi. The city and environs are a sort of an oceanfront twin, or at least sibling, to California's Santa Clara County, including a city of over 1 million, a world-class science and technology university, start-ups and agriculture. The wave didn't reach downtown, but the surrounding plains were desolate. Thanks to help from American armed forces, the formerly inundated Sendai Airport was already functional, though the businesses around it remain broken and deserted. Many square kilometers of rice fields in the Wakabayashi-ku district lay covered with a gray, cracked, foul-smelling mud, as if the ocean had reasserted its claims on the land by licking it. Most paddies were strewn with cars and other debris; some even with boats . At least, that's what we could see from the highway – four kilometers inland. Thanks to the highway berm, the tsunami hadn't been able to penetrate farther; but on those sections where the road was supported by pylons, we saw damage on the landward side as well. Moments after we entered a road from the highway to the coast, police stopped us and made us turn back – access was still limited to government vehicles only.
After Wakabayashi-ku, we decided to visit the Onagawa nuclear reactor, which is located on the ocean side of a mountainous peninsula. News stories had claimed that it was undamaged by the tsunami, though post-earthquake visuals of it were rare in the media. Our route took us through downtown Ishinomaki, built on the southern delta plain of the Kitakami River, which also flows through Morioka. Driving east on a main road we noticed a dark gray line on buildings and garage doors – first appearing about 30 cm above the ground, it gradually rose to more than a meter. The mud was here too, with the smell of the ocean and worse. But the scene across the river was much more severe. Block after block of devastation, covered with the mud dust. Large and expensive-looking homes, several blocks deep from where we were driving, were mangled and shattered. Unlike what we'd seen in Miyako and Kamaishi, no signs of vitality. Just a few workers and some dazed older men riding bicycles, surveying what had been lost.
Our route east through Ishinomaki was meant to take us to the headpoint of a mountain ridge road called the "Cobalt Line," from which we planned to take a spur road down to the reactor's visitor center. We drove along the shore of a lagoon that had clearly overflowed its banks during the tsunami; at its eastern end was a sunken ferryboat, its windows half-submerged. But when we reached the entrance of the Cobalt Line, the police had blocked the road, and made us turn around. Only government vehicles were allowed on the road leading to the peninsula. At that moment, not far from where we idled, bodies were being buried in a mass grave – highly unusual anywhere, but especially in Japan where cremation is the norm.
Our car's GPS navigation told us that the best way back to Morioka was to continue east to downtown Onagawa, instead of turning back the way we had come. But as we rounded the bend, we realized several things: that although we were still far up a hillside, we were entering a scene of destruction on a scale that we hadn't yet seen; that we were the only civilian vehicle on the road; and that directly down the road ahead of us was the ocean, with nothing between us and it. We were too shaken up by the place, and too conscious that we could be interfering with the Jietai's work, to pull over on the still-torn-up road and document the town more thoroughly.
Our first impression was that, of all the places we'd seen, this was the one that seemed as if it had been least touched during the preceding eight weeks. I later found home videos on YouTube that showed it had actually been much worse in late March — the Jietai had been working all along, but the destruction was simply extreme. All the more puzzling, then, that we'd never heard any news stories about Onagawa, even though the nearby towns of Ishinomaki, Minami-sanriku, Kesennuma and Rikuzentakata had attracted international attention. We confirmed this later with a Google search: aside from a couple of stories shortly after the tsunami, and a couple of stories obliquely mentioning some Chinese interns who had survived the town's destruction, virtually all easily-searchable references to Onagawa for more than two months after March 14 were to generally reassuring stories about the condition of the nuclear plant, which is 7 km distant from downtown as the crow flies, and maybe double that by car. Also conspicuously absent from the media have been ground-level post-quake visuals of the plant. Our best conclusion was that the government has deliberately discouraged coverage of the destruction in Onagawa, in order not to arouse suspicions that something similarly awful had happened to the nuke that shares its name, and not to attract the curious who might want to see the reactor's actual condition first-hand. (*)
(*) There are some press stories about the condition of Onagawa, but to find them you usually need to make a deliberate effort to search within a particular website. E.g. this Yomiuri story from mid-April came up buried deep within in the website's search results. The May 21-22 visit to Japan of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (known as 'On Kahou' in Japanese) provided additional circumstantial evidence of information control about the town. It was well-publicized in China that Satoh Mitsuru-san, the owner of a fish processing factory in Onagawa, had led all 20 of the Chinese workers at the plant to safety from the approaching tsunami, before meeting his own death as he ran back down the hill to look after his family. The rare nuke-free appearances of the city's name in Japanese media were often in this Chinese and human-interest context. The national Mainichi Shimbun and the Sendai-based local paper Kahoku Shimpo reported (as recently as May 12 and May 18, respectively) that Wen wanted to visit Onagawa to honor Satoh-san's memory and kindness. In the event, Wen merely commented on Satoh-san while being interviewed and photographed far to the south in Natori, near Sendai airport. Evidently either the Japanese government blocked him from visiting Onagawa, or he complied with a request not to visit there; or else if he did visit, it was under the rather anomalous condition of a complete press blackout.
Unfortunately, it is all too plausible that some political-mediatic agenda is affecting the clean-up. Japanese journalism operates under a "press club" system, which effectively means that to keep your access to government agencies and other organizations, you need to cooperate in burying information. It's no accident that a story about TEPCO's past actions that should have provoked outrage was released on the most invisible news day of a slow-news holiday period. Conversely, whether the government was acting on its own initiative or merely being responsive to the masukomi (as the "mass communications" estate is known here), government effort seemed to go first to the best-publicized cases. The most nightmarish places we visited were ones we'd never heard about before. And my sister-in-law, a government surgeon based in Tokyo, told us that when she was dispatched to visit communities up north, she was given a choice of only four or five of the most mediatic towns, even though she'd wanted to go to areas that were being less well-served. (*)
From its first day, the disaster has been deeply enmeshed with politics. The quake that struck in the afternoon of March 11 obliterated the morning's news story about illegal campaign contributions to Prime Minister Kan. In the recent campaign for governor of Tokyo, the ultra-right-wing incumbent, Ishihara Shintaro (**) prefaced his run for an unprecedented fourth term by declaring that the quake was a tenbatsu – punishment from heaven – for Japan's greed. The remark provoked an outcry, even prompting some reckless soul to deface a campaign poster (a crime here), scrawling "tenbatsu" across Ishihara's forehead like the mark of Cain.
In an unusually perceptive article in the April 2011 Le Monde Diplomatique, American scholar Harry Harootunian points out that Ishihara's remark was a shrewd way to blame average Japanese for their moral failings, while exonerating the political class from blame for the disaster. Visiting the sites, it's obvious that politicians must shoulder a lot of the blame. The village of Tarou, Miyako City, had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on building tsunami walls. I stood on the innermost of them, and looked out to the ocean, quite distant. Behind me, crows were picking over the garbage-strewn ruins of a commercial center. As we drove out, we passed by several piles of refuse with red flags planted in them, to show that they contained human remains. Then we passed the monument to the tsunami of Showa 8 (1933), a sight replicated in many towns and cities along the Iwate coast. When it was erected, the local government had directed that no one should live closer to the sea than this monument. But as the years went by, the village residents put their faith in a more expensive wall — which broke on March 11. (The ocean simply overflowed the older, inner ones.) Multi-hundred-million-dollar seawalls, and the creation of business centers in historically inundated areas, don't happen solely through the choices of private citizens.
Nonetheless, private citizens are also complicating the situation. In some towns, they're rushing to set up temporary housing on the same ground from which their original homes were washed away – trying to create a fait accompli that will be hard to reverse. As a bengoshi (Japanese lawyer) explained to me, a problem is that many landowners feel they have an absolute entitlement to their land. The roots of this feeling lie not in any philosophy of natural right, but Meiji expediency. When imperial rule was restored in the mid-19th Century after more than 260 years of the Tokugawa shogunate (military government), the new emperor found himself short of funds. In exchange for the right to collect taxes, he surrendered imperial title to all the lands of Japan, and allowed private ownership. That still left the land concentrated in the hands of a wealthy landlord class, but the US Occupying Forces took things a step further: they initiated a land reform program that distributed almost 40% of all arable land to the tenant farmers who were working it.
It doesn't help that the law of eminent domain isn't as strong in Japan as in some other countries. There is a law on the books that allows governments to appropriate land for a public purpose in exchange for compensation (the Tochishuuyou-hou, Land Expropriation Act, which is authorized by Art. 29, para. 3 of the Japanese Constitution). But as years of litigation involving airports in Narita and Shizuoka, among other places, have demonstrated, the law is difficult to invoke and cumbersome to enforce. As far as I can tell, it apparently isn't even being discussed in the present context. A proposal recently announced by the Kan administration hints that a new special law might be enacted, under which the national government would purchase land from individuals. According to press reports, localities would interact directly with the central government in effecting this scheme, by-passing the prefectural governments. If this comes to pass, no doubt it will generate inter-governmental tension and resentment for years to come.
Private citizens aren't motivated only by a feeling of entitlement, but by practical – and social – necessity. Even if they lost their homes in the tsunami, they still need to earn a living. During the Golden Week holidays, the government broadcaster NHK presented many short documentaries abut how people in Touhoku were coping. One profiled two men in Kamaishi, a sake distributor and the owner of a fishing boat maintenance shop. The distributor pointed out that he doesn't have any business if no one needs him. So he spends his days helping his neighbors to re-open their restaurants, before returning at night to the evacuation center where he currently lives. The maintenance shop re-opened even though no-one could pay; if fishermen can't fish they can't earn the money to pay the shop, either. One of the shop's first jobs was servicing a giant crane that was used to lift boats up from the land onto which they'd been carried by the wave, and to re-deposit them in the harbor. Asked why he does it for no pay, the owner admitted self-interest plays a part, but added "Yo no tame, hito no tame – for society and for people. Otherwise the people in Kamaishi won't have sun." Whether these businesses should remain for the long-term in their pre-tsunami locations merits a lot of thought and debate. But the case for their re-opening in the short-term seems a strong one.
How should Japan think about the long-term? The reactive mediocrity that characterizes most Japanese politicians these days suggests that those in power, at least, simply might not. There's a good chance the country will muddle through with an accretion of short-term measures designed to boost "productivity" and "growth," and intended to take the country back to where it was before. Seen in this light, the Kan government's attempts to suppress debate about nuclear power appear as nostalgic as they are frantic. But one thing they are not is benign. Even if the government sincerely believes, as many people believed before March 11, that nuclear power is necessary for Japan's future growth, the Kan cabinet evidently also believes that anti-democratic means are justified to achieve that end. And that's just to put the most generous spin on their actions.
(*) She'd been especially interested in visiting settlements on small coastal islands that hadn't received any aid. From what she was told, the government's operating assumption seems to be that they were completely overwhelmed in the tsunami, with all souls lost, and hence not worth the investment of resources. She also told us that she and many of her medical colleagues believe the dead/missing numbers to be greatly underestimated, perhaps by a factor of between two and four (i.e., up to 100,000 dead). Since official records often were lost, official estimates tend to be based on missing person reports and on bodies actually recovered. Based on personal observations of another healthcare professional in our family (who survived the tsunami in Ofunato, Iwate), only a small fraction of bodies floating in the water right after the tsunami were subsequently washed up on the beach. In many cases where all members of a family were lost to the sea, no one would have filed a report. Police won't accept a missing persons report if the person filing lacks a close-enough relationship to the missing; this rules out filings from mere acquaintances, even though they might be the only ones to notice someone's absence.
(**) A former actor, novelist and dandy, Ishihara is best known in the West as the co-author with Sony's then chairman, Morita Akio, of The Japan That Can Say No (1989). Since his stiffest opposition in 2011 was a TV comedian and accused child molester who had ditched his previous job as governor of rural Miyazaki Prefecture mid-term to run for this post, many voters gritted their teeth and re-elected Ishihara anyway.
The long term deserves to be re-thought more radically, and not just in Japan. The Lisbon earthquake moved many to question whether there could really be a kind and merciful divinity. Pace Ishihara, fewer people today, and almost none in Japan, are prone to such theological speculations, and even if they were, the Twentieth Century has already provided ample food for thought. But to see the condition of the coast, and to realize that the ocean rose up and covered the land everywhere, over hundreds of kilometers, more or less at the same time, is to visualize an event on a Biblical scale — or actually, on a far vaster one. The parting of the Red Sea, which the tsunami so darkly inverted, covered a stretch of just a few miles.
At a minimum, the experience of the March events should move us to realize that our relationship to this planet might be different from what we have grown up thinking it is: something along the lines of what a recent CNN promo calls "the battle to manage the earth"s resources." Just as to see, mile after mile, the jumbled mountains of shattered houses, toppled utility poles, upended vehicles, ownerless clothes, toys and much else, all ripped out of their daily context and mangled into a new one that screams out for meaning, should make us think differently about all the things we make, we sell, and we think we need for our well-being.
One practical result should be a rehabilitation of the precautionary principle. Instead of reifying the "expectation values" of disasters, discounting them to insignificance with our estimates of their low probabilities, we should imagine and prepare for the worst, as best we reasonably can. Fortunately, support is growing for this in Japan, though it remains heretical in U.S. policy circles.
Some in Europe have developed this idea further, into an intellectual movement known as écologie politique. In this view, precaution is couched within a larger notion of human responsibility for our actions on earth, including for our production of simply too much stuff. Building outward from this idea, and drawing on the writings of Hans Jonas, Jürgen Habermas, André Gorz, Ivan Illich, Emmanuel Levinas and others,écologie politique has developed not just an environmental ethic, but a a social and political one, based on responsibility, autonomy, solidarity and participative democracy. While the meaning of each of these terms is contestable, I'm inclined to think this might be a useful utopia to aim for.
Écologie politique, though, is too bloodless and rational to epitomize the deeper lessons of the March events. A more mythic line of thought is suggested by a passage in a recent book by Johns Hopkins political scientist Jane Bennett. Observing that politics is "often construed as an exclusively human domain," she proposes that we consider instead "the agentic contributions of nonhuman forces … in an attempt to counter the narcissistic reflex of human language and thought. We need to cultivate a bit of anthropomorphism – the idea that human agency has some echoes in nonhuman nature – to counter the narcissism of humans in charge of the world." Unfortunately, she doesn't make any serious attempt to explore the practical implications of this point of view. But these few words, at least, resonated with what I'd seen.
In reflecting on anthropomorphism, it struck me that in the English-speaking world we often express impersonal agency through the image of hands. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" may be the example that first comes to mind. John Locke provides another. Our notions of property rely on a famous passage:
Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures, be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then that he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property.[The Second Treatise, § 27 (emphasis on original)]
These are literal, not figurative hands. But they're not the only important hands in Locke. A bit later he says:
Though the Water running in the Fountain be every ones, yet who can doubt, but that in the Pitcher is his only that drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature, where it was common, and belong'd equally to all her Children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself. [Id., § 29 (emphasis in original)]
It wouldn't be surprising if Anglo-Saxon philosophy were shaped, in part, by the disasters within its experience. Despite their destructive power, the typical calamities – tempests, tornadoes, earthquake and fire – tend to leave their debris more or less in situ, aside from the occasional cow or truck plopped down by a tornado far from where it had stood. What we own may of course disappear in smoke; yet most fires result from human agency, and human action, too, can often arrest a fire's progress, even when it's already touched our possessions. But few philosophers on our bookshelves ever directly witnessed a tsunami or its effects. A few days after visiting Onagawa, I found this video taken when the 18-meter tsunami hit it. During its final sequence, much of the town can be seen being pulled back into the ocean, sucked through the two large, red buildings near the waterfront (which are also visible to the right of center in the photo of the road to Onagawa, above; the road we were on goes right between them). Watching this, I could only think how ridiculous it is for us to believe that we can take anything from the hands of Nature. Those hands can take back anything, at any time – and we are always within their reach. A system of laws, an economy, and a society based on that truth, and on the understanding that we're only borrowing even what we own, seem long overdue.
Pictures: all photos by author, except for tsunami frame captures: Hara Yoshinori. Iwate-ken photos 2011/05/04; Miyagi-ken photos 2011/05/06. To view full size, please click on picture, and then click on it again after the page reloads.


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US gymnast Gabby Douglas earns second gold with all-around title win
LONDON – Make it a pair of golds for Gabby Douglas, who added the all-around title to the one she won with the U.S. team two nights ago.
Douglas became the third consecutive American to win gymnastics' biggest prize, taking the lead on the very first event Thursday night and never really letting anyone else have a crack at it. She finished with a score of 62.232, less than three-tenths ahead of Viktoria Komova of Russia. Aliya Mustafina won the bronze.
Douglas brought the house down with her energetic floor routine, and U.S. teammates Jordyn Wieber, McKayla Maroney and Kyla Ross jumped to their feet, screaming, when she finished. Douglas flashed a dazzling smile and coach Liang Chow lifted her off the podium.
Teammate Wieber, the one-time favorite and defending world champion, missed out on the competition with a mistake-filled performance in qualifying.
Douglas held off Russia's Viktoria Komova and keep the remarkable run going for USA Gymnastics.
Shortly after Tuesday's victory gave the Americans their first team gold since the "Magnificent Seven" of the 1996 Atlanta Games, coaching icons Bela and Martha Karolyi stole a rare quiet moment alone. The couple stood separated by a metal barrier, eyes locked, holding each other's arms.
Whatever happens next in these Olympics, Bela told his wife, the U.S. had already won big -- again, at last. Then he leaned over the gate to embrace Martha and give her a kiss.
Both know there are plenty more Olympic medals to be had, and the Americans would love to head home with a heap of hardware.
Winning as a team certainly has them on the right track.
"It is very special. It gives us the momentum," the 4-foot-11 Douglas said. "It keeps going, it keeps flowing. It gives us, definitely, a little bit of an edge thinking that we are truly the best in the world. It gives us that little bit of a push."
Douglas and Raisman have a busy schedule ahead in the individual finals, too -- Douglas on balance beam and uneven bars, Raisman on beam and floor exercise.
"It definitely gives you a little bit of confidence," vault finalist McKayla Maroney said, referring to the Americans' mindset as they prepare for the rest of the Olympic schedule. "Now we are Olympic champions. It's awesome."
Douglas insists she never doubted that the U.S. brought the world's top female gymnasts to London. And others now agree -- this might just be the best American women's Olympics squad ever.
Douglas was third in the qualifying round behind the second-place Raisman. Russia's Komova, who finished runner-up to Wieber at last year's world championships, had the top score.
Ukraine's Lilia Podkopayeva was the last reigning world champion to win Olympic gold, in '96. With Wieber out of the mix, it's not going to happen here. Wieber wept after her qualifying flop, then regrouped to help the Americans win team gold.
On Thursday, she'll be in the strange position of cheerleader instead of competitor. Perhaps watching her teammates and close friends reach the podium will take some of the sting away.
Britain's Rebecca Tunney knows the Americans got a big boost from Tuesday's victory.
"If they've won that, they know that their team's good enough. Hopefully they can have their individuals who are able to medal as well," Tunney said. "I think they definitely have them. They're amazing.


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Title: NEIUport
Description: Click here if this page does not refresh to the login screen in 5 seconds. ...
neiuport.neiu.edu is located on a US server with IP address: 126.96.36.199
neiuport.neiu.edu gets 5.05K page visits per month from search engines via organic keywords. neiuport.neiu.edu's SE organic traffic cost could be evaluated as $1.31K (this means the sum of money siteowner would pay for such traffic if it's bought in PPC systems).
Alpha directory pages: n ne


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Another day, three more hacking attacks.
Some users' of Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest had their personal information compromised because of a hack on another company.
Zendesk, a software company that builds customer support products, said Thursday evening that it suffered a security breach and that three of its clients has data stolen.
(Read More: How to Defend Against Identity Theft This Tax Season)
"We believe that the hacker downloaded email addresses of users who contacted those three customers for support, as well as support email subject lines. We notified our affected customers immediately and are working with them to assist in their response," the company said in a blog post.
Twitter said in a tweet Thursday night that it sent emails to users believed to be affected, but also said that no passwords were believed to be involved. Earlier this month Twitter was hit with a security breach that affected about 250,000 users.
(Read More: Twitter Hacked!)
Tumblr also responded to the hack by sending some users an email warning them to take precautions
"This has potentially exposed records of subject lines and, in some cases, email addresses of messages sent to Tumblr Support.
The company said while this information may be "innocuous," users should still review any correspondence it had with Tumblr via email and beware of any emails claiming to be from Tumblr requesting a password.
"Tumblr will never ask you for your password by email. Emails are easy to fake, and you should be suspicious of unexpected emails you receive," the company said.
This is critical, as phishing emails are a common way cybercriminals trick people into sharing personal information.
Pinterest sent affected users a similar email, also cautioning them not to respond to suspicious email claiming to be from Pinterest, according to a Wired report.
(Read More: Jeep Becomes Latest Victim of Twitter Hack Attack)


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Jamieson takes Nelson Mandela Championship with super second day show
17:09 GMT, 9 December 2012
Scotland's Scott Jamieson won the inaugural Nelson Mandela Championship, which is the opening event of the new European Tour season, in South Africa tonight.
In a tournament cut to 36 holes and on a Royal Durban course reduced to a par-65 because of saturated fairways, Jamieson shot a second-round 57 and then beat England's Steve Webster and Spaniard Edoardo de la Riva in a play-off.
De la Riva bogeyed the first extra hole and then, in fast-fading light, Webster, the only one of the trio to have won on the circuit before, did the same when they returned to the 18th tee.
Champ: Scott Jamieson of Scotland poses with the trophy after winning the Nelson Mandela Championship
Beaten: Steve Webster lost in the play-off to the Scot
Jamieson, whose previous best finish was third, will not go into the Tour record books for his 57, however. Because of the course conditions it will not officially count, but that will not matter to the 29-year-old ranked 167th in the world.
He was not even in the top 60 after his opening round of 66 and admitted afterwards: 'Starting the day I probably didn't think I would be standing here holding the trophy.'
Let's go: Jamieson plays his second shot onto the 18th green on the first extra play-off hole
All three players involved in the play-off finished their rounds by lunchtime and had to wait all afternoon to see if anybody could beat their seven-under totals of 123.
South Africa's Tim Clark had the best chance, but double-bogeyed the 17th when joint leader.
De la Riva, who less than a fortnight ago came through the Tour qualifying school in joint ninth place, was left to rue not only failing to get up and down from a bunker in the play-off, but also a closing bogey in his second-round 61.
That's better: Playing conditions were fine after the two-day washout
Webster, who had the second of his
two victories in Portugal five years ago, produced a 60 and almost
clinched victory on the first extra hole when his 30-foot birdie putt
came up just short.
Next time round, though, he could not recover from pulling his drive into thick rough.
Earlier, Jamieson could have won it
outright on the 305-yard ninth – his last – when he drove the green, but
just missed a 12-foot eagle attempt.
He had earlier gone to the turn in a five-under 26 that included four birdie twos.
Lazy day: Pelicans sitting around on the course
'I knew I needed a fast start and was
lucky enough to get that,' Jamieson added after also being presented
with a framed drawing of Mandela.
'It's an honour to win a tournament
like this. Getting your name on any European trophy is a fantastic
achievement, but it's a bit more special with someone like Nelson.'
Joint fourth a stroke behind were Clark, German Max Kieffer, Dane Morten Orum Madsen and England's Matthew Nixon.


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Win Volbeat Tickets: With March Radness Round 2
It's time for March Radness! You decide who's the raddest chick for your chance to win Volbeat tickets and passes to meet the band at the SOLD OUT show at the Wilma. All you have to do is vote and you will automatically be entered to win.


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Since 1993, local citizens has been helping support The Shreveport Shriner's Children's Hospital through the Shriner's Hospital Benefit. Since the benefit's inception, it has generated over $200,000 for the hospital.
"The event is supported by people from all over North Louisiana by donation of auction items to the annual auction held each Saturday night during the event," Dewey Jones, one of the original originators and chair person said. "In addition, this group also holds benefits for the St. Jude Children's Hospital and has an event planned for the fall of 2013."
In 1993 and 1994, the event was held in Bastrop at the municipal center and broke all records for fund generation. The facility at the Barak Temple in Monroe became available in 1995 and it offered more motels, restaurants and interest for the families that attend the event each year from all over the nation. "This year's event was dedicated as a memorial to M.L. Smith Jr. of Ruston who was a business man in Morehouse Parish for many years and a loyal supporter and good friend," Jones continued. "Richland State Bank at Bastrop supported the event this year in addition to the Smith family."
Anyone interested in participating or supporting any of these benefits may contact Jones at 669.8350.


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Home > Toys & Games > Arts & Crafts > Heart Paper Shaper Punch for Card Making
Product Details
- A mini heart themed paper shaper
- Simply slide your paper in the punch and depress the raised button; it will punch a heart cutout
- Great for card making, decorating projects, scrapbook, and creating custom gift tags
- Cutout shape measures approx. 0.6 inch / 1.5cm in length and 0.47 inch / 1.2cm in width
- Paper Punch Dimension (L x W x H): Approx. 1.77 x 1.22 x 1.45 inch (4.5 x 3.1 x 3.7cm)
- Material: Plastic and metal
- Color: We have three different colors for this item and we will send you one at random
- Not for children under 3 years
Package Includes:
- 1 x Paper punch
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