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Tez: Orlando over Indy
When the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2012 is announced Saturday, in or out (again), Cortez Kennedy will be far from the maddening crowd.
Rather than make the trip to Indianapolis, site of Sunday's Super Bowl rematch between the Giants and Patriots as well as the day-before Hall of Fame selection process and news conference that will follow, Tez will be at home in Orlando.
"I'll be here watching it with my daughter," Kennedy said. "I think she is more excited than I am."
That would be 16-year-old Courtney, who Kennedy is raising as a single parent.
"Being a single dad raising a daughter, that's tough," Kennedy said.
Kennedy had one of those proud-parent moments recently when Courtney brought something home from school that a teacher wanted autographed.
"When she was younger and we'd go to banquets, and even the Ring of Honor ceremony, she didn't realize the magnitude of what was going on," said Kennedy, who was added to the Seahawks' Ring of Honor in 2006.
"But she came home the other day and said, 'Daddy, can you sign this for my teacher? He's a big Seahawks fan.' So she realizes everything that's going on now."
If Kennedy is elected to the Hall, he'll likely make a hurried trip to Indy so he can be introduced with the rest of the Class of 2012 during the game on Sunday.
Whether that is necessary will depend on what happens during the selection committee meeting Saturday morning. It helps to have friends "in the room," and Kennedy does. Mike Sando of ESPN.com will make Kennedy's presentation to the group as the Seattle representative. John Clayton of ESPN.com, like Sando a former Seahawks beat writer for the Tacoma News Tribune, is an at-large member of the committee after the being the Seattle rep for many years.
Alex Marvez of FoxSports.com, who also is a Kennedy supporter, was added to the committee this year, as was Jeff Duncan of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans – where the Saints also have been lobbying on Kennedy's behalf. And when I made Kennedy's presentation to the committee in 2009, during the discussion that followed Peter King of Sports Illustrated and SI.com said, "This might not be his year, but if you don't think Cortez Kennedy belongs in the Hall of Fame than you're just ignorant." King is one of the more-respected, and most-outspoken, members of the group.
And what happens "in the room" definitely impacts who gets into the Hall. In 2006, when the Seahawks were in Detroit for their Super Bowl matchup against the Steelers, I did a story during the week on Warren Moon's chances of being part of that year's class. The selection committee members I spoke with said they didn't expect it to happen. But of course it did.
What happened? John McClain of the Houston Chronicle made a presentation for Moon that was as convincing as it was impassioned, so even some of the selectors I had talked with changed their minds and voted for Moon.
Kennedy is a finalist for the fourth consecutive year. Whether his wait finally ends will be played out "in the room," when the 44-person selection committee goes through the process Saturday morning.
We examined that process in a story this week, when we also profiled Kennedy and looked at his off-the-field contributions to the Seahawks.
Jeff Triplett of the Times-Picayune also did a story on Kennedy, and he was even profiled by The Associated Press.
But there's also a story out there that lists Kennedy among the linebackers who are included in this year's finalists and says part of his problem was that he played in the shadow of Kenny Easley. Arrgh. Kennedy was an eight-time Pro Bowl selection and member of the NFL's Team of the Decade for the 1990s as a defensive tackle, and Easley's final season with the Seahawks was 1987 while Kennedy was a first-round draft choice in 1990.
February 3, 2012 – 12:02 pm
Tags: Cortez Kennedy
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Dan Meridor
In 2009-2013 Dan Meridor was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence in the Israeli Government.
In 2004-2006 Mr Meridor was the Chairman of the Committee - appointed by the Minister of Defence - on Israel's Defence Doctrine. The comprehensive report of Meridor's Committee was submitted to the Government in 2006.
In 2003 - 2008 Dan Meridor served as Chairman of The Jerusalem Foundation.
In 2003-2006 Mr Meridor was a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
In 2006-2009 Mr Meridor was Deputy Chairman of the Board of the INSS (Institute for National Security Studies).
In 2001-2003 Mr Meridor served as a Minister in the Israeli government, in charge of strategic affairs, and was a member of the Inner Cabinet.
In 1999-2001 Mr Meridor served as the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the Knesset.
In 1996-1997 Mr Meridor was the Minister of Finance of Israel. As Minister of Finance, Mr Meridor initiated sweeping reforms in the economy through massive budget cuts, liberalization and privatization.
In 1988-1992 Dan Meridor was the Minister of Justice of Israel. He promoted human rights legislation, and Israel's first (and so far - only) human rights constitutional laws were enacted during his term, creating the "constitutional revolution", empowering the Supreme Court with judicial review over Knesset laws.
In 1982-1984 Mr Meridor served as the Secretary of the Cabinet under Prime Ministers Menahem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.
In 1984 he was elected to the Knesset and he served as a Member of the Knesset in the years 1984-2003 and 2009-2013. In the Knesset, Mr Meridor served on the Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defence, the Committee of Constitution, Law & Justice and the Ethics Committee.
Mr Meridor is a graduate of the Faculty of Law in the Hebrew University and practiced law in Jerusalem and in Tel-Aviv for many years.
Dan Meridor is a captain (res.) in the I.D.F. He fought as a tank commander in the Six Days War and in the Yom Kippur War.
Mr Meridor is presently the Chairman of the Board of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Earlier he was the Chairman of the Public Council of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chairman of the Board of the Israel Museum and a member of the Board of the Gesher Theatre.
Dan Meridor was born in Jerusalem in 1947, where he lives ever since.
He is married to Dr Leora Meridor, with four children and seven grandchildren.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: How to sample a PostgreSQL database using Prisma? Suppose I have several millions of statements in my PostgreSQL database and I want to get only 10000 of them. But not the first 10000, rather, a random selection of 10000 (it would be best if I could also choose the logic, e.g. select every 4th statement).
How could I do this using Prisma, or — if it's not possible using Prisma — using a good old PostgreSQL request?
For now, I'm using this code to limit the number of results I'm getting:
const statements = await this.prisma.statement.findMany({
      where: {
        OR: conditions,
      },
      orderBy: {
        createdAt: 'asc',
      },
      take: 10000,
    });

This will use the conditions I have, then order them in ascending order, and "take" or limit the first 10000 results.
What could I use in place of the "take" or what request I could make directly in PostgreSQL to randomly sample my DB for records?

A: Prisma doesn't natively support fetching random data as of now.
There is a Feature Request that discusses the exact same scenario as you need.
The alternative could be to use queryRaw for raw database access and use PostgreSQL's random function as described in the above mentioned Feature Request.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Vitality Foundation makes massive donation of cricket gear in Berbice
Directors of the Vitality Group photographed with representatives of the various cricket clubs receiving cricket gear
Vitality Foundation, a subsidiary of the Vitality Group, on Tuesday last handed over G$1.3 million worth in cricket gear to eight clubs and two players attached to the Berbice Cricket Board.
The Vitality Group is set to officially launch its operations in Guyana later this week and will be providing accountancy, supplies and other consultancy service needs to the oil and gas sector and other associated businesses.
The clubs receiving the equipment were the Number 74 Cut and Load, Number 72 All-Stars, Number 69 Red Rose, Number 69 Vikings, Number 70 Muslim Youth Organisation, Number 68 Dark End Superstars, Number 68 Turn Team Cricket Club, and Number 73 Young Warriors.
The two young cricketers who received individual cricket gear were Vishkar Persaud of Tucber Park Cricket Club and Dharmesh Seenarine of the Port Mourant Cricket Club.
A small ceremony was held at the St. Francis Community Developers Conference Centre, Rose Hall Town, Berbice, and present were Directors of the Vitality Group, Sureain Sawh, Badesh Thakur, Simon Kandial, Matt Averkamp, Manaish Ramoutar and Abbas Hamid.
Manaish Ramoutar, a Director of the Vitality Group, said the company came to Guyana to invest in the various sectors of the oil and gas industry, and as part of its launch later this week, it will also be officially launching the Vitality Foundation, which has been working behind the scenes in Guyana for over nine years.
"We are looking forward to working with the Berbice Cricket Board and with you the players to further develop the sport in Berbice and around Guyana. Our hope is that this will result in more competitions, the enhancement of female cricket and more youths showing interest in the sport. We plan to have further talks with the president of the Berbice Cricket Board to see what more can be done to assist with the development of cricket and youths in the Region."
Matt Averkamp, Financial Accountant and Business Consultant of the Vitality Group, said with most of the team being Guyanese it is part of the Vitality Group's corporate and social responsibility to provide training and education to the youths of Guyana.
"We want to show the youth of Guyana what the world has to offer in relation to sports, that leadership skills that are acquired here can be carried with you throughout your lives, and careers; this is why we want to help in any way we can to build your futures and the future of Guyana."
Hilbert Foster, President of the Berbice Cricket Board, thanked the Vitality Foundation for its timely donation of the gear, adding that this is the second-largest donation of its kind to be made to clubs that are part of the Berbice Cricket Board.
"I want the Vitality Group to rest assured that their donations to the Berbice Cricket Board and its players will see them getting maximum branding and mileage at all our major events and promotions and with the Berbice Cricket Board dominating print media almost daily we will ensure that your business becomes a household name when persons speak of cricket."
Foster, who is also Secretary/CEO of the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, took the opportunity to award longtime supporter of youth development in Rose Hall, Sureain Sawh, the Dolphin Award of Excellence, the highest award the club can bestow.
Sawh, a Director of the Vitality Group, also received the Berbice Cricket Board's highest award 'The Tribute to Hero' for his contribution to the development of cricket in Berbice.
AG slaps S. Maraj Contracting Services with over $400M lawsuit for Leguan Stelling
Security Guard robbed of gun, ammo


There is a new way to view OtisDID slideshows on the web (and in the Smart Classrooms) – use the MediaViewer.
Why use the MediaViewer instead of the web-based Slideshow Viewer?
It appears as an option under My MDID > My Slideshows. It also replaces the Slideshow Viewer link in Resources > Slideshows.
You can use most of the same keyboard shortcuts to control your lecture.
Attention Mac Users in Smart Classrooms: In August 2013, the ImageViewer will no longer be available on the desktop. The software is incompatible with Mac OS Lion. Instead, use the web-based MediaViewer to show your lectures.
Attention PC Users in Smart Classrooms: You can use the ImageViewer or the web-based MediaViewer to show your lectures.
Note: this is an altered version of an earlier post.


An excerpt from "Conversations with Children," by Sister Magdelen of the Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Essex, United Kingdom.
'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all they mind' (Luke 10:27). Christ put the heart first in His Commandment. The heart is the most personal component of a human being. Our brains and our minds reflect in their way the state of our heart; as the Lord said, thoughts proceed out of the heart (Matt. 15:19, Mark 7:21). 'Our ideas, our philosophical systems, our cosmologies, our world views, are nothing else but the history of our hearts.'* As we develop spiritually, our intellect no longer remains separated, exiled in the brain. Mind and heart are united in a re-integrated person.
The heart is cleansed and awakened by grace and by life according to the Gospel; that is why so many of our contemporaries are only aware of the heart's physical functions. Sometimes they acknowledge also its emotional facet, though in the case of the emotions many consider the term 'heart' to be symbolic or metaphorical. Those who follow a Christian path will discover that the heart is the meeting place between the real 'I', the human hypostasis, and the living God. The pure in heart see God there. Knowledge of Him originates there. The cultivation of the heart is a task beyond any secular educational system. Intellectual ability is now deemed the criterion of knowledge. Because we are spiritually frozen we do not recognize a thought until it has taken a cerebral form. In reality, moral and spiritual judgments are decided in the heart.
Obviously this was a personal answer. But the fact that it was given to a child is significant. It also shows us that in Christian life, deciding by the heart does not mean being guided by the emotions rather than by reason. Neither does it mean that feelings are superior to thinking. Nor do we deny the value of reasoning. Deciding by our heart means opening the core of one's being to God's enlightenment, and letting the effect of that prayer colour our decision-making.
In the spiritual education of children, our first concern is not to train their wills, but to attract grace by our life and prayer to their environment, and to let each child's heart become attached to grace. Theological discussion with children is a very small proportion of Christian education. Prayer that God will touch them with grace is a permanent dimension of all our dealings with children, even when they are not with us.
*Fr. Theokletos Dionysiatis, "Between Heaven and Earth [in Greek], (Athens, 1955), p. 130.
**Klitos Ionnidis, "Elder Porphyrios, Testimonies and Experiences," (Athens: Convent of the Transfiguration, 1997), p. 77.


Journalism has taken a backseat to "just get something out there!" I'm sure the number of nominees for a Murrow award are thinning out by the day.
Last week, ABC's Jim Ross was suspended for his statements that Candidate Trump had directed Lt. General Flynn to contact the Russians after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Earlier this week, Reuters learned that bank accounts for Trump with Deutsche Bank had been subpoenaed by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. The White House and Deutsche Bank later confirmed this didn't happen.
CNN exclusively reported that "sources" told them that Wikileaks had emailed Donald Trump Jr offering access to emails that were hacked before they were made public. The "sources" stated it was on September 4th. In reality, the email was on September 14th and apparently, this email was already publicly available and was one day AFTER Wikileaks had released their payload.
Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel tweeted that Trump's speech in Florida on Friday had been to a hall that has less than half filled. In reality, it was a photo prior to the event and he was subsequently called out by a reporter for British publication, the Daily Mail.
Jim Ross was suspended without pay for the entire month of December, or as we like to call it, "Extended time at home for the holidays." ABC apologized for the staff's inability to catch the error, as if anyone in ABC's anti-Trump/anti-Republican news staff was going to tell long time veteran Ross he was wrong.
Reuters quietly removed the false article from its website and slinked back to its hole.
CNN issued a correction. President Trump said in his speech on Friday that CNN had issued an apology. CNN responded they didn't issue an apology and instead said their sources were "mistaken". I guess there was no reason to apologize for their poor vetting of Democrat sources.
Trump called for firings at both CNN and the Washington Post, but Dave Weigel is still employed. He did apologize to the President and has been accepting rebuke for his now deleted bad tweet.
The irony is that media outlets have all made statements that Trump's proclamation that declaring media outlets as "fake news" is not only bad for business, it's an affront to the principles of Democracy.
Then they do stupid things like this, showing their utter contempt for Trump and the GOP in general. It's no wonder that Franken didn't exactly resign. Taking responsibility for your product is not necessary, but the public believing in #FakeNews is wrong.
This entry was posted in Media, Politics and tagged Dumbass, Fake News by Sonoran Conservative. Bookmark the permalink.
OTOH, Breitbart Unmasked Bunny Billy Boy Brett Unread did set an example by firing an incompetent editor.
That was just for hygienic reasons.
Fundraising must be terrible to fire someone from a supposedly "volunteer" position.
All, that is to say ALL, they have to do, is be the grownup in the room, when the only other person in the room is Donald Freakin' Trump.


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