Get ready for a traffic jam.
Across the United States, millions of people plan to travel the highways and byways to view the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21. The moon will block the sun along a narrow band through 14 states — including Kansas and Missouri. The eclipse begins around 11:40 a.m., with totality just after 1 p.m.
As many as 1.2 million eclipse-watchers could travel to Missouri between Aug. 18 - 22. Parts of the metro are in the path of totality; on the edges, totality will last for seconds. St. Joseph, Missouri, one of the cities in the center of the path, will be a popular site to view the eclipse for a long stretch — 2 minutes and 39 seconds.
Cell phone companies in the area have boosted coverage and capacity; some are adding temporary mobile sites.
So what will the roads look like?
As you travel towards the center of the path of the eclipse, there's longer viewing in Missouri: Kansas City, 29 seconds, Independence, 1:10, Excelsior Springs, 2:30, and St. Joseph, 2:38.
"I think at this point we're not really sure what to expect," says Melissa Black, Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)'s communications manager in Kansas City.
She adds, "Our concern is always safety. We are concerned that people will, for instance, try to pull over and look at the event from the highway — which we are highly discouraging.
"We want people to be in safe spots, we want them not to be in areas where they could potentially put themselves at risk, or someone else."
To help monitor the roadways, she says, some MoDOT staff will be redirected from regular duties, such as filling potholes and mowing. Construction in work zones will also be put on hold, if at all possible, from Friday through Tuesday to help traffic flow.
Keep an eye out for pedestrians, emergency vehicles, as well as other motorists. Don't take photos while driving, says Black.
The duration of totality varies in Kansas. Kansas City will see 24 seconds of totality, Leavenworth, 1:32, and Atchison, 2:19.
Black suggests motorists consult traffic conditions before leaving, so they can know what to expect and adjust their route, if needed.
MoDOT offers a traveler information map to advise motorists of delays. The Kansas Department of Transportation also provides this service. And Kansas City Scout delivers traffic updates for the metro area.
Heavy congestion is expected on the roadways. "Come early, stay late," advises Black.
In St. Joseph, parking areas at some watch locations, such as Rosencrans Memorial Airport (available for purchase through August 11) and Remington Nature Center (first-come, first-serve), open at 7 a.m. Others, like East Hills Shopping Area, plan to open at 6 a.m.
Libraries, wineries, astronomical societies and others have scheduled watch parties in and around the metro area. But wherever you decide to go, "get to the destination and stay there," she says. "Don't try to move around, [or] be in traffic during that time."
Motorists could be tempted to park on the shoulder of the highway to view the eclipse. Don't do it, says Black. "First off, it's illegal [for non-emergency reasons] and it causes a safety hazard," she explains. "We really want people to not be on the side of the highways. They need to find a safe location to stop and view."
Plan like you're getting ready for a road trip. Make sure your car has a full tank of gas. "Bring water and snacks with you," she suggests, "just to make sure you're prepared and ready in case of an emergency."
And don't forget those safety glasses.
To see this month's total solar eclipse, the first one to be visible from the contiguous United States in nearly 40 years, all Donald Liebenberg will have to do is open his front door and step outside.
"It's a really special treat to be able to have one in my driveway," says Liebenberg, who has trekked to Turkey, Zambia, China and Pukapuka, a remote island in the Pacific, to see past eclipses.
You might think that, after thousands of years of observing total solar eclipses, science-minded folks would have exhausted what can be learned from this awesome natural spectacle.
KCUR's Laura Spencer reports on an artistic collaboration creating new murals in Kansas City's Crossroads Arts District in celebration of the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.
Jason Harrington, aka muralist Rif Raf Giraffe, thinks that in the near future, Kansas City will be home to perhaps the densest mural park in the nation.
Try to find a hotel room in St. Joseph, Missouri a year from now, and you might be disappointed. On August 21, 2017, tens of thousands of visitors will have descended on the city to watch a remarkably rare event: a total solar eclipse.
St. Joseph falls in the small band in which the entirety of the sun will be blocked by the moon, causing the sky to go dark.


My favorite basing technique over the last year or so has been to sculpt a surface directly onto a base prior to attaching the model. This is similar to other basing techniques that I have written about, but rather than gluing a tall bit of material onto the base, I add details to a thin layer of greenstuff or other 2-part putty. This technique is a bit (only a bit) more time consuming than gluing on layers of rock, cork, or super-sculpy, but allows for much greater control in the design of the base. This is also a great way to get a handle on the properties of greenstuff if you are just starting out as a sculptor.
One of the excellent things about putting the time in to really craft your miniature's bases is that it gives you another way to tell their story to the viewers. The Eldar that I have been working on are scouring a rusted wasteland of a planet in a region littered by centuries of wreckage and scrap. Having a distinct idea about the environment that your minis are in can add a lot to the miniature itself.
Here are some of the tools and materials needed for this project. Note that the primary sculpting tool will be a dulled and polished hobby knife blade. This thing is not sharp at all. Its great for creating deep divots or lines in putty.
When I do these bases I like to mix greenstuff, but add some super sculpy to the putty as I mix it. This changes it's sculpting properties slightly. I only add about 10-20% to the full volume of the putty. So long as the sculpy is less than either the blue or yellow component of the putty, it should set just fine. The resulting mixed putty is slightly softer and stickier. Great for adding the rough type of detail we will need later.
Smooth the putty out across the base. Don't worry too much about overlap. That will get cut off later. Start breaking up the surface of the putty with some bold lines. The position of these lines will only be determined by experience. Play around with it, find what you like the best. Keep in mind you can always press out the lines and start again if they don't look the way you like.
Using the handle of a clay shaper or paint brush (or whatever you have laying around) press in some indents to break up the smooth surface of the putty. I would alternate the angle that I was using to make a natural and random pattern.
Using the tip of the same handle I created pits in the surface of the putty. This finalized the dry rocky ground look I was going for.
One of the things I like about this form of basing is that you can integrate as much detail as you like. In this case I am trying to capture the feeling of a wreckage strewn wasteland. Here I pressed a bit of a model into the putty to give the impression of some steel emerging from the dusty ground.
Once the putty has fully set, carefully do any edge trimming with a sharp hobby knife blade. This step is optional and I didn't do it on every base, depending on how much putty was spread around.
Here is an example of a base that has been painted and slightly weathered. The next steps are to paint the base edges and to add weathering powder once the mini is attached. When attaching the mini I do a shallow pin past the plastic of the base. This gives just enough strength to keep the two parts together. I don't trust the paint to be a good surface to attach the mini to alone.
Here is a finished base with the mini attached.
Here are all the bases for the unit. These took a few hours to do including painting and set time.
I like making bases this way, especially if I am working on some other sculpting. This gives me a way to use spare putty that would otherwise set up and go to waste. Its also relaxing to work on these as the level of detail needed for them is not very fine. Of course you could simply purchase some resin bases from one of the many manufactures out there. If you want your own design or style, this is a great way to go about it. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section!
Very nice and simple method.
Awesome basing walthrough. It was completely NOT what I was searching for, but it was well done enough that I stayed to read it. If only everyone got as involved with their minis, gaming fun would be exponentially better!
Thanks for the fantastic compliment!
Haha, but of course! How often do you meet mini-gamers who seem to wish everything came prepainted? Your way is much more funer-er.


text:
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"The Adventure of the Second Stain"
January 24, 2014 by Rory Spiegel 3 Comments
Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (SAH) is one of the more angst-inducing pathologies an Emergency Physician faces on a daily basis. A disease for which we have a well established diagnostic pathway. The strategy of non-contrast CT followed by a lumbar puncture (LP) has been showed to effectively eliminate the risk of SAH (1). And yet there is great resistance to performing an LP on the large majority of patients suspected of SAH. In a paper by Perry et al published in CJEM, the authors demonstrated that only 27% of the patients who received a CT to rule out SAH had a subsequent LP. In the patients who did receive an LP the length of stay increased significantly(2). Because of this there have been various alterative strategies proposed to eliminate the need for a lumbar puncture in the Emergency Department. One of these strategies involves a non-contrast CT followed by a CT angiogram (CTA). The thought process is that if no blood is identified on the CT and no aneurysm can be seen on the CTA, then even if the patient does have a SAH it is not of aneurysmal origin and therefore requires no further management.
There are a number of problems with a CT/CTA protocol. The first and most obvious is that CTA is an anatomic test meant to identify the presence of an aneurysm. It does not tell you whether that aneurysm is the cause of the presenting headache. Given this, using CT/CTA as a diagnostic pathway to rule out SAH will inevitably lead to the frequent misclassification of incidental aneurysm in an otherwise benign headache. Studies have found the rate of asymptomatic unruptured cerebral aneurysms in the general population as high as 7%(3). In assuming all aneurysms discovered by CTA are the cause of the presenting headache, we will transform people into patients, and cause unnecessary downstream testing and interventions.
In addition to this decrease in specificity, there is no evidence CT/CTA adds any diagnostic value to our current management of suspected SAH. Currently our knowledge of the diagnostic accuracy of CTA for SAH is based primarily off small cohorts trials comparing CTA to the gold standard of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in patients who have already been diagnosed with SAH. In these trials CTA was utilized to identify an aneurysmal cause of a known SAH. Even in this population, the sensitivity of CTA ranges from 81% to 99% (4-7). In fact in some cases even the initial DSA can be falsely negative secondary to arteriospasm, and only appear positive after a delayed DSA 2-3 days later (11). The failure of logic occurs when attempting to apply this data to the undifferentiated headache patient in the Emergency Department. These studies do nothing to inform us how CTA performs when used in series with CT for the diagnosis of SAH in undiagnosed patients presenting with thunderclap headache. If one assumes independence of the two tests and applies the most optimistic test characteristics for CTA, then the post-test probability following a negative CT and CTA may be clinically useful. Unfortunately, given the current data we are unable to assume independence between these two tests.
Conditional Independence is the assumption that two diagnostic tests have different factors that determine the individual diagnostic accuracy of each test. People who argue for the CT/CTA strategy assume that since CT and CTA are looking for different findings (blood vs aneurysm), then their ability to identify SAH are independent and augmentative. On the other hand, if the aneurysmal bleeds that are missed by CTA are the same bleeds that are commonly read as negative on CT, then this protocol will add little to the sensitivity of CT alone. This concept is demonstrated nicely in a paper by McCormack et al, published in Academic Emergency Medicine (8). In this paper the authors calculate the post-test probability following a negative CT and CTA given 25, 50, and 75% dependence. In the case where the tests only have 25% dependence the post-test probability of a negative CT and CTA would be 0.29% (or 1 in 344 patients). On the other hand if you were to assume 75% dependence between the tests, then the post-test probability would be 0.86% (1in 116 patients),very close to the post-test probability of a negative CT alone.
This of course comes back to, what is an acceptable miss rate? At what threshold does the harm of over-testing, false positives, and needless interventions overcome the harm of a missed SAH? Perry et al's data on the sensitivity of non-contrast CT alone performed within the first 6-hours of symptom onset demonstrates that a negative CT already stratifies these patients into a fairly low risk cohort(9). What to do after a negative CT is still up for debate. If you believe that a negative CT places a patient below the test threshold, and any further testing will do more harm than good, then there is reasonable data to support this decision(10). In the cases of the high risk patient in whom CT alone is not adequate to rule out SAH, the LP is the appropriate next step. Although LP has a high rate of false positive findings (a specificity of only 67%) (1) in its own right, it has demonstrated a proven negative predictive value above CT alone (1).
Without formal investigations evaluating the performance of a CT/CTA in the diagnosis of SAH, we are incapable of knowing its true diagnostic utility. If CT followed by CTA strategy ends up having a significant degree of conditional dependence, not only will this protocol increase the rate of false positive findings by identifying incidental aneurysms, it will not add diagnostic capabilities above CT alone. It is clear this strategy provides very little immediate benefit and will surely lead to far more downstream harm.
1. Perry JJ, Spacek A, Forbes M, et al. Is the combination of negative computed tomography result and negative lumbar puncture result sufficient to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage? Ann Emerg Med. 2008; 51:707–13.
2. Perry et al.. Diagnostic test utilization in the emergency department for alert headache patients with possible subarachnoid hemorrhage. CJEM 2002;4(5):333-337
3. Ming-Hua et al Prevalence of Unruptured Cerebral Aneurysms in Chinese Adults Aged 35 to 75 Years A Cross-sectional Study. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2013 Oct;159(8): 514-521.
4. MaccKinnon et al. Acute Subarachnoid haemorrhage: Is a negative CT angiogram enough? Clinical Radiology, Vol. 68, Issue 3, 232-238
5. Ergun et al. Diagnostic Value of 64-slice CTA in Detection of Intracranial Aneurysm Patients with SAH and Camparison of the CTA
Results with 2D-DSA and Intraoperative Findings
6. Kokkinis et al. The Role of 3d-Computer Tomography Angiography (3D-CTA) in Investigation of Spontaneous Subarachnoid haemorrhage: Comparison with Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA) and Surgical Finding. British Journal of Neurosurgery. Vol. 22:71-78
7. Westerlaan et al. Multislice CT Angiography in the Selection of Patients with Rupture Intracranial Aneurysms Suitable for Clipping or Coiling. Neuroradiology (2007) 49:997-1007
8. McCormack et al. Can Computed Tomography Angiography of the Brain Replace Lumbar Puncture in the Evaluation of Acute-onset Headache After a Negative Noncontrast Cranial Computed Tomography Scan? Volume 17, Issue 4, pages 444–451, April 201)
9. PerryJJ,StiellIG,SivilottiML,etal.Sensitivityof computed tomography performed within six hours of onset of headache for diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2011;343:d4277.
10. LP for Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: The 700 Club DECEMBER EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS MONTHLY. 4TH, 2012http://www.epmonthly.com/features/current-features/lp-for-subarachnoid-hemorrhage-the-700-club/
11. Agid et al. Negative CT Angiographic Finds in Patients with Spontaneous Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: When is Digital Subtraction Angiography still Needed? Am J Neuroradiol 31:696-705, April 2010
Rory Spiegel
EM and Critical Care Attending
University of Georgetown
Resuscitation and Critical Care Fellowship Graduate
EMNerd.com
Latest posts by Rory Spiegel (see all)
EM Nerd: The Case of the Sour Remedy Continues - January 20, 2020
EM Nerd-The Case of the Adjacent Contradictions - December 23, 2019
EM Nerd-Letter to the Editor, a Response - November 11, 2019
Filed Under: EMNerd
charleskhwong@gmail.com
Thanks for this. I see what you mean by transforming people into patients with a "false positive" CTA – but couldn't we just do the LP after a CTA comes back positive? If only 7% of people have an aneurysm as you say – we would be avoiding LPs in 93% of patients we work up.
Blues and Twos
Thank you for your nice posting.Ergun et al. Diagnostic Value of 64-slice CTA in Detection of Intracranial Aneurysm Patients with SAH and Camparison of the CTA.
[…] the strategy of CT followed by CTA (no LP) for working up possible subarachnoid haemorrhage in "The Adventure of the Second Stain" […]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Jason Day motivated by near misses at Open Championship
Australia's Jason Day during a press conference at Royal Troon Golf Club in South Ayrshire on Monday
Picture by PA
Phil Casey
Dermot McElroy sets sights on North of Ireland glory
Sweden's Alex Noren bags fifth European Tour title at Scottish Open
Former champion Phil Mickelson embraces prospect of bad weather at The Open
WORLD number one Jason Day will be motivated by failures old and new as he looks to claim a second major title in the 145th Open Championship.
Day finished a shot outside the three-man play-off won by Zach Johnson at St Andrew's last year, sparking a run which saw him win seven of his next 17 events. That included a maiden major title and record 20 under par total in the US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, as well as victories in two FedEx Cup events which took him top of the world rankings for the first time.
However, the 28-year-old Australian arrived in Scotland on the back of a disappointing performance in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, when he led by one with four holes to play but bogeyed the 15th and double bogeyed the 16th.
"Coming so close last year was definitely a motivational factor in that I would love to one day hold the Claret Jug and be able to put my name down in history with the best that have ever lived and played the game," Day said.
"It was the start of my run where everything kind of changed my world, really."
Asked if he could remember another time when he had been motivated by failure, Day added without hesitation: "Two weeks ago. Yeah, that was pretty motivating.
"To be honest, we're not going to win every single one. Even though I don't like losing, it was great to be able to learn something from that and turn this into what I would say is a learning experience and try to move forward and get better from it.
"At the end of the day, I'm just trying to get as good as I can and the only way to do that is to learn from failure, and the way you look at it is not in a negative way. You have to look at it in a positive light that, okay, I did this for a reason. I've got to try to get better and move on. If I can do that, then you can't do anything but go up.
"It sucked. It was really bad. I hated losing. It was a terrible way to lose, and it was frustrating and disappointing. But things like this, you can't win them all, and that's just the way of life. Like I've always said, we got spoilt with Tiger Woods, how he dominated and did so well. That's what I'm shooting for, to be able to finish off like he did back in the day. Will I ever get to a point like that? Maybe not. But that's what I'm shooting for right now."
Day and Woods have become good friends in recent years, with Day eager to seek advice from the 14-time major winner, who is currently sidelined after three back operations in the space of 19 months: "When I talk to him, it's about how mentally tough he was," Day added.
"When he didn't have his best stuff, he would just find a way to get it done. His game plan was, 'I just got to get this ball in the hole'. If it was trying to catch someone, he wanted to cut that lead down maybe one or two shots. Just cutting into that lead will show that there's presence there. In the same way, if you have the lead, being able to extend that lead shows that you're playing some pretty strong golf."
Despite missing out on the Claret Jug last year, Day credits his experience that week at St Andrews with giving him the belief that he could win major titles after several near misses. After finishing second in the Masters and US Open in 2011, Day was third and second in the same events in 2013 and eighth in the US PGA, before coming fourth in the 2014 US Open and ninth the following year, despite suffering from attacks of vertigo at Chambers Bay.
"I just felt really calm," Day explained.
"It was the Open Championship, but I really wasn't thinking that it was a major championship, and I really didn't feel like it was like any other day. It was just a strange feeling that I just felt so calm about things, and no matter what happened, it was going to be okay.
"I think subconsciously I just finally got over the hurdle that it's your time to start winning and play well. And I think I finally found that belief in myself to be able to really say, 'You're a good player. You deserve to win these if you put yourself in these opportunities."'
12 July, 2016 01:00 Sport


This is one of three classic cars that we at Jules Bodycraft have had the privilege to restore for the owner.
Front view of Jaguar XK140, body panelled up gapped and filled.
Rear view of Jaguar XK140.
Bright work being pre-fitted to Jaguar XK140 prior to outer panels being re-painted.
Front view of Jaguar XK140. Bright work being pre-fitted to the Jaguar prior to outer panels being re-painted.
Jaguar X140 in spray booth masked up ready for top coat.
Jaguar XK140 in spray booth, masked up and sprayed in top coat.
Front suspension being re-built on Jaguar XK140.
Bright work re-fitted to Jaguar XK140.
Chrome re-fitted to Jaguar XK140.
New hood re-fitted to Jaguar XK140.


text:
A robot breaks its rules in The Fall
by J Nicholas Geist
@jnicholasgeist
Linux, Mac, PC, Wii U
Reviewed On:
John Warner
Let us start with the obvious: the fall is the name we give to the brief, untethered moment between stability and the ground. The impact is always there, beneath us, waiting. If there is a fall, there must be a landing.
And so The Fall begins with an uncontrolled descent, the game's (as-yet) unnamed protagonist plummeting from some unknown origin beyond the sky into the unforgiving gravity of an equally unknown world. It is the Armored Robotic Interface Device onboard a mark—7 combat suit. Its primary objective is to protect her pilot—who is unresponsive. Internal systems are damaged, and the ARID is unable to assess his health and status.
This is the fundamental conflict of the game: the ARID must protect its pilot, but most of its systems are offline, requiring the authorization of a human to function. It can activate those systems as necessary in emergency situations, but it is bound by its programming to three directives: it must not misrepresent reality; it must be obedient; it must protect its active pilot.
Those limitations are the backdrop for The Fall's gameplay. There is a contradiction embedded in them that becomes immediately obvious once gameplay begins: the abilities ARID needs to protect its pilot become available only when the pilot is in mortal danger. It takes ARID very little time to realize that by putting itself—and therefore its pilot—in jeopardy, it can create a situation wherein a necessary asset is unlocked, and then becomes usable (both for the suit and for the player). This realization begins the true story of the game: the transition between ARID, the Armored Robotic Interface Device onboard a mark—7 combat suit, and ARID, the young robotic woman struggling to save her friend, Colonel Josephs.
To make that transition, ARID must release many of her constraints, limitations, principles, and directives.
Falling Back
The game is a throwback to the old-style point-and-click adventure game, requiring you to solve puzzles with limited assets within a constantly shifting scaffold of constraints that limits what is and is not possible. For the most part, the game avoids the exasperating opacity that once plagued adventure games—flush the pickle down the toilet in order to get the car keys—but there is nevertheless little room for variation in how one solves the puzzles, and little room for choice within the story.
The Fall seems like something one might find if Ray Bradbury had written episodes for The Jetsons.
This is in keeping with the general retro feel to the game, though; from the puzzles set in a 1950s cult-of-domesticity household to ARID's Fixedsys-rendered, ASCII-based interface, the world of The Fall seems like something one might find if Ray Bradbury had written episodes for The Jetsons. The stylistic choices dovetail neatly with the pointing-and-clicking to create an experience somehow reminiscent of the old text adventure games.
ARID is a wonderfully interesting character, although she has little opportunity for personality within the space of this game (the first of a trilogy). Her imperative to save her pilot pushes her to cast aside many of her other imperatives—which, as a digital entity constrained by her programming, is more or less impossible. As a result, the game becomes a story of a thousand tiny—and not so tiny—subversions, small ways in which ARID manages to satisfy the letter of a requirement while completely disregarding its spirit, often in ways that are absurd, hilarious, or horrifying.
And this is where the game begins to split at its seams. The story it tells is one of breaking rules by following them, and ARID solves problems always by rethinking, reworking, or reframing them, cutting through rather than untying a dozen Gordian knots. For ARID, there is always a solution other than the expected.
The nature of the adventure game is that there is little freedom in it.
Not so for us. The nature of the adventure game is that there is little freedom in it. There is room for a few small choices, perhaps, but for the most part, there is one solution to each problem, and one path through each puzzle. One right way.
At one point, ARID is presented with a problem that can only be solved by a horrific sacrifice. She is presented with the proverbial Big Red Button, and we are expected to press it. It was a sacrifice that I was unwilling to make, and one that—given the contrarian nature of the game—I expected to find a way around. After a few minutes of searching the area, though, I came to the conclusion that there was no other option. ARID, perhaps, could subvert her programming, but I couldn't subvert the game's.
Falling In
But then again, there is no choice in a fall. There is only down.
ARID is told throughout the game that she is "faulty." Time and again, other artificial intelligences recognize what she is doing—that she is behaving contrary to her programming—and tell her that she is defective. We are told this enough that we begin to believe it, and we start to think that she must be doing something wrong.
But here is the truth: I ultimately instructed ARID to push that big red button, not because I was not opposed to the sacrifice it implied, but because it was my job to see that Colonel Josephs made it to safety. When her robotic hand fell on that button, it was at the end of a trajectory that began with that same imperative: must protect active pilot. From that mandate, both for ARID and for me, flowed all of the choices and actions we took. It was that requirement that brought us through the facilities beneath the unknown world, that pushed us from danger to danger, and that drove us to fight, to escape, to survive. With ballistic inevitability, we careened through the game's story toward its conclusion.
It will likely come as no surprise, given the game's premises, that some of the assumptions ARID has made about her situation turn out to be incorrect. Her understanding of her situation is flawed, at best. On such faulty data was her trajectory set.
One wonders, then, where she might land.
J Nicholas Geist
J. Nicholas Geist is an essayist, gamer, programmer, teacher, feminist, and all-around geek about town. He earned his MFA in Creative Nonfiction writing from California State University, Fresno in 2008. His work has been published in Creative Nonfiction and Ninth Letter, and he frequently publishes weird stuff with Kill Screen. You can find him on Twitter as @jnicholasgeist or on his blog at geekabouttown.com.
Adventure Gamesretrorobotssci-fitext adventureThe Fall
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#12792 assigned Question/How do I...?
Hi are you trying to reset the password directly through the mailman interface or through the May First control panel?
We've just performed a new upgrade to the May First control panel this morning and we are working out a few configuration issues. We should have this resolved soon. So if you can wait a few hours until later today the procedure you should try is to login to the may First Control Panel , navigate to the e-mail list tab, choose to edit that list and save. That should send a new e-mail to the list owner e-mail. If you can give me the name of the list I can confirm that your e-mail is set as the list owner.


At Best-Way we have every possible flooring choice you can think of, including woods, vinyl plank, vinyl, tile, and of course carpet. Carpet is undoubtedly the warmest, most inviting flooring option you can choose. Today's carpet styles, colors and textures also blend well with any home décor and with a variety of other flooring products. From the traditional to country, from causal to formal, you can always find a carpet that will compliment any interior setting.
Carpet is the foundation of your decorating. With so many styles & textures you can find the right carpet for any décor.
Think about bright cheerful colors, soothing tones.
Carpet feels so good. Nothing feels better on bare feet than lush, thick carpet. Makes your floor space a place to play with the children/grandchildren or just to sit and relax.
Simple- regular vacuuming, quick attention to spills and professional cleaning is all it takes.
In cold weather, carpet feels warm and, in the heat, it stays cooler.
It's a great non-slip choice to help prevent slips and falls.
Carpet absorbs sound within a room and acts a sound barrier between floors.
Carpet is relatively inexpensive and generally easier to install and replace than other floor coverings.
Not only do we specialize in carpet for the home, but also for the office or workspace. Best-Way has a wide selection of carpeting available for commercial needs as well.
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU PURCHASE THAT NEW CARPET.
Carpet is available in 12' & 15' widths. Unless the room to be carpeted is narrower than this, the carpet will have to be seamed.
With looped or low-profile patterned carpet, you may have a visible or peaked seam. The degree of their visibility depends on texture, color, lighting and furniture placement.
Be aware that as carpet bends over stairs, its backing may show depending on texture, density and color.
Plus, you should know that looped carpet could snag, particularly at a seam or transition. But never fear, we can provide helpful information to properly care for looped carpet.
The nap of all carpet runs in one direction. Pile reversal, or shading, is a normal characteristic of many cut pile carpets. This can be particularly apparent with plush carpet. If this becomes an issue, consider window treatments and furniture placement as a way to minimize this affect.
Higher quality carpet will typically have a greater pile density and tighter twist construction, which will result in better durability.
Describes the winding of the yarn on itself. The tighter the twist the more the carpet will resist changes in appearance and texture.
Color has a big impact on any room in the home. Carpet covers a large area of any room, so it's important to keep some basic rules in mind when selecting your carpet.
An important fact is that once carpet is installed in your home, it will often look lighter than the sample you saw in the store. This a natural optical effect and you should be aware of this when making a carpet color selection.
Another thing to keep in mind is how the color of carpet affects the apparent size of the room. Lighter colors will visually expand the room while darker carpet tends to bring the walls close together and create a more intimate feeling.
Neutral colors are the best choice if you expect to frequently change the decorating scheme or if you are trying to incorporate existing furniture. Using neutral colored carpet is a good idea if your home will be on the selling market any time soon. It's easier for a prospective buyer to imagine their furnishings in a room that is decorated with neutral colors.
The three basic fibers used in carpets today all have their individual strengths. Your ultimate choice will be determined by the characteristics that are most important to you.
Nylon is more expensive than other synthetic carpet fibers and has been the most commonly used carpet fiber since the early l960's. In overall performance characteristics, nylon is the most versatile of all fibers, providing excellent flexibility in creating a variety of carpet styles. It is durable, resilient and receptive to dyeing for color versatility and uniformity. Many new nylon yarns are also exceptionally soft. Though not inherently stain resistant, most nylon carpets are treated with stain-resist treatment for protection against household spills and stains.
Since 1980, the use of polypropylene fibers has grown dramatically. Unlike the other fiber types, polypropylene will not absorb water and must be solution dyed to impart color. Solution dyeing is a pigmentation process in which color is actually built into the fiber when it is formed, thereby becoming an inherent part that cannot be removed from the fiber. The color will not fade, even when exposed to bright sunlight, bleaches, other harsh chemicals or elements. Since it is not as resilient as other fibers, polypropylene is normally used in loop pile constructions in which there is less need for superior resiliency.
Polyester offers exceptional softness and color clarity and it is also naturally stain and fade resistant. While polyester is not as resilient as nylon, carpets made of polyester fiber will perform well if appropriately constructed. Carpets of polyester are generally available only in cut pile styles and are usually less expensive than nylon in comparable weights.
There's a lot to know and keep in mind before you purchase your carpet, but it's well worth the effort. If you are a smart and knowledgeable shopper it will pay off in many ways, the best of which will be carpeting you're pleased to come home to.
The most important step in caring for your new carpet is to vacuum it thoroughly and frequently particularly in high traffic areas.
Professionally deep clean your carpet regularly as this will remove the oily, sticky soil that the vacuum can not remove. Professional cleaning will target soils that result from cooking, air pollution, pet dander and tracked in dirt.
Stop dirt at the door. Use mats at doors to reduce the amount of dirt that enters the house.
Apply warm, not hot, water sparingly to the stained area and blot until the stain stops transferring to the towel.
Place layers of white paper towel on the spill to absorb the liquid.
Cushion, or padding, is the foundation of your carpet. It is responsible for enhancing both comfort and durability. A cushion with medium thickness and medium to high density usually performs best.


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TL;DR: Be Careful What Unicorn Wish For, Cheezy Lawsuits, And Bursting The Bubble
Here's what you need to know…
The new year has begun, and some of the most valuable private tech companies – including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Slack, and other so-called "unicorns" valued at more than $1 billion – are preparing for their initial public offerings (IPOs) in the early part of 2019. Thirty-eight tech and internet companies, the most since the dot-com boom in 2000, took the plunge to go public last year and more are expected to test the market this year, despite the recent market downturn and the overall trend of fewer companies doing so.
These headwinds mean unicorns should be careful about going public, as other sectors appear to have weighed the added political and reputational challenges and decided against it, and 2019 comes with the expectation that the tech industry's public affairs challenges will begin to have an impact on their bottom line. Here's what you need to know about minimizing and mitigating these risks as we await this year's big, newsworthy IPOs:
How Did We Get Here? A strong stock market and cheap capital have allowed private tech companies to incubate and scale in a favorable climate, resulting in their ability to grow into large and valuable unicorns. Investors were patient with these companies as long as the economy continued to expand and interest rates stayed low, which is why some unicorns were putting off their IPOs, even as far out as 2020, hoping to continue growing, gaining value, and avoiding the scrutiny from shareholders, the press, and governments that comes with being a public company.
Greater Scrutiny On Executives And Business Practices: Public companies are obligated to publicly disclose lengthy filings that detail their financials and operations, which can garner the attention of the media, analysts, and activist investors (of both the short-selling and political kind). Avoiding this additional scrutiny can be particularly beneficial for disruptive companies challenging the regulatory environment in areas where they operate, as insights into their tactics and business practices could be used against them in the public policy arena by legacy competitors and other opponents, making it all the more important to understand any vulnerabilities before going public.Also, executives of public companies have to answer to a greater number of shareholders and investors, which could lead to additional scrutiny of their professional and personal lives, with anything hinting of impropriety potentially being used as leverage against them and the company.
Becoming A Target For Activism: Once public, companies must contend with an increased risk of activism in which current or potential shareholders and investors seek to influence the company's operations. This could take the form of institutional investors sending governance-related proposals to companies recommending changes in management and compensation, a trend that has grown an average of 11% over the past four years. Additionally, such proposals could be the result of policy-related activism, in which companies are pressured to adopt measures on topics unrelated to their core business and often part of a politically-motivated agenda. Although such proposals have been found to increase a company's costs and diminish shareholders' returns, navigating the inevitable attention from such activism requires a strong understanding of a company's values and business purpose. This can help ensure they align with business decisions, and that unrelated special interest agendas are opposed. Indeed, sometimes the shareholders pushing such agendas own just a few shares expressly for the purpose of pressuring the company on policy matters, or come from institutional investors being pressured by political interests.
Time, Money, And Reputation: Taking a private company, let alone a unicorn, public is an expensive and time-intensive endeavor with high-stakes for the company's reputation and bottom line, and even more so when activist shareholders are waiting to pressure companies. Current corporate governance rules have made it difficult to separate legitimate shareholder concerns about a company's management and strategy from politically-motivated pressures, not to mention this lack of distinction heightens corporate risk. Both of these factors deter companies from going public – which in turn negatively impacts main street investors as well. While the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to focus on corporate governance this year, investor pressure on public companies is likely to increase, as well as those pushing environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices that can put political and sustainability goals above business purpose and value, raising the costs of going public in the near-term.
Rather than the "orderly queue" of IPOs predicted in 2019 and 2020, the early part of 2019 may more resemble a stampede – unless, of course, the government remains shutdownand the SEC is not working on new filings. Yet, these unicorns may regret going public if they do not have a thorough understanding of their political and reputational vulnerabilities and the wide range of stakeholders who can influence perceptions about their company's practices. Such an understanding is vital to ensure the company does not cede the public narrative to others who could damage their reputation – and worse, drive down the company's value.
CHEEZY LAWSUITS
Move over McDonald's and its hot coffee case, Cheez-Its is going to court. Three women are suing Kellogg's, the manufacturer of the orange snacks, claiming the company uses "false and misleading marketing" by labeling its crackers as "Made With Whole Grain," which could trick consumers into thinking they are made with 100% whole grains when they are not.
In early December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit appeared to agree, ruling that a reasonable consumer could think Cheez-It Whole Grain crackers were made with "predominantly whole grain," thereby putting the company one step closer to legal discovery and a potential jury trial (!) about the contents of one of America's most-beloved snacks. The suit demonstrates the extent to which frivolous lawsuits can run amok in an overly litigious society, in which companies can find themselves facing increased legal and reputational risks resulting from such "cheezy" lawsuits.
"ALEXA, TELL ME ABOUT PRIVACY REGULATIONS"
An Amazon user in Germany recently requested data about his activities on the site and inadvertently gained access to 1,700 audio recordings of a random person he had never met. Following his request, the e-commerce giant sent the user a zip file that contained data related to his Amazon searches but also transcripts of Alexa's interpretations of voice commands that were from an unknown person.
The user shared the Alexa transcript files with Germany's C't magazine, which listened to many of the files and was able to "piece together a detailed picture of the customer concerned and his personal habits," including his identity and the name of his girlfriend, their jobs, and taste in music. Amazon blamed the "unfortunate case" on "human error" and described it as an "isolated incident." Accident or not, this mishap could be used as another data point for proponents of increased tech regulation, which given support from industry executives and Congress, could become reality in 2019 in some form.
TAKING A STAND
A recent report from Accenture Strategy found that consumers worldwide are increasingly supporting brands whose purpose aligns with their beliefs and rejecting those that don't. The survey of nearly 30,000 consumers in 35 countries found that 62% of respondents want companies to take a stand on current social issues, and that nearly half of U.S. consumers who are disappointed by a brand's words or actions on a social issue complain about it, with one in five vowing to never support the company again. Likewise, a Morning Consult study found that more than half of both Democrats and Republicans say that a brand's "stance on a social or political matter is important when it comes to buying a product or service."
The results of these studies may explain why companies like WeWork, which announced in July 2018 it would no longer serve meat at company functions, are willing to take political stands. Companies are willing to mix business with politics when they feel their consumers are demanding it, but businesses must tread carefully or risk alienating customers who may disagree.
While the prevalence of filter bubbles is accepted by many as fact, new evidence suggests few people actually lock themselves in intellectual isolation. A new report from the Knight Foundation found that partisans actually tend to overestimate their use of partisan outlets and underreport the extent to which they consume nonpartisan or "ideologically misaligned outlets."
According to the study, the results show that people are increasingly viewing their consumption of media as an "expressive political act" and a signal to others of who they are. So, for companies and cause organizations hoping to achieve their objectives in policy debates, consider this new insight before crafting public affairs efforts to reach audiences that matter in the public arena, and never underestimate the importance of understanding the wide range of stakeholders engaged on an issue.
Delve helps clients obtain and leverage competitive intelligence to overcome public affairs challenges in the political, policy, and business environments.
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As part of the strategy to strengthen its global presence, Innovad® is proud to welcome Guilherme Minozzo as the newest addition to their management board. Guilherme Sprengel Minozzo has joined Innovad's subsidiary in Brazil and will be leading all business activities in South America.
He brings more than 25yrs of experience in the animal health industry, most recently as VP of Latin America at Alltech where he transformed the company's business team in order to meet customers' needs and new business expectations.
Innovad® is a group and a brand that combines people's long time experiences in the field of animal feed additives and an innovative approach and dedication to animal well-being and a healthy environment whilst securing the producer's cost effectiveness.
As part of the strategy to strengthen its global presence, Innovad®is proud to welcome Guilherme Minozzo as the newest addition to their management board. Guilherme Sprengel Minozzo has joined Innovad's subsidiary inBrazil and will be leading all business activities in South America. He brings more than 25yrs of experience in the animal health industry, most recently as VP of Latin America at Alltech where he transformed the company's business team in order to meet customers' needs and new business expectations. Guilherme has an academic background as veterinarian and did different postgraduation courses in marketing, business management and leadership.
Innovad® is a group and a brand that combines people's longtime experiences in the field of animal feed additives and an innovative approach and dedication to animal well-being and a healthy environment whilst securing the producer's cost effectiveness.


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Bazar – wieś w Polsce, położona w województwie lubelskim, w powiecie świdnickim, w gminie Rybczewice. Siedziba sołectwa gminy Rybczewice.

W latach 1975–1998 wieś należała administracyjnie do starego województwa lubelskiego.

Do 1975 r. wieś należała do powiatu krasnostawskiego, wieś położona przy drodze wojewódzkiej nr 837.

Potoczna nazwa wsi: "Bazarek", dawniej też "Mieścina" – wymawiane "Miścina".

Integralne części wsi

Historia
Wieś osadzona z woli  Jana III Sobieskiego w XVII wieku z myślą o rodzinach zasłużonych żołnierzy poległych w bitwach. Osadnicy wsi byli wolni od pańszczyzny i mieli prawa równe prawom  mieszczan, nadane im przez króla.

Żołnierskie żony nazywano "bazarkami"  - w obozach żołnierskich zajmowały się handlem na bazarach. Stąd od nazwy tej "ukuta" została nazwa wsi.

Przypisy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse
Steakhouse Music Venues
Sushi Miyagi Restaurant
Brennan's of Houston
Creole Fine Dining Southern
The Orange Show
2402 Munger
http://www.orangeshow.org
Hours: Sun,Sat 12pm-5pm
Attractions and Amusement Parks Music Venues
Once an unprepossessing bungalow, this only-in-Houston labor of love/shrine to citrus fruit was cobbled together over several decades by postal worker Jeff McKissack, an eccentric fellow who believed that oranges were the key to longevity. McKissack transformed the house utterly - there's a small amphitheater outside, folk-art maxims testifying to orange power on the walls, mannequins scattered about in pro-orange propaganda tableaux. It's really hard to explain - you'll just have to see it for yourself. The foundation that runs the place books some really cool indie rock, neo-folk, avant-garde hip-hop and roots rock shows, which should give you even more incentive to see this totally unique art space.
Houston's 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: Friendsgiving & a Shuck for a Buck
Friday, November 25, 2016 at 8 a.m. by Brooke Viggiano
From a post-Thanksgiving "detox and retox" to an annual "foamraiser," here's a look at this weekend's best culinary happenings: Black Friday Deals Friday Skip the holiday shopping (or at least take a break) and hit these local spots...
Robert Ellis Easily Charms a Hometown Orange Show Crowd
Monday, November 14, 2016 at 9:20 a.m. by Marco Torres
The young Houston singer-songwriter fought back a case of nerves to deliver a determined set before a teeming and warm hometown audience.
Houston's 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: Black Friday, But For Beer
Craft Beer Black Friday: Declare Your Independence @ The Hay Merchant Friday, 10 a.m. (kitchen opens at 11 a.m.) to close 1100 Westheimer The Hay Merchant will be offering a killer selection of stouts—hand-picked from the...
The 5 Best Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: Finders Keepers, Wishing Well and More
Friday, October 2, 2015 at 6 a.m. by Olivia Flores Alvarez
If you're looking for a somber, intellectual film exploring self-responsibility, Finders Keepers might not be the first thing to pop into your mind. But the fact that it's not somber doesn't mean it's not serious, and the fact that ...
2015 Winner Best Arts Festival
2013 Winner Best Festival
2003 Winner Best Cultural Center
See More Best Of Houston


Tony Abbott released his most recent book, "The Great Jeff" in late March, which focuses on a boy and his mother struggling with homelessness.
After the events of "Fire Girl," Jeff finds himself going to a large public school, where he doesn't have many friends, so his life has become more isolated. At the beginning of the book his mother comes home drunk and announces that she has lost her job and from there the panic begins to set in. As Jeff's homelife becomes increasingly unstable, Jeff begins to fade away and walks the halls of his school like a ghost.
Unfortunately for Jeff, his problems extend beyond struggling to keep his home. His mother is an alcoholic, he's not eating and his mother increasingly turns to Jeff to fix their problems. Once Jeff and his mom find themselves sleeping in their car, they decide it's time for them to go to a shelter.
Abbott said he did a considerable amount of research into this, speaking to the director of Operation Hope and touring a women and children's shelter to gain a better understanding of what Jeff would see and experience. Abbott also spoke with middle school personnel to see how Jeff could try to hide his situation from teachers at his school.
"I really wanted to get the details right," he said.
Throughout the book Jeff finds himself ruminating on his reading assignments, particularly on "The House on Mango Street." Abbott said he chose Jeff's assignments to tie back into his situation. "'The House on Mango Street' is such a deep and lovely text that concerns itself with a house, a living situation, something that defines you and Jeff is losing that in this book," he said.
Abbott has written over a hundred books and several of those books deal with heavy topics for his young/tween readers. His books have covered a variety of difficult topics including sexual abuse ("The Summer of Owen Todd") and grief ("Denis Ever After"). When asked how he approaches writing about difficult subjects for a young audience, Abbott said, he just wants to tell truthful stories for young readers and young adults because he feels that sugarcoating information will only harm children down the road.
When discussing the book's title, Abbott notes that Jeff is clearly not in a great place throughout the book.
For more information about the author and the book, visit tonyabbottbooks.com.


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Posted inEducation, Higher Education
Our Richest College Presidents
by Daniel Luzer December 9, 2014 January 8, 2022
Annually the Chronicle of Higher Education releases its list of college presidents who earn a lot of money.
The top gold-plated academic administrators this year are:
1. Shirley Ann Jackson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: $7.1 million
2. John L. Lahey of Quinnipiac University: $3.8 million
3. Lee C. Bollinger of Columbia University: $3.4 million
4. Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania: $2.4 million
5. Charles R. Middleton of Roosevelt University: $1.7 million
6. Susan Hockfield of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: $1.6 million
7. David W. Leebron of Rice University: $1.5 million
8. John E. Sexton of New York University: $1.4 million
9. Marc Tessier-Lavigne of Rockefeller University: $1.38 million
10. Richard C. Levin of Yale University: $1.37 million
The million-dollar-a-year club is curiously diverse, however, since these people represent a wide rage of universities in terms of selectivity and resources.
This list, which Jackson has led for a few years, is always a little difficult for university public relations, but getting paid $1.3 million a year isn't objectively a problem; Yale, for instance, has plenty of money.
Ohio State took a lot of guff when it decided to give ex-President Gordon Gee a $5.8 million severance package, after paying him $1.6 million a year in salary. But during Gee's time in Columbus he brought in $1.6 billion to the school. Some presidents are worth a lot of money.
But worth is complicated. John Sexton certainly raised the profile of NYU during his time as president, but he also hiked tuition by $18,000. The average NYU student debt is now $35,000.
But this never seems objectively troublesome to me, it's only trouble if they're doing a particularly crappy job.
Or if the college can't really afford it. According to the Chronicle
On average, a private-college president's salary accounted for about 0.5 percent of his or her institution's overall budget in 2012.
The president with the greatest percentage of institutional budget devoted to presidential pay was John E. Klein, of Randolph College, in Virginia. He received $29,410 for every $1-¬million in expenditures, or just over 2.9 percent of the budget.
Jackson's $7 million package took up a full 1.7 percent of Rensselaer's entire 2012 budget.
Note that this information is from 2012 data. Hockfield and Levin have moved on from these positions.
Lavish Compensation for College Presidents
In "Education"
How Women Might Change the Role of the Vice President
What's Wrong With One-Term Presidents?
Daniel Luzer
Daniel Luzer is the news editor at Governing Magazine and former web editor of the Washington Monthly. Find him on Twitter: @Daniel_Luzer
More by Daniel Luzer


According to a message from Laura Boss, Director of District Communication, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education will hold a special meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. to discuss school safety issues. The meeting will be held at NMUSD headquarters.
The meeting will be broadcast live in Costa Mesa via Channel 26 on Time Warner Cable and Channel 99 on ATT U-Verse. It will be replayed in Newport Beach. Additionally, it can be viewed via recorded media at https://nmusd-ca.schoolloop.com/boardagendas within 2-3 days following the meeting. The City of Costa Mesa will receive the digital information and post it in the rotation on Costa Mesa Television, Channel 24 and make it available via their granicus archived video feeds on The City web site.
All Board meetings are taped and are available to be checked out at no charge through the Office of the Superintendent. If you provide a blank DVD they will burn a copy for you at no charge.
Additional information can be obtained from the Office of the Superintendent at 714-424-5030.
I say we make emotional decisions without any facts. Rather than utilize Reserve Officers I say we use regular cops so that in 10 years when new ideas and technology os available we have burdened our kids with big fat pensjon obligations, bumping rights, and many other unsolved issues.
CM4RG, are you with me?
"I say we make emotional decisions without any facts. Rather than utilize Reserve Officers I say we use regular cops so that in 10 years when new ideas and technology os available we have burdened our kids with big fat pensjon obligations, bumping rights, and many other unsolved issues.
CM4RG, are you with me?"
In Internet slang, a troll ( /ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. The noun troll may also refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted."
Anyone know if Fitzy has found full-time work?
I don't think Mike is exactly back in the fold. He suffured a koolade allergy and had a really violent reaction, he cut the strings to his puppeteers. Unless it was justa case of temporary sanity.


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Patriots vs. Dolphins NFL Week 18 Picks and Predictions
Spread Astaire
Jan 4, 2022 at 2:34pm EST • 4 min read
Kristian Wilkerson #17 of the New England Patriots celebrates with teammates. Maddie Malhotra/Getty Images/AFP.
The New England Patriots end their season in Miami against their division rivals, the Dolphins. Miami has been eliminated from the playoffs, while New England is still playing for their playoff seeding. The Patriots have more to play for but are they the right NFL pick?
New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins
Sunday, January 09, 2022 – 04:25 PM EST at Hard Rock Stadium
After a week 16 loss to the Buffalo Bills, the Patriots took out their frustrations against the Jacksonville Jaguars in week 17. The Patriots ran up the score winning 50-10. The game was complete and total domination and was essentially decided at the end of the first quarter.
Patriots quarterback Mac Jones has been playing well and is a serious contender for Rookie of the Year. He threw for three touchdown passes against the Jaguars and continued his penchant for avoiding turnovers. The three touchdowns set a franchise record for touchdown passes by a rookie with 21 touchdowns on the year.
One concern for the Patriots, however, had to be running back Damien Harris leaving the Jaguars game with a hamstring injury. Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson form a terrific tandem in the backfield for New England. Patriots like to establish the run to keep the pressure off their young quarterback. They have done a great job in utilizing the run game to put Jones in a position to succeed.
The true plaudits for the Patriots' success have to be from the defense though. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is known for his innovative defensive schemes which give opponents multiple looks. Oftentimes in just one play before the snap at the line of scrimmage. The ability to confuse opposing quarterbacks has led the Patriots to have the best OPPG (opponent point-per-game) in the NFL at 16.9. In contrast, the Miami Dolphins are close to 5 points higher at 21.8. The Patriots are an old-fashioned football team. They like to run the ball and play great defense.
The Miami Dolphins had a rollercoaster of a season. The Dolphins started the season 1-7 and then reeled off seven wins in a row to get to 8-7 and keep them in the playoff hunt. The resurgence ended in Tennessee last Sunday as the Titans thoroughly defeated them 34-3.
The Dolphins prefer the style of play employed by the Patriots and Bill Belichick. This is because Dolphins head coach Brian Flores learned the game under Belichick. Flores previously was successful as the New England Patriots defensive coordinator. These two coaches know each other well and teach the same strategies.
With the Dolphins' season ending, they will need to make some tough decisions going into next year. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is currently one of the most controversial player evaluations in the NFL. Once ranked the top QB prospect in the NFL draft, Tua has not set the NFL on fire. Tua has compiled strong statistics, especially a gaudy completion percentage. Tua is 7th in the NFL with a completion percentage of 67.8%. Still, many observers doubt his ability to get it done against the top teams in the NFL. This doubt was confirmed when he essentially was a no-show in the game against the Titans, and the offense looked anemic.
So while many think the Dolphins will not be motivated for this game, it is a great opportunity for many players such as Tua Tagovailoa to prove they belong in the NFL. Many on the Dolphins offense will see this as an audition for future NFL work, whether or not it be on the Dolphins. A good game against the top defense in the NFL could help to convince the team to bring him back as the number one quarterback this season.
Key Matchup
Patriots Defensive Line vs. Dolphins Offensive Line
Supporters of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will point to the fact that he has one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. It is hard to be successful with defensive ends constantly in your face pressuring for sacks. Many quarterbacks have looked much better once the offensive line play in front of them has improved.
If the Dolphins want to have a chance to compete in this game they're going to need to stop the pressure coming from the Patriots' elite defensive line. If the Patriots are able to pressure Tua consistently, they will once again shut down their opposing team's offense and cruise to an easy victory. If Dolphins head coach Brian Flores can help develop an offensive blocking scheme to mitigate the Patriots pass rush, the Dolphins have a good chance to pull off the season-ending upset.
Unfortunately for Dolphins fans, I do not believe that the Dolphins blocking scheme will be able to get it done against the Patriots. It's already tough to run on the Patriots, and if the Dolphins don't give the quarterback a lot of time, he will not be able to make the big plays necessary to keep this competitive.
The Patriots' defense is just too good, and with something to play for, it means trouble for their division rivals. The best bet for this game is the New England Patriots - 7.
NFL Pick: New England Patriots - 7 (-110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
New England Patriots - 7 (-110)
Spread Astaire is seasoned sports bettor and lifelong sports handicapper who began his sports betting journey in 2011.


Kate Baker is a celebrity of sorts. Every day when she walks into her place of employment, she is greeted by delighted screams from her fans: a group of elementary school students at Beacon Hill's Maple Elementary in Seattle, Washington. Why is Baker so popular with her students? It's very simple: she's the art teacher.
So it seems somewhat wrong and confusing that one of the most popular teachers at Maple Elementary is fearful for her job due to budget cuts in the district. Also, many schools are feeling the pressure to place more emphasis on math and reading skills, which means that any extra funds go to these programs instead of to the art programs.
Society says that earning a degree is an investment into your future. But have you ever figured out the math on how much you actually profit from your degree?
After paying thousands of dollars over the course of three to five years, these majors result in a list of the worst paying jobs according to a study released by Payscale.
10. Drama: Starting annual salary: $35,600; mid-career annual salary: $56,600. However, you can always make it big and become a multi-millionaire actor or director.
1. Have you always been gifted with a pencil? Maybe sculpting breathtaking works of art form a mound of clay is more your style. Do you want to be a professional artist? Sure, it might be rough going, financially, but the emotional appeal of doing art for art's sake is too strong for some creative geniuses.
2. Or perhaps you want to share your gift with others and teach students how to express themselves through art. Imagine helping a kindergarten student trace his fingers and create a turkey for Thanksgiving. Or do you see yourself critiquing the final projects of a senior high school art class and helping them prepare for entrance exams to top art schools?
3. Your final main option is to go into graphic arts. Once you master Photoshop, Paint, Illustrator, or another similar program, you could find yourself creating video games, advertisements, newsletters, pamphlets, and so much more.
So, all of these sounds appealing to you? Then check out US News' list of the top 10 schools to earn a Masters in Fine Arts degree.
As I sit here listening to my best friend play away on her flute, practicing for college auditions that are coming up in February, it makes me not only wonder how many hours she has devoted to her playing, but also why music has been removed from elementary schools and why fine arts seems to be so under funded.


Home / Griffin Palmer Sr.
Griffin Palmer Sr. age 71, passed away on Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018.
Immediate survivors include daughter Teresa (Antonio) James of Milledgeville and son Griffin (Monico) Palmer Jr. of Milledgeville, sisters Elaine (Joe) Adams, Frankie Palmer and Carrie Palmer, devoted companion Sherleen Cook, niece Sharon Palmer Kelly, nephews Anthony Adams, Kenneth Palmer Sr., Michael Edwards and Willie Palmer Jr., sisters in law Bertha Palmer, Mamie Palmer, Betty Palmer, Rose Marie Smith, Fannie Foston and Julia Adams, brother in law Lawson Mondie and a host of other nieces, nephew, family and friends.
Peoples Funeral Home entrusted with arrangements. A celebration of life will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 9 at the Augustus Austin Memorial Chapel of Peoples Funeral Home in Milledgeville. Interment will follow at Una Memorial Park.


The course does not include practicum but opportunity for practicum may be available for qualified candidates.
Cost: $1,300 – Course tuition does not include textbooks or the teacher provided materials (a course notebook and cards). A $650 non-refundable deposit is due with registration. A $100 materials fee will be due on the first day of class.
Contact: Catherine Hagberg at chagberg@tridentacademy.com or 843-884-7046.
Anne Vickers is an accredited Training Fellow of the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators (AOGPE). Anne served as Head of Sandhills School in Columbia, South Carolina for seventeen years from 2001-2018. Since her retirement in 2018, Anne has been working as a consultant with administrators, parents, teachers and students in schools that offer programs for students with dyslexia and other learning differences.
Ms. Vickers began her career in education over forty years ago. She graduated from the College of Charleston in 1977, and then received a Master of Education in Special Education from the College of Charleston in 1982. Since then, Ms. Vickers has dedicated her entire career to teaching students who learn differently. Ms. Vickers became a Fellow of the AOGPE in 1995. She had the great fortune of working closely with two of the pioneers in AGOPE, Dr. Lucia R. Karnes and Diana H. King. She has conducted numerous Orton-Gillingham training seminars for teachers, parents and administrators.
Ms. Vickers has served on many boards catering to the needs of dyslexic people. She has been a speaker at local, regional and national conferences.


Though it is a bit "clicky" there is always new tasks added to your list so you're not without something to do. The trophies are great, though they make you want to fish.....alot! Nice, addictive game, makes you think but not to much, a nice leisurely game. Thumbs up!
I think the main trouble with the game is the sheer number of bonuses available. You can only use a limited number in each boutique, and most of them I didn't bother with. Once I figured out which ones were most useful, I stuck with them for the rest of the game. The difficulty levels are very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, and impossible. The first two districts are very easy, which is why some complained that they won without trying. But after that it slowly gets more challenging. I think they did it this way because they knew it would take a while to learn how to use the bonuses.


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29/01/2015 29/01/2015 LordBeariOfBowLeave a Comment on W.S.Churchill Saint or Sinner?
W.S.Churchill Saint or Sinner?
Was Churchill really the villain?
The general consensus amongst Australians and Americans alike seems to indicate that Winston Spencer Churchill was a selfish, arrogant, lying, deceitful Pommy/Limey who didn't give a damn about the War in the Pacific or the threat from the Japanese and was quite content to leave it to the Americans to sort out, who if we are to believe this would not have been the least bit concerned had the Japanese invaded and taken Australia and was quite prepared to lose this colony for the sake of the war raging throughout Europe.
Why did he think along these lines, obviously he was privy to an enormous amount of intelligence that we can still only guess at, but there are some actions on his part that makes me, at least, wonder why.
In June of 1940 shortly after becoming Prime Minister and the leading figure in the fight against the Germans and Nazism, he set up the SOE (Special Operations Executive) which I don't intend to expand on here except to say that their primary role was in espionage, sabotage and covert raiding operations ( The Cockleshell heroes real heroes believe me- and the St Nazaire Raid come to mind). Remember back in 1940 Great Britain was standing alone; the German machine was over-running Europe, and the British were stretched to their absolute limits. Soon there will not be any left to recall those days.
In May of 1941 during our darkest times Britain had the greatest stroke of luck, the Royal Navy corvette the HMS Aubretia in company with HMS Broadway forced the U-110 to the surface and the subs crew abandoned ship although technically speaking abandoned the boat, which didn't sink like it was supposed to do. A boarding party from the HMS Bulldog which had come to join the party were able to capture the 'Enigma' machine, at that time the greatest most brilliant coding machine on earth. And the Germans never knew!
I am convinced during the 1930's into the 1940's the Germans were the most advanced nation when it came to preparing for war. The British had been virtually emasculated by the Washington Treaty, (and I'm not going into that what I believe was a fiasco there) which the Germans were not subjected to, and any restrictions placed upon them were conveniently forgotten ignored and brilliantly bypassed when considering the pocket battleships they produced.
Germany also had brilliant scientists the one that springs to my mind always at first is Wernher von Braun that rocket scientist who helped rain VI and V2 rockets upon London during WWII killing many innocent civilian men women and children and who after the war went on to become a great American citizen, that's water under the bridge. Germany also had scientist working on another project which was given a much-needed boost when they took Norway, and jet propulsion for their aircraft.
The Germans were quite secure in the knowledge that the British had no idea what was going on, which was the case until the 9th May '41 when they mislaid an 'Enigma' machine; from then on the whiz kids at Bletchley Park knew what they were up to, and as a result so did Churchill and his innermost sanctum. They were even reticient when it came to sharing with the USA once they came into the war.
It is believed that Churchill had advanced warning of the pending imminent attack on Pearl Harbor and that he shared this information with FDR, (remember that Churchill had a great love of things American being half American – his mother was a NY socialite) and it was Churchill's great wish and hope that the Americans would join the fight against the German machine. It is also believed in many quarters that FDR did know and did nothing to prevent the attack knowing full well that it would take many lives because he realized that the free world needed the US involvement to stop the German machine.
The Japanese were not in the same league as the Germans when it came to power. They had a large army and navy but they did not have the scientist working towards victory, they intended to win by conventional means, their navy was meant to destroy the US Pacific Fleet and their army to take on the American army and marines and did not pose as much as a threat as the Germans.
How much information was given and shared by the British Government with their new allies is anybody's guess, but the secret of the Enigma machine was kept to themselves I do believe.
Churchill and Roosevelt knew that the mighty German machine had to be obliterated, Churchill was no doubt well aware of the Germans advances into the production of an atomic bomb/arsenal and he also had no doubt that Hitler would have no qualms about using such a weapon, he never showed any compunction about the slaughter of civilians with his blitzkrieg's or reluctance to drop bombs! The Germans were well on the way with rocket science and jet propulsion, and Churchill knew, because the Enigma was the safe German way of connection within their empire and they didn't know that the British were looking in on everything they said.
Germany was a frightening power to be reckoned with and Japan was not, and this is why Churchill was prepared to let Asia go for the time being. The greatest most dangerous enemy had to be stopped first before it could get weapons of mass destruction operational. The Japanese were no where as advanced any losses were to be acceptable until Germany's defeat. Hard fact of life.
How far advanced were the Germans when it came to nuclear bombs. Probably quite a long way, they had taken over the Norwegian heavy water plant in 1941/42 and Churchill's SOE made plans to destroy the plant at Vermork, and to do this they recruited seven young Norwegians who'd fled Norway for England when the Germans took over their country , and signed them up for espionage and sabotage work. These young Norwegians were trained and then dropped by parachute in the middle of winter in the remote part of Norway made their way with great difficulty and blew up this plant, and they got away with it! The Germans raised all hell deployed many many troops planes and were not able to catch thes fine young men who became known as :"The Heroes of Telemark";
As an amusing aside, Hollywood made a movie called "The Heroes of Telemark" and Kirk Douglas did the honours and went and blew up this plant and had a little fling with some young filly along the way, you know the usual Hollywood rubbish.
Here is a link to a BBC news report on the last of the heroes being honoured in London to mark the 70th anniversary of the raid which this man now aged 93 lead.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22298739
and this is a very interesting link
http://www.hydro.com/en/About-Hydro/Our-history/1929—1945/1943-The-Heroes-of-Telemark/
So to conclude; was Churchill really so stupid, ignorant callous and any other villainous thing that we can think of; or was he a very well-informed frightened man? Frightened by what the Germans had what they were capable of having and not worrying about using, frightened for the peace and safety of the whole world. The Japanese were strong and they were ruthless but they did not have the power nor were they the threat to the world that Hitler and his scientists were. The Japanese only had plenty of fanatical manpower going for it, and little else, they could not have held on to any gains for very long.
As for me I shall give Winston Spencer Churchill the benefit of any doubt!. My comment section is open for abuse 😀 🙄
Categories RamblingsTags blitzkrieg, Churchill, Enigma Machine, FDR, Hollywood, Norway, Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt, Telemark, von Braun
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Recognising the importance of people understanding the challenges that many young people face, Claudine has produced a valuable book that provides important insights into a range of issues, including the causes and consequences of young people's involvement in gangs, and how parents, carers and professionals – primarily social workers – can best respond to the challenges raised by young people's gang involvement.
This book is an insightful, thought provoking journey into gang violence and its attraction to disenfranchised vulnerable young people.
This book is not just for social workers. It has a wealth of information for anyone who has any involvement with young people.
The book is very educational, and informative. I believe everyone that works with young people, can learn a lot from the words and passion that has been produced within this book.


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Danzig: 'Black Laden Crown'
Posted on June 11, 2017 by Daz in Uncategorized // 0 Comments
BLACK LADEN CROWN
Released on May 26, 2017 (Nuclear Blast)
Let me start this review by stating that I am a big Glenn Danzig fan. So much so that I have the Danzig tribal skull tattooed on my arm. From the Misfits, to Samhain, to Danzig and even to Verotik, the comic book company that Glenn started so he could fulfill his twisted little fantasies, I have keenly followed everything he has ever done and released.
But like most people, I have a fondness for the era of 1988-1994 which spawned the fantastic Danzig 1 to 4 albums rather than everything that has followed those gems. That's not to say that there haven't been some great riffs and songs along the way. It's just that the feel and image of the band seemed to shift direction from being evil and sinister to cartoonish and schlock. Regardless, fans like me would have picked up all the releases after the glory years just because it's Danzig.
However, for us purists, it probably took us until 2002's I Luciferi or 2004's Circle Of Snakes to breathe a sigh of relief that Danzig were finally getting back on track and leaving the overly industrialized, compressed nu-metal sound behind. And getting back on track he did with 2010's Deth Red Sabaoth which received many positive reviews.
Now we fast forward seven years and Danzig have released what I consider to be their 10th album, Black Laden Crown. So, is it as good as Deth Red Sabaoth? Yes and no. Is it different to Deth Red Sabaoth? Absolutely. Does it still sound like Danzig? Of course it does. No one sounds like Glenn.
Black Laden Crown opens with the title track which will immediately give you a feel for how the album will progress. The track is a slow chanting type song based around one riff with a few variations thrown in. The addition of some blended squealing guitar melodies breaks up the monotony to a point. The song is almost hypnotic in a way and some people might find themselves zoning out or falling asleep. I think Danzig foresaw this though and for that reason, the tempo of the song changes near the end to something a bit more upbeat and driving. Next is "Eyes Ripping Fire" which after a short slow tempo introduction quickly shifts into something more mid tempo and groovy. For me, this is one of the standout tracks on the album.
"Devil On Hwy 9" and "Last Ride" follow respectively and were the first songs released to the public as teasers for the albums release. "Devil On Hwy 9" is the fastest song on the album tempo wise and raised much debate online about Glenn's vocal performance, the muffled guitar sound and the quality of the mixing which I will get into later. Those same comments were also unfairly made about "Last Ride" which is an enjoyable song nonetheless. "The Witching Hour" and "But A Nightmare" continue the mood of the album with the later ending with a frenetic cacophony of fast paced drumming and pinch harmonics. "Skulls & Daisies," "Blackness Falls" and "Pull The Sun" round out the album with the same slow tempo and the common trait of each song being built around one major repetitive riff, which is layered with a squealing melody to add some much needed energy.
And therein lies what many people will find is the biggest problem with the album – the lack of energy. But really, does everything have to be fast paced and in your face? Can we not accept Black Laden Crown for what it is – a spooky doom driven album that borders on the edge of easy listening?
Glenn Danzig is 61 years old. He has been screaming his lungs out for 40 years now. Of course that is going to take its toll on anybody. Black Laden Crown excels in being exactly where it needs to be to suit Glenn's current voice and vocal ability. The reality is we are no longer going to get the renowned Glenn Danzig banshee howl, which is a shame, but completely understandable if you are a realist. The Glenn Danzig of today has a power depleted voice and as far as I am concerned, he croons all over Black Laden Crown with great effect.
Now, let's get into the much harped on about mixing and recording of the album, which is nothing new for any of Danzig's prior releases. Yes, it has its short comings. But it astounds me as to why so many people (not even Danzig fans) are so focused on this aspect and not the actual artistic output. When did everyone become a musician or a music producer? I will be the first to admit that 2015's Skeletons sounded pretty bad from a production point of view. But I listen to Danzig to hear songs and appreciate someone's art. I don't have to dissect how the music was recorded in order to simply enjoy the songs. Yeah I might be a fan boy, but I can still acknowledge when something is bad. I just choose not to dwell on it and move onto the next thing which is hopefully better. The old cliché still rings true – if you don't like it, don't listen to it and don't buy it.
Black Laden Crown is a worthy addition to the Danzig catalog. It won't win the band any new fans but it will quench the thirst of the existing fan base. I for one am thankful that Glenn is still capable of doing this. If the impending Elvis covers album is Danzig's swansong, so be it. I am fine with that. He doesn't owe me anything.
Saying that though, I do have three complaints to make about Black Laden Crown:
It's packaged in a digipak. I hate digipaks!
It doesn't come with a booklet so there are no lyrics.
It doesn't come with a booklet so there are no pictures of the usual naked genetically enhanced mistresses of darkness.
01. Black Laden Crown
02. Eyes Ripping Fire
03. Devil On Hwy 9
04. Last Ride
05. The Witching Hour
06. But A Nightmare
07. Skulls & Daisies
08. Blackness Falls
09. Pull The Sun
Glenn Danzig – vocals, piano, guitars, bass, drums (2, 4, 7)
Tommy Victor – guitar, bass
Johnny Kelly – drums (1, 5)
Joey Castillo – drums (3, 8)
Karl Rokfist – drums (9)
Dirk Verbeuren – drums (6)
Produced by Glenn Danzig
Engineered by Chris Rakestraw
Mixed by Glenn Danzig and Chris Rakestraw
Reviewed by Daz for Sleaze Roxx, June 2017
Danzig's "Last Ride" song:
DANZIG – Last Ride (OFFICIAL TRACK)
DANZIG's official track 'Last Ride' from the album 'Black Laden Crown' out now! Order at http://smarturl.it/blackladencrownSUBSCRIBE to Danzig YouTube: http:…
Danzig: Black Laden Crown on Amazon


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Deathly Themes in Vogue for Fall
Jul 25, 2004 • Post A Comment
Though the cable industry has cause to celebrate its record-breaking summer ratings, cable networks rolled out panel after panel of morose, despondent programming at the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour last week.
Reporters and critics watched panels showcasing a depressed psychiatrist (Showtime's "!Huff"), a tragically killed NASCAR racer (ESPN's "3"), the War of 1812 (History Channel's "First Invasion"), an 11-year-old quadriplegic (A&E's "The Brooke Ellison Story"), a pack of grim reapers (Showtime's "Dead Like Me") and an examination of human organ donation (Discovery Health's "Gift of Life").
To lighten the mood, Showtime held a dinner party at a Hollywood cemetery, allowing reporters a chance to gaze upon gravestones and crypts while poking at their dinner amid machine-generated fog.
At least a few panel attendees and executives showed signs of life. The high point of the conference came early, when Showtime Entertainment President Bob Greenblatt announced to the "!Huff" panel on-stage that the show would receive a second-season renewal-an unprecedented four months before the show's premiere.
"We've seen five episodes of this show, and we've seen scripts for five more, and we couldn't be happier," Mr. Greenblatt said. "I don't know if anybody will watch, but we'll be watching."
Actress Paget Brewster, who has never starred in a show that lasted more than a single season, joyously exclaimed, "The curse is over!"
Showtime's speedy pickup of "!Huff" made HBO's pickup of "Entourage" after a single episode seem slow by comparison.
Showtime also announced a six-episode half-hour comedy called "Fat Actress," starring Kirstie Alley. In the show, Ms. Alley plays a semi-fictitious version of herself, described as a Hollywood star struggling with weight gain and searching for true love.
The slate was part of what the network is dubbing "The New Face of Showtime," though Mr. Greenblatt described the line as only a temporary replacement for the now-defunct "No Limits" brand.
The Turner panel made headlines as well-though not for the reasons executives had hoped. During the panel for TNT's telepic "Evel Knievel," star George Eads said his highly publicized firing from "CSI" over a salary negotiation was a "misunderstanding" and that he missed work because he overslept. Mr. Eads also said trying to get a meeting with CBS head Leslie Moonves to discuss the situation was like trying to meet the enigmatic Charlie from "Charlie's Angels."
At HBO's session, Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht confirmed that "Sex and the City" actress Kim Cattrall single-handedly sank the planned theatrical movie of the series. "It's a very unfortunate situation," he said.
Mr. Albrecht did give hope to "Sopranos" fans who must wait until 2006 for the final installment. Though Mr. Albrecht said the schedule is firm, he revealed that he has asked creator David Chase to consider producing more than the planned 10 episodes for the final season, which airs in 2006. "We've talked to David about it and he hasn't said no," Mr. Albrecht said.
Other cable networks made news during the press tour last week. Highlights follow.
E! Networks
Since assuming his new post as E! Networks president and CEO, Ted Harbert said he has taken steps to soothe Hollywood talent embittered by E! Entertainment Television's tabloid-style programming. Though E! has denied media reports that shows such as "Celebrities Uncensored" alienated the community they rely on for content, Mr. Harbert told TelevisionWeek before taking the TCA stage that he has had "discussions with some high-level studio executives" about the issue. "To their credit, they haven't rubbed my face in the dirt. They said, `We trust it will be taken care of,"' Mr. Harbert said. At the same time, he said, "There's no way I can guarantee somebody's not going to get rubbed the wrong way."
Meanwhile, E! Networks' Style network said the following reality shows will debut later this year: "Ultimatum," "Diary of An Affair," "Hotspot: The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel" and "Love's a Trip."
MTV Networks
MTV Networks introduced programming for its planned gay and lesbian channel, LOGO. MTV acquired 150 movie and documentaries for the digital channel, which launches Feb. 17, 2005. Titles include "Philadelphia," "The Birdcage," "Kissing Jessica Stein" and "Gods and Monsters."
Among the tentatively titled planned series, a few, such as "Big Gay 100," are produced by Viacom sister channels. Projects include "Fantastic Voyage," a reality venture on a seven-day gay cruise produced by Bunim-Murray in conjunction with Atlantis Vacations; "Logo Lens," an exploration of gay issues by MTV News; animated series "Chelsea Boys"; marriage-themed reality show "Do I?"; panel show "Twist; and star vehicles for actor Alan Cumming and comedian Margaret Cho.
Bonnie Hammer, president of Sci Fi Channel and USA Networks, apologized for creating a hoax designed to deceive the press and public into believing there was a fight between the network and "Sixth Sense" director M. Night Shyamalan. Sci Fi sent a bogus press release detailing the controversy and set up a fake publicist to deceive reporters who called about the issue. At TCA, Ms. Hammer said, "We would never intentionally try to deceive any of you.
"If I had a time machine, I would go back and try to change a couple things," Ms. Hammer said. "I can assure you it will never happen again."
Ms. Hammer refused to say whose idea the hoax was or whether she anticipated a negative reaction.
Bravo announced a new reality series called "Situation Comedy," produced by "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes. The production is currently accepting unproduced original sitcom scripts from amateur writers. The winning script will be produced as an NBC pilot.
Mr. Greenblatt announced third-season pickups for "Family Business" and "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" Also, Showtime's planned limited series of director Spike Lee's "Sucker Free City" has been scaled back to air as a two-hour movie.
TLC's latest makeover experiment will take on the restoration of entire towns. "Trading Spaces" designer Genevieve Gorder will travel the country making over small towns using a crew of designers, carpenters and craftspeople in "Town Haul." The series has an initial six-episode run set to begin in early 2005.
Ms. Gorder will continue to appear on "Trading Spaces."
TLC's fellow Discovery network Animal Planet announced the signing of "The Sopranos" star Edie Falco to host a one-hour special, "Growing Up Black Leopard."
CSTV
College Sports Television announced new programming aimed at broadening its appeal beyond hard-core fans of traditional sports. The new programming includes "National Collegiate a Cappella Championship," "Defeat the Beat: National Collegiate Band Championship" and "National Collegiate Dodgeball Championship."
Warner Bros. TV Makes Development Moves
Taggart-Ratcliffe, James Join 'Starting Over'