text:
ONJava.com -- The Independent Source for Enterprise Java
oreilly.comSafari Books Online.Conferences.

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  Gentoo Linux Reloaded
Subject:   Gentoo & SE Linux Kernel
Date:   2002-11-03 20:46:53
From:   anonymous2
I'm not exactly a newbie, but I've not been installing from scratch in any way as I run SuSE, though I have very much liked Debian for many reasons. I have been running linux since mid-1997. I'm afraid my familiarity with fine tuning linux is somewhat limited. I do prefer to grub to lilo and ReiserFS or ext3FS to standard install.
I'd like to take a stab at Gentoo, though as yet I'm not fully sure how it differs from Debian in the social contract. (I only recently stumbled on Gentoo.)

I would like to try the SE Linux Kernel, but being somewhat limited in terms of kernel compiling I'm wondering if perhaps these are mutually exclusive.


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text:
ONJava.com -- The Independent Source for Enterprise Java
oreilly.comSafari Books Online.Conferences.

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  Getting the Video out of Your New iPod--for Cheap!
Subject:   iPod Menu Videos???
Date:   2006-10-03 13:11:48
From:   Trump48257
So yes this works...but has anyone found a way to output video of the menus/now playing screens?? (I assume Apple disabled this on purpose...but they have to be capable of doing this). This would be very useful for using it with a TV for music instead of video or in a car with an LCD display with video inputs. Any ideas??

1 to 1 of 1
  1. iPod Menu Videos???
    2007-04-17 18:24:26  jkorenst [View]

1 to 1 of 1

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text:
My wishlist for an SNMP client

by Chris Josephes

I'm used to dealing with SNMP. I've worked with three or four monitoring and graphing applications in the past, all of them being open source. I've mapped IP addresses to interface indexes, and back again. I've created RRD files from the command line, and I learned to transmit my own custom SNMP traps to management servers.

I can recognise a lot of OIDs by sight nowadays. I recognize them, because I am usually forced to type them into those open source network managing applications. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Almost every open source graphing program out there knows how to do ifInOctets and ifOutOctets. MRTG set the standard on that one. With the availability of RRDTool, we have a flooded market of tools that graph all sorts of network statistics just like MRTG did.

But what I don't see are tools that can handle more complex SNMP polling situations. When the open source programs fail, I find myself being forced to write my own polling program (usually in Perl) that runs independently from the main polling program.

I wrote a program to monitor an SNMP device, because OpenNMS couldn't deal with a broken SNMP agent implementation. I wrote a program to monitor a Network Appliance, because MRTG couldn't easily re-create the "Operations Per Second" statistic. The list goes on and on.

What I need is one single polling program that can accomplish all of these tasks.

  1. Properly merge high and low 32 bit counters.

  2. Read a MIB file.

  3. Perform mathematical operations on retrived values before saving.

  4. Successfully navigate a SNMP table index (an index that uses a string of sub-identifiers).

If there's one program out there that can easily do all this, I haven't found it yet. But then again, there are so many programs out there, I may have missed one.

Give me your feedback. Find me the program that does the job.

2005-07-08 10:59:44
SNMP tool
Did you try iReasoning MIB Browser? It's java and it's free; should work on any machine.

2005-07-09 08:40:39
Your wishlist
For the next release of OpenNMS (1.3), the SNMP processes have been rewritten making your wishlist, now, at least possible. New abstractions were built using the Composite structural design pattern that the developer calls: trackers and and walkers. The trackers do the accounting of OIDs requested and badly behaving agents and the walkers optimize the gathering of SNMP data. The walkers can easily be extended and given more intelligence for the more difficult SNMP operations such as determining the instances to collect.

If you submit an enhancement bug, or update/vote for those already submitted, one of the developers should be able to deliver your wishlist in one of our next packages, soon. As always, be willing to be very specific about your enhancement and be willing to test new code as it is sumitted to CVS.

2005-11-24 05:02:22
How do you translate a SNMP Trap to a meaning full Message
Hi Chris,

Few days back I wrote a SNMP Agent that exposes a MIB. MIB contains some properties and a custom trap.

I was able to open session with snmp agent and do other stuff. agent is also sending trap.

The thing i want to know how can I translate my custom trap into meaningful message at monitoring end.

I assume every monitoring client has got something that helps it understanding certain trap. Is that true?


text:
Wireless Woes

by Niel M. Bornstein

Earlier this year, without any logical reason, the wireless on my wife's MacBook went flaky.

We had been using it for over a year with no problems whatsoever, but after installing new recessed lighting in my kitchen, the MacBook now has intermittent problems getting a signal from the the Linksys WRT54G router in the basement. No other laptops have any problem connecting, and the MacBook has no problem connecting to other wireless networks.

I used to be a Mac pro, but my Mac OS X chops are a little flabby. I've examined the logs to see if there is some explanation for this problem, but I can't figure it out. There are basically two or three areas of the house where I am more or less guaranteed to receive a signal; the rest of the house is a big, intermittent dead zone.


text:
Four Marines were killed Wednesday in what the military described as a range accident at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The Marine Corps said the accident took place during a range maintenance operation around 11 a.m. on the base along the Pacific Coast north of San Diego.

Lt. Ryan Finnegan, a base spokesman, said the accident came during regularly scheduled maintenance of the Zulu impact area, where artillery, mortar and aerial bombs strike during training exercises. Area Zulu is near the center of the sprawling, 125,000-acre base.

Camp spokesman Cpl. Michael Iams said there were no other injuries. NBC News reported that the accident involved the detonation of unexploded ordnance.

The names of the dead and the units they were assigned to were not immediately announced pending notification of families.

"We offer our heartfelt prayers and condolences to the families of the Marines lost today in this tragic accident," said Brig. Gen. John Bullard, commanding general, Marine Corps Installations West-Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. "Our first priority is to provide the families with the support they need during this difficult time.''

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook, Jim Michaels in Washington; Gary Strauss in McLean, Va.

Copyright 2015USA TODAY

Read the original story: 4 Marines killed in Camp Pendleton accident

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Fry sauce helps Utah baker win 'Cupcake Wars'
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Leslie Fiet, owner of Mini's Cupcakes in Salt Lake City, along with her assistant Stephanie Deer, won last night's episode of "Cupcake Wars."

The episode, which was filmed in July, was especially notable because it introduced Food Network judges Candace Nelson and Florian Bellanger — as well as viewers — to Utah fry sauce.

In the initial round, participants were required to create a cupcake that fit the "All American" theme. The Mini's team decided to go with the hamburger and french fry option — as opposed to pot pie or apple pie. Their cheeseburger cupcake included bits of ground beef, and was topped with a frosting made of heavy cream and ketchup — a la pink fry sauce — and then garnished with lettuce, tomatoes and French fries. (See the photo attached)

In the second round, the Mini's team impressed judges with more traditional cupcake flavors including: a coconut cupcake with lime/mascarpone filling; a fresh lime and basil cake with raspberry filling; and a double shot chocolate espresso cupcake. (The recipe for that is published on the Food Network website.)

As the winner, Fiet and Deer received $10,000 and their display, filled with cheerleader cut outs and pom poms, was featured at a national cheerleading event.

This week, Utah customers can sample the three sweet flavors — sorry, not the cheeseburger — at the two Mini's Cupcake locations in Salt Lake City. A six-pack (2 of each flavor) sells for $15.

Mini's Cupcakes • 14 East 800 South, Salt Lake City; Open Monday – Friday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Mini's Cupcakes • 1751 S. 1100 East; Salt Lake City; 801) 746-2208. Open Monday – Friday 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; and Saturday 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.


text:
Golf: Keegan Bradley overcomes bogeys to lead Byron Nelson Championship
Golf • 11-under 129 is lowest 36-hole total in tourney since 2001.
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Irving, Texas • Keegan Bradley shot a 1-under 69 on Friday in a round that started and ended with bogeys, good enough for a three-stroke lead after two rounds in the Byron Nelson Championship.

A day after setting the TPC Four Seasons course record with a 60, also with two bogeys, Bradley went into the weekend at 11-under 129. That is the lowest 36-hole total at the Nelson since 2001.

Tom Gillis, who shot 63 in the first group of the day off the No. 10 tee, and Sang-Moon Bae were tied for second. Bae had a 66.

Another stroke back were 2012 PGA Tour rookie of the year John Huh, Ryan Palmer and Charl Schwartzel. Huh shot 64, Palmer 68 and Schwartzel 70.

Defending champion Jason Dufner, playing with Bradley, had his second consecutive 70.

In Mobile, Ala., Jessica Korda shot a 7-under 65 on Friday to take a one-stroke lead over Hall of Famer Karrie Webb after the second round of the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic.

Korda, the 2012 Women's Australian Open winner, had seven birdies in her second straight bogey-free round to reach 13 under on The Crossings course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail's Magnolia Grove complex. —

Byron NelsonChampionship

Keegan Bradley -11

Tom Gillis -8

Sang-Moon Bae -8

Mike Weir -4


text:
Panzer Davao riders set for Asean MTB in Cebu

-A A +A

Thursday, June 5, 2014

THE Team Panzer Davao riders will represent Davao City to Asean Mountain Bike (MTB) Cup 2014 on June 13 to 15 in Danao, Cebu City.

Riders Andre Buco and Michael Roy Griño, who are entered in the 19-above downhill event, were guests along with teammate Ralph Angelo Rufo during the Davao Sportswriters Association (DSA) Forum at NCCC Mall Davao B3 Center Lanes yesterday.

The 26-year old Buco said that his team has been preparing since January for the tough competition ahead.

“Nagti-train kami almost every day from Bangkal up to Shrine Hills in Matina at sa Maa kung saan mayroon kaming race track. Hindi magiging madali ang laban lalo na at maraming magagaling na international players pero we are hopeful na mag champion kami because we trained hard for this,” Buco said.

Griño, who placed second in the recent MTB national competition in General Santos City, said that he is excited to compete against top-notch riders like Jeric Farr of Manila.

The 15-year old Rufo, meanwhile, said he will just watch on the sideline, saying, “Dili ko maka-apil kay dili pako mag qualify sa 17 above category pero mag support gihapon ko kay mag compete pud ko sa July ug August for the enduro races in Davao City, CDO and Gensan (I'm not eligible to compete but I will give my support to the team and to also learn from the race since I'll have upcoming competitions.)”

Team Panzer Davao will also be joined by 22-year old Ronnie Urdaneta who is entered in the cross country men’s open.

The team, backed up by Ridea Shop, Barney’s Bikes, Tank Cycles, Woodman Components and Alvin Tan of Panzer Bikes, will leave on June 10. (MDC)

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on June 06, 2014.

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text:
Zipcar Chief Technology Officer Luke Schneider. File. / Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

NEW YORK -- Avis is buying Zipcar in a deal valued at $491.2 million, a move that will allow the traditional car rental company to tap into the increasingly popular alternative of car sharing.

Car sharing is a nearly $400 million business in the U.S., according to the companies, and is particularly popular with city dwellers and college students who don't own a car and may only need a vehicle for a few hours to go shopping or visit a friend in the suburbs.

For travelers visiting large metro areas, car sharing offers a less-expensive alternative to renting a car for a full day.

Zipcar, with more than 760,000 members, says it's the largest car-sharing network in the world, and Avis Chairman and CEO Ronald Nelson says the purchase will boost the traditional car rental company's growth.

Avis Budget Group (CAR) will pay $12.25 per share for Zipcar, which will be a subsidiary based in Boston. Key members of the car-sharing company's leadership team, such as Chairman and CEO Scott Griffith, are expected to stay on. Zipcar (ZIP) shares surged about 50% Wednesday.

"We see car sharing as highly complementary to traditional car rental, with rapid growth potential," Nelson said in a statement out Wednesday.

The purchase also would allow Avis to better match up with Hertz (HTZ), which has its own car-sharing operation, Hertz on Demand, with offices in the U.S. and Europe.

Zipcar and Hertz on Demand park cars across cities, many of which are in reserved parking spaces, and renters can pick them up, then return them, making reservations online or through mobile apps.

Rather than trekking to a rental-car outlet, where they may have to wait in long lines, customers can pick up a car in spots across cities or on a college campus. The cost of fuel and insurance is part of the price, at least for the first 180 miles, unlike traditional rental car companies that charge for gas and insurance coverage separately.

"Car sharing has become very popular in large cities, especially in areas where you have difficulty owning and maintaining a car,'' says Mitchell Moss, director of New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. "Mobile communication allows you to get access to a car very easily when you need and where you need it.''

Although using a car-sharing service for a few hours is less expensive than renting a car for a day from a traditional outlet, such services generally charge more if the cars are used for more than 24 hours.

Avis' purchase, which is expected to be completed in the spring, will expand Zipcar's fleet. That will likely improve the chances that members can get a car on the weekends, when demand can outstrip availability. It also increases the number of locations that customers can pick up a car, Avis said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Copyright 2015

Read the original story: Avis to buy Zipcar, enter car-sharing business

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LIVE VIDEO: 10 News at Noon    Watch

NCAA Game Summary - Harvard at Massachusetts

1:42 PM, Nov 13, 2012   |    comments
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Amherst, MA (Sports Network) - Sampson Carter couldn't have picked a more ideal time for his lone basket of the game.

The senior forward drained a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds remaining to lift the Massachusetts Minutemen to a season-opening 67-64 victory over the Harvard Crimson.

With the seconds dwindling, Chaz Williams drove to the hoop and dished to Carter, who connected from the left corner on only his third attempt from the floor.

Jesse Morgan had 19 points to lead the Minutemen (1-0), who scored the game's final eight points to stun Harvard. Raphiael Putney scored 13 points and Williams finished with a 12-point, 10-assist double-double.

Wesley Saunders made two free throws to put the Crimson up 64-59 with 1:21 remaining. After Morgan hit a jumper in the lane, Harvard turned the ball over on a 5-second call on its next possession and Morgan tied the game by nailing a deep three with 38.8 seconds left.

Harvard's Christian Webster then lost the ball out of bounds against the press, giving UMass the opportunity to hold for the final shot.

Saunders supplied 18 points for the Crimson (1-1), who opened their season with Friday's win over MIT.

UMass and Harvard met for the first time since 1991.

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Crowd Cheers Capture Of Boston Marathon Bomber

Residents applaud after the capture of the second of two suspects wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Massachusetts. Thousands of heavily armed police staged an intense manhunt for a Chechen teenager suspected in the Boston marathon bombings.

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Small Business Saturday hopes for post-Black Friday shoppers

9:24 AM, Nov 30, 2013   |    comments
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Tampa, Florida -- Black Friday has pretty much been a day focused on deep discounts offered by major retailers, but mom-and-pop stores are vying for some attention, too.

Locally-owned businesses in Seminole Heights are hoping that shoppers look to them for Small Business Saturday.

"It's going to be different from black Friday," said Kendra Bailey, owner of Health Mutt, a pet supermarket on the corner of N. Central Ave and East Hanna. "Everyone's still offering sales and you're going to get your really nice unique holiday items."

Bailey and several other local business have put their own spin in the Small Business Saturday campaign.

They've partnered for what they are calling the Holiday Shop Hop.

Shoppers who visit 12 participating locally-owned businesses would be entered into a drawing for prizes.

"Seminole Heights has been transitioned over the last few years because we had really no retail and no restaurants and now the neighborhood is booming," said Greg Curtis, owner of Cleanse Apothecary on N. Florida Ave.

Curtis, who also live in the Seminole Heights Community, says Saturday will about reaching out to new customers and creating awareness that shopping local matters.

"Our customers are like our family. We know them, we know their husbands, their wives, their children."

Find out where small businesses are located by clicking here.

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Do you know your blood type?

5:54 PM, Aug 1, 2011   |    comments
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Dick Benjamin

GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) -- Do you know your blood type? It might not seem like an important detail to know but it is one that can save your life in an emergency.

In the entire world there are only eight different blood types found in the human body, and they are specific to our different heritages.

"The northern European is most likely an A. The Mediterranean individuals are most likely O's. Then if you get into the Polish, Latvian and African American countries you get mostly B's," says Lee Ann Weitekamp, medical director for MI Blood in Grand Rapids.

The most common blood type is O-positive -- 39% of the world's population has it. A-positive is the second most common at 31%. After those two the numbers go down drastically. Only 9% of the population has B-positive and O-negative, 6% have A-negative, 3% AB-positive, 2% B-negative and only 1% of the world's population has AB-negative blood.

"With the heavy Dutch population in this area, we're more likely to be A's," says Weitekamp.

She says hospitals will always make sure you're matched with your specific blood type, unless there's an emergency. That's where the universal blood donor O-negative comes in. Anyone with O-negative blood can safely give to any blood type.

"Although type O-negative makes up only 9% of the general population we use over 20% of that type in terms of what the hospitals need." says Weitekamp.

The drawback? O-negative blood types can only accept O-negative blood.

"If I give you my blood, which has the a marker on it, your antibody attaches to those red blood cells and then pops them right inside your blood vessels," says Weitekamp.

But she says you should not worry -- getting the wrong blood type is not something that's likely to happen now that type testing has become a standard part of blood collection and donation.

"When we look to transfuse blood we try to make it what we call type specific," says Weitekamp.

It takes about two to three weeks for your body to replenish your blood supply once you donate, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your blood went to help save a life.

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text:
Archiver > IRL-ANTRIM > 2000-11 > 0975546819

From: <>
Subject: [IRL-ANTRIM] McErlean / McErlane / McErlaine
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 20:13:39 EST

In a message dated 11/28/2000 3:33:08 AM Eastern Standard Time,

<< McERLEAN/McERLAINE/McERLANE. However as far as I know they were Catholics

Hi Macha:
I have McErlean / McErlane ancestors from Deerpark north of Larne near
Glenarm. They were Catholics. John McErlean (born 1812) married Mary Gibson
(1822 - 1908) of Gowkstown in 1843. Their children included Arthur, James,
and a (name unknown to me) child who married an O'Neill -- these 3 children
are said to have moved to Australia. If any of these names connect with your
family, I will be glad to share what I have.

This thread:


text:
Reasons Why Spitzer Cheated

Bob Jones
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Wednesday - March 19, 2008
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Sex therapist Diana Wiley: Why some husbands stray

What’s everybody talking about around the water cooler and in the company lunch rooms? Not Ben Bernanke and the latest Fed money moves. It’s Eliot Spitzer and his maybe $80,000 expenditure on call girls.

We can’t figure out why somebody so high and so visible would check into a premier hotel under the name George Fox and rent a second room for Kristen-the-hooker. I mean, it’s the Mayflower and everyone from the desk clerk to the bellboy is saying “that ain’t no George Fox, that’s Governor Spitzer!”

So, why do the high and mighty - or even the low and powerless - cheat on their spouses or significant others and run the big risk?

I’m no expert. I have some ideas, and I talked with board-certified sex therapist Dr. Diana Wiley, who did radio shows here on KHVH and 1420 AM. (She says she dated Bill Clinton when he was a Rhodes scholar in 1969. She was a MidWeek cover in 1998.)

Wiley says “many women don’t appreciate the effect of regular sex on their husband’s mental and physical health. To keep a marriage happy, a woman must be available for regular sex.”

Here are some of the reasons for outside-of-marriage dalliances:

1) Sex addiction. It seems to afflict men more than women. Guy sees a hottie or a woman who shows interest and his glands go into overdrive. I say seems because more men get caught publicly in this than women. But news stories only tag men in big-time jobs, and the reality is that more men than women hold big-time jobs. So maybe there’s equal female sex addiction. It just isn’t in the headlines ... yet.

2) The thrill of the illicit. Remember John Rechy’s City of Night and Sexual Outlaw about gay men meeting in restrooms and parks? He said it was that public sex and the potential of being caught that made it erotic. Wiley says “during risky sex adrenaline is high and for some couples who have been together a long time, this is how they jazz up their relationship.”

3) The more exotic. Wiley agrees many spouses don’t provide the kind of exotic or non-traditional (oral, anal) sex their partners desire. She says the testosterone and dopamine levels go down and the sexual depressant oxytocin goes up.

About the current New York case, Wiley says, “Spitzer is like many wealthy men - and especially some narcissistic politicians. He felt insulated, invincible, untouchable. He no doubt was sure he could get away with it. Morality and what he might do to his family did not matter. With power often comes arrogance and entitlement.”

three star

Virginia has enacted a law against French kissing anyone under 13 years of age. It’s a one year in jail misdemeanor and conviction means you must register as a sex offender.

It’s another of those cases where well-meaning lawmakers get too far out on the edge. What’s the evidence to be? He said, she said? I can’t imagine any outside witnesses to a French kiss.

What’s to be the proof of penetration of the lips by the tongue? DNA swabs right afterward? A 12-year-old is going to run out in the street, yelling for the cops, “he kissed me and it was the French kind!”?

A GOP lawmaker introduced the bill on behalf of a woman whose 10-year-old daughter was French-kissed by the 62-year-old husband of her baby sitter. The only “no” vote was by that law-maker who pushed the bill. He wanted the offense to be a felony.

If you enter French kiss in Google you’ll get several dozen sites of advice on how to perform that particular lip lock. Why it’s called French is a puzzlement. Why it should be considered in Virginia as more of a sex crime than, say, just kissing someone under 13, is equally puzzling. Well, I guess we casually kiss kids, don’t we? Should there be, maybe, a two second limit on such kisses on those under 13 and five seconds between ages 13 and 15?

My favorite French kiss site on the internet says “you must go Dutch on a French kiss.” That opens up an entirely new international dilemma for the Virginia courts. Did the 12-year-old go Dutch on French? If so, was she or he legally-mentally competent to accept or resist Dutch-French?

This has better Gridiron Show skit potential than when Gov. Ben Cayetano vetoed the bill to raise the age of sexual consent in Hawaii from 14 to 16. Except that it’s not here. Auwe!

We’re the enlightened state. We still allow sex with 14-year-olds and unlimited French kissing.

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Temporal Disintegration and Depersonalization During Marihuana Intoxication

Frederick T. Melges, MD; Jared R. Tinklenberg, MD; Leo E. Hollister, MD; Hamp K. Gillespie
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1970;23(3):204-210. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1970.01750030012003.
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WE HAVE recently reported that marihuana extract, calibrated for content of (—)-Δ1-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), significantly impaired the serial coordination of cognitive operations during a task that required sequential adjustments in reaching a goal.1 Our term for this mental incoordination is temporal disintegration. From a cognitive standpoint, temporal disintegration means that the individual has difficulty in retaining, coordinating, and serially indexing those memories, perceptions, and expectations that are relevant to the goal he is pursuing. Subjectively, temporal disintegration is experienced as a confusion of past, present, and future while a person attempts to pursue goals. This paper focuses on the relationship of temporal disintegration to depersonalization (that is, the experience of the self as strange and unreal) during marihuana intoxication.

Hypotheses  Since the personal past, present, and future constitute a fundamental subjective framework through which an individual views and identifies himself, we postulated that the fragmentation and disorganization of temporal experience

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Saturday, September 11, 2010

FinePix XP10 Opinión y Sorteo / FinePix XP10 Review and Giveaway

Head over to Mama Latina  and win a FinePix XP10 camera!

This compact camera takes great photos and easily fits into a purse or pocket.  It is water resistant, withstands cold,  and overall very rugged.

Some of its features are:

# Waterproof up to 3m underwater

# Shockproof, it can survive a 1 m (3.3 ft.) fall

# Freezeproof, great for winter activities (max. -10ºC) 14 ºF

# Dustproof, yes, we are talking beaches and outdoors!

# Incorporates 5x Zoom lens, 12 megapixels and image stability

# Of course it takes video

# More than 15 shooting modes

# Easy editing & easy web uploading to youtube, facebook and blogs!
Learn more about this neat camera here.
Good luck!

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text:
Thursday, June 21, 2012

B is for ... BACHELOR!

Special thanks to Alona at Gould Genealogy for coming up with the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge!

B is for BACHELOR!

It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while you come across someone (in your collateral lines, obviously) who was a bachelor. Never married. No children. They can't possibly be of any genealogical value, right?

This couldn't be further from the truth.

For example, my great granduncle Eugene L. Stiker (brother to my great grandmother Lucile (Stiker) Crowe, was never married and never fathered or adopted any children. However, I happened to get my hands on an Affidavit of Heirship that the attorney for his estate prepared. Let me tell you, it is chock full of valuable information!

It starts by naming his mother, including maiden name, and father, detailing how many times and to whom they were married, when they died, and how many children they had.  Granted, no exact dates were given, but at least it gives me a sort of timeline to narrow the search field.

Then the next generation (all of Eugene's siblings) was detailed the same way, finally ending up with a complete list of ... wait for it ... all the nieces, nephews, and decedents who inherited from Eugene's estate!

Happy dance, anyone?

Do we share any ancestors?
Please email me at lostancestors [at] gmail [dot] com

Dee said...

What a gold mine! That would keep me doing the happy dance for a while.

Fi said...

I love those sort of documents that could've been subtitled "Hey, here's a list of family members who could be of interest".

Post a Comment


text:
It’s Time for Beltway Barnacle Orrin Hatch To Go

Six-term entrenched incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is attacking his conservative challenger, Dan Liljenquist, over his alleged support for tax hikes in Washington. My sides ache.
Liljenquist has never voted for federal tax hikes or massive entitlement spending or multibillion-dollar bailouts or serial debt-limit increases in Washington because he has never served in Washington. Never. Hatch, by contrast, has spent the last 36 years racking up a Big Government record that cannot be whitewashed away.
Outside the Beltway/Hatch fog machine, Liljenquist’s integrity and commitment to reining in runaway spending are unassailable. In ...

All (green) thumbs

It was interesting while it lasted. But it looks like the “green revolution” has entered the long slide into “What was all that about?”
In January, the Spanish government removed absurdly lavish subsidies for its renewable energy industry, and the renewable energy industry all but imploded. You could say it was never a renewable energy industry at all. It was a government subsidy industry where in exchange for creating conscience-soothing but otherwise inefficient windmills and solar panels, the government gave the makers piles of cash consumers never would.
“They destroyed the Spanish ...

Wisconsin Election as Test Case

The gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin next week is important as an imperfect test case to indicate how Democratic propaganda will work against facts this election year.
Liberals are usually the ones who arrogantly throw around the charge that Republicans and conservatives are fact- and science-challenged and averse to reality. But their claim itself is based on nothing but their generic, nonfactual presuppositions, whether on “climate change” or same-sex unions.
What I’m suggesting is different. I’m saying that Democrats in Wisconsin are basing their case against Republican Gov. Scott Walker on anything ...

Ed Schultz’s Wisconsin Campaign

Ed Schultz is the kind of shameless liberal hack who can go on air standing in front of screaming labor-union crowds in Madison, Wisc., calling for Gov. Scott Walker’s head on a platter, and then turn around and announce that “Fox News is an arm of the Republican Party.”
Let’s put this canard to rest. In coverage of the leftist effort to drain the taxpayers of Wisconsin for an unnecessary and doomed recall election, Fox looks much more objective than Ed Schultz. There is no question about that.
A new Media Research ...

Holder’s Chutzpah

Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of black clergymen that the right to vote was being threatened by people who are seeking to block access to the ballot box by blacks and other minorities.
This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.
This may have seemed like a small episode to some at the time, but it was only ...

Team Obama Finds Romney Hard Target to Hit

The Obama campaign’s early attempts to attack Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital or present him as too extreme to be president have not worked out all that well so far. The early stumbles have created a flurry of commentaries wondering what’s wrong with the team that performed so flawlessly in Election 2008.
The answer may have nothing to do with the Obama campaign and have everything to do with the fact that Romney appears to be a tougher target than anticipated.
On the Bain Capital front, 44 percent of voters say ...

California Continues to Be Less Hippie Than Expected: Only 46 Percent of Residents Support Marijuana Legalization

was made
of the 2011 Gallup poll which noted that for the first
time a majority — well, 50 percent, so no longer a minority!
— of respondents supported marijuana legalization. This
contrasted nicely (for fans of less government, that is) with the
minuscule 12 percent support for legalization in 1969 when the
question was first asked by Gallup and even the relatively
restrained 36 percent support for legalization in 2006. Things are
moving in the right way!

Much was also made of the frustrating
loss of California's Prop. 19 in 2010, which would have
legalized recreational use of marijuana. Medical use has been legal
since 1996, in spite of various federal crackdowns (especially
lately). 2012 will no doubt bring further pushes for legalization,
since marijuana legalization has suddenly become a non-fringe
political cause supported by serious people, but those might be
more likely to succeed in
or other places less divided than the supposedly
hippie-tastic soialist paradise. After all, a new Los Angeles

poll of 1000 voters showed a-less-than-national-average support for
legalization of weed in California—46 percent.
The Washington Post:

The USC/LA Times poll found California voters overwhelmingly
support doctor-recommended use of marijuana for the severely ill,
with about 80 percent in favor of medical marijuana for the
terminally ill and severely disabled.

The San Francisco Bay Area was the only region in the state
where a majority — 55 percent — favors legalization. That compares
with 41 percent in Southern California.

Those against marijuana use were more adamant in their position,
with 42 percent feeling “strongly” about it compared with 33
percent for proponents.

Twenty-eight percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats
polled liked the idea of marijuana legalization. Sixty-eight
percent of Independents favor it.

The poll also noted:

less than 38% said they had indulged in pot for pleasure at
least once in their lives — and 9% had in the last year. The
questioners did not ask whether those who used the drug
recreationally acquired it on the street or with a doctor's
recommendation from a dispensary. The poll margin of error is 3.5
percentage points.

The poll
 showed that 43% of whites said they had smoked
marijuana recreationally, while only 24% of Latinos said they

The poll also
said that more than 80 percent of responders
supported medical marijuana for "severe" medical problems. The
really downer takeway is that the pro-legalization camp has lost

three percentages of support since 2009

This fact, as well as the fact that more young people than old
support legalization is not at all surprising. Nor is the fact that
more Democrats and particularly more Independents support the
policy. This is true in other polls, especially in Gallup's
national one. But it's still surprising that California cannot
either legalize gay marriage or marijuana, two theoretically
leftish causes that most libertarians can also get behind.
Nevertheless, the marijuana shift is happening, just perhaps no
faster in Californian than in most other states.

Reason on

Nick Gillespie Slags Mike Bloomberg’s Soda Plan on NBC Nightly News

I was on the NBC Nightly News tonight to share my view of New
York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's plan to limit the size of soda and
sugary-drink servings in the Big Apple.

Watch the clip above and check out a transcript and
more here

Among the material left on the cutting-room floor: My suggestion
that the term-limited martinet think about running for mayor of

Elsewhere at Reason today, Anthony Fisher talked to New Yorkers
about the plan.
Watch that vid here

Reason on the
Nanny State.

We unveil our Nanny of the Month tomorrow. Guess what guy
entered the race late this time but is really making up for lost

Anti-Choice Group Edits Out Planned Parenthood Adoption Discussion

The full unedited video of anti-choice group Live Action's latest Planned Parenthood hit job shows something very interesting: Cutting Room Floor: Live Action Edited Out Adoption Discussion.

The edited video leaves the following on the cutting room floor:

[Item List]

They've learned quite a bit from the tactics of Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe; most importantly, that the initial releases of their creepy undercover videos are covered much more widely than their inevitable debunking. Bottom feeder politics, go for the throat, ethics be damned -- that's Andrew Breitbart's legacy of dishonesty.

Here's the complete video at YouTube:

Duly Noted – Young, Jobless and Angry

Some ignored contributory causes of unemployment.

Youth unemployment represents a growing problem. One response is to create jobs by the government for the involuntarily idle. In this connection, the condition of the national economies that produce negative records is listed as a causative factor. True is that thriving businesses create [...]

Court Strikes Down The Defense of Marriage Act

Today, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held unconstitutional a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defining “marriage” exclusively as opposite-sex unions, setting up an all-but-certain Supreme Court case for next year. Acting in response to a Hawaii Supreme Court decision stating that the Constitution may require that same-sex and opposite-sex unions be treated alike, in 1996 Congress passed DOMA, and President Bill Clinton signed it into...

Click the title to read the full post.

How Charlie Rangel’s Outrage Shifted From Drugs to Drug Penalties

Reading Mike Riggs' recent
about the future of marijuana reform in Congress, I was
struck by the quote from Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), which
suggests how dramatically his drug policy views have changed in the
last few decades:

Marijuana decriminalization is an issue that will undoubtedly
become more prevalent over time. Things are very different from
when I chaired the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and
Control back in the 1980s. Polls have shown that since October
2011, at least 50 percent of Americans favor legalization at the
federal level—a number that is on the rise.

The U.S. already has the highest incarceration rate in the
world. We lock up the majority of inmates for non-violent
drug-related crimes. Instead of attacking the consumers, we should
give them alternatives to poverty and street life to steer them
away from drug abuse in the first place. It simply doesn't make
sense to waste billions of dollars putting hundreds of thousands of
Americans in prison for non-violent offenses of the law.

Back in the 1980s, by contrast, Rangel was such a hardline drug
warrior that he accused Ronald Reagan of being soft on the issue
(although, like our current drug
and the
senior senator
from California, he had kind words for the first
lady's "Just Say No" campaign). In
1989 Ebony profiled
Rangel as "The Front-Line General in the War on Drugs." "We need
outrage!" he told the magazine. "I don't know what is behind the
lackadaisical attitudes towards drugs, but I do know that the
American people have made it abundantly clear: They are outraged by
the indifference of the U.S. government to this problem."
Ebony reported that Rangel also was"outraged that
there has even been debate on the possibility of legalizing drugs,
which, he says, would be 'moral and political suicide.'" As
recently as 1998, Rangel was still saying
"the very idea of legalizing drugs in this country is
counterproductive," asserting that "legalization of drugs would be
a minority communities." Unlike

Not surprisingly, Rangel was keen on severe punishments for drug
dealers. He backed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which
established the mandatory minimum sentences that have helped give
us "the
highest incarceration rate in the world
." In a 1991
Firing Line debate, he told
William F. Buckley, "We should not allow people to be able to
distribute this poison without the fear that maybe they might be
arrested and put in jail." Even while arguing that "the criminal
justice system is not working," he recommended a mandatory life
sentence for anyone who sells drugs to a minor.

I vividly remember arguing with Rangel at a drug policy seminar
in Maryland around this time. Although I certainly did not expect
him to agree with the libertarian position on drug prohibition, I
was surprised by his refusal to concede that trying to prevent
consensual transactions between adults raises Fourth Amendment
issues and by the vehemence of his opposition to
methadone-based heroin treatment, which put him to the right of
, often identified as the author of the modern-day war on

For all I know, Rangel still has a bee in his bonnet about
methadone treatment (which I also have problems with, for somewhat
different reasons). But like other black leaders, he has had second
thoughts about mandatory minimums. In a 2007 Huffington
 op-ed piece, he

The sudden, frightening epidemic of a new street drug—crack
cocaine—and the drug induced death of basketball star Len Bias in
1986—impelled besieged lawmakers to enact stiff punishments for
crack cocaine offenses, including long mandatory minimum jail
sentences. Instead of reducing drug addiction and crime, those
laws—however well-intentioned, swelled prison populations, created
a sentencing divide that victimized young Black men, left a
generation of children fatherless, and drove up the costs of a
justice system focused more on harsh punishment than

Rangel was a little too quick to excuse his own complicity in
establishing the draconian sentences he now decries. Crack
"impelled" him, a "besieged" and "well-intentioned"
legislator, to support those absurdly harsh penalties? But to
his credit, Rangel has tried to rectify his error: For the
last five years or so, he has
legislation aimed at eliminating the
sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and
cocaine powder, which was created by the Rangel-supported Anti-Drug
Abuse Act of 1986. Congress has not gone that far yet, although two
years ago it shrank
the gap substantially. Rangel touts his sentencing reform bill on
his website, where he says
"we should focus our law enforcement efforts away from drug addicts
and small-time dealers onto the big-time drug kingpins who supply

Those are not exactly the words of a legalizer. But last summer
Rangel co-sponsored
the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011, a bill
by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would
eliminate federal criminal penalties for production, distribution,
and possession of the drug, leaving the states free to address the
issue as they see fit. He
his "proud" support for the bill as part of his
effort to "seriously re-examine our draconian sentencing policies
for drug-related crimes."

Are these shifts based on a genuine change of heart or a sense
of which direction the political winds are blowing (especially,
perhaps, in Rangel's Harlem district, where he faces a tough

re-election battle
 this year)? A little of both, I
suspect. Even corrupt
old hacks
have pangs of conscience from time to time.

More on Rangel

“Polish Death Camps” and “American 9/11 Attacks”

tylko świnie siedzą w kinieThe controversy over President Obama describing
Nazi concentration camps in Poland “Polish death camps” while
awarding the Medal of Freedom posthumously to the Pole known
as Jan
, who was instrumental in bringing news of the Nazis
murderous and genocidal ways to a skeptical West, may have blown
over quickly in the U.S. press, but it continues to be a hot topic
in Poland, where journalists in the country have helped lead a
decades-long fight to eradicate the wildly offensive misnomer.
David Frum does a really fantastic job
at the Daily Beast explaining exactly why the
misnomer is so hurtful coming from the American President. Frum
offers up as an analogy the use of the term “Hawaiian sneak attacks
on Pearl Harbor,” which he calls a “pathetically inadequate

I don’t have much to add to David Frum’s very insightful
comments on the topic, except to offer my own perhaps less
inadequate analogy. Imagine in half a century, some country
somewhere in gratitude to all the sacrifices the United States had
made for it, honors the last surviving first responders to the 9/11
terrorist attacks, and while bestowing honors upon the
firefighters, EMS and police officers there, that country’s
president refers to bravery of the first responders in the
“American attacks on 9/11 that took down the World Trade Center and
damaged the Pentagon.” The planes all departed from American
airports, were part of American airliners, and executed their
attack in America. Yet they were no more American attacks than the
Nazi’s death camps were Polish, even though both tragedies left an
indelible mark on the countries they befell.

Wingnut Artist McNaughton Comes Out as Hardcore Birther, Cites as Source

Recently Sean Hannity's favorite "artist" Jon McNaughton, whose Mormon/JW leaflet-style painting "One Nation Under God" was too extreme for Brigham Young University (McNaughton is a BYU alum) and who thinks that lectures about evolution at BYU show it has a problem with "Liberalism", has come out as a hardcore birther in his blog post "McNaughton and Troy talk about Obama and Socialism":

I believe that Obama has committed many unconstitutional acts since becoming President.

Also, the evidence is mounting that Obama was in fact born in Kenya. In my original list I did not include this because the evidence was circumstantial at best. But things have changed. (7) If this is resolutely confirmed, it will be one of the greatest lies ever perpetrated upon the American people. Whether it is considered important or not, it is a direct prerequisite of our Constitution, that he be a naturally born citizen. People have tried to ridicule this notion since day one, but Obama has done nothing to resolve this until last year when he released the long form of his BC. Since then, it has been proven to be a forgery and there has been additional evidence, which has shown there is reason to doubt its authenticity. (8)

(7) [Link:]

(8) [Link:]

McNaughton's sources for his "mounting evidence" claim are Joe Arpaio's waste of taxpayers' dollars and's article by Ben Shapiro regarding Obama's "Kenya bio" nontroversy. Good job, Breitbrats!

Oh, and just in case you didn't get it, McNaughton drew a picture for you: Obama burns the Constitution.

No racism there. Not at all. Nice furniture, though.

New Yorkers Sound Off on Bloomberg’s Drink Ban

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined a plan Wednesday
ban the sale of sugary soft drinks larger than 16 ounces
restaurants, movie theaters, street carts and other
venues.'s Anthony Fisher took to the streets to ask New
Yorkers what they thought about Bloomberg and the ban.

Approximately 2 minutes.

Camera by Kaplan Akincilar. Produced by Anthony Fisher

Visit for
downloadable versions and
subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel
to receive automatic
updates when new material goes live.

World of Warcraft Creator Finds Itself on Wrong End of a Raid Over Diablo III Troubles

Every time a major game company screws up, 1,000 memes are born.Korean gamer culture is serious
business. How serious? Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) raided
the Seoul office of Diablo III makers Blizzard
Entertainment Monday investigating complaints from players. The
players complained that the company refused to provide refunds to
those unhappy about poor access to the game since its launch two
weeks ago.

The Korea Times

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said the firm is suspected of
having violated the country’s law on electronic commerce and
commercial contracts. The FTC said Tuesday that it raided the
firm’s Seoul office Monday and secured related documents and other
evidence with which it will determine whether Blizzard broke the

The investigation comes only two weeks after the release of the
game, which has sold more than 6.3 million copies worldwide.

Larger-than-expected traffic to the online game’s severs made it
extremely difficult for its users to access the game, particularly
on weekday nights and weekends, according to Blizzard Korea.

Some buyers of the game vented frustration over server shutdowns
and asked for refunds, but the company refused to do so, citing
sales contract terms, which the FTC says is disadvantageous to

Diablo III is the latest (and the largest)
representation of relatively new trend in computer gaming,
requiring constant Internet connection and access to a company’s
servers in order to play, even if the game does not have
multiplayer components. In Diablo III, up to four players
can run around slaying demons together and ignoring its
tragicomically awful storyline, but it can also be played
completely solo. Even alone, though, players must have a working
internet connection at all times.

The connection requirement exists for several reasons, most of
which are connected to fighting piracy and cheating. If you’re a
non-gamer wondering why Blizzard would care if people cheat in the
games they bought, the game has an online auction house that will

allow people to buy items in the game from each
other for real-world money. In Diablo II (which did not
have such an auction house and did not require constant Internet
connection), the game’s “economy” suffered from hackers figuring
out ways to duplicate items in the game and selling them to other
players in a virtual black market. In Diablo III, parts of
the game are on the players’ computers, but some assets are on
Blizzard’s servers to make it much harder for hackers to engage in
virtual counterfeiting and manipulating the market. The issue is
complicated and controversial and no doubt it will be a focus of
discussion with Hit and Run commenters below for anybody who wants
to drill down deeper into the subject.

What has happened here is that Blizzard’s servers are currently
unable to accommodate the number of people who want to play their
game. So even those who have Internet access might not be able to
play their copy of the game because of problems on Blizzard’s end.
The complainants are demanding refunds because they can’t play
their games when they want to, even though the games themselves are
not broken, a complicated consumer issue that is bound to get more
complex as games and information become less and less tied to
personal pieces of equipment (like a PC).

Complicating matters further, Diablo III isn’t a
subscription-based game like World of Warcraft, which has
a monthly fee. Blizzard has credited World of Warcraft
accounts in the past when unexpected server problems rendered the
game unplayable for long lengths of time. Consumers pay for
Diablo III entirely up front. There’s no mechanism for
determining the value of being unable to play for two days in a
month, for example. Thus, frustrated players are demanding a full

FTC officials said the probe is aimed at confirming whether the
firm has sold the game based on what they describe as an “unfair”
contract so that people cannot receive refunds even if they
discover problems with the game. They said they are studying
whether the company should be held liable for “ill-preparation” for
unexpected traffic.

It’s too early to see any results of the probe but some
investigators expect the regulator to issue an order mandating
Blizzard to provide a full refund to all unhappy customers.


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South Aegean Islands

The South Aegean Islands are a region of Greece. Travel amongst the islands using the extensive Greek ferry network, many boats of which head to or from Piraeus on the Greek mainland.
Small Cyclades, also Little Cyclades is a group of small islands in the central Aegean Sea in Greece.
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Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem

A quick look at the new Live Mesh Mac client beta

Microsoft has finished a public beta of the Live Mesh client for Mac and is in …

Live Mesh icon

This summer, Microsoft gave a sneak peak at native Mac support for its Live Mesh file syncing service. Microsoft is now bringing the promise of Mac syncing with its Live Mesh service to reality with the announcement of a limited beta of a Mac client.

Windows Live Mesh—part of Microsoft's "software + services" cloud computing initiative—is a sort of multi-device file syncing service that is also web-accessible. The native Mac client allows Macs to be added to your "mesh," and any folders that are set up to sync will do so automatically whenever the client is running.

Live Mesh install

The service also works with Windows (natch!), Windows Mobile, and has a web-based client, called Live Desktop, as well. So whenever a file is added to one of your designated mesh folders, all devices you have added to your mesh will have the updated file. In addition, you can add users to particular folders that are allowed to access the files, and they can add the folder to their mesh, so whoever has access will have the updated files as well. Think of it as sort of an iDisk that actually works and has fine-grained sharing control.

Live Mesh first run window

The Live Mesh application for Mac is well-designed—it is a standard app bundle that can be installed with drag-and-drop. It adds a small menulet that allows easy mesh folder creation or lets you designate a current folder as a mesh folder. The client must be running for it to work, however, there is no option to keep the icon out of the dock or to automatically add it to your login items à la Twitterrific. Such preferences should be easy to add in a future version, though.

In my limited testing, I added a folder of various pictures I use for buddy icons and avatars to my Live Mesh. It was instantly accessible via my Live Desktop on the web. There is a media preview option on Live Desktop, but it only works with SilverLight, which I didn't feel like installing since it requires a browser restart. But otherwise Live Mesh works like a charm.

If you can get over the Windows Vista look, the web-accessible Live Desktop allows easy remote file access. SilverLight is required for more advanced interaction, however.

The Mac client seems very promising, as does the service itself. If you do a lot of moving around from machine to machine, and need access to certain files, or have a group that needs to have access to certain files, Live Mesh looks to be a great solution. In my experience, it sure beats uploading files to the public folder of my iDisk.

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Posts tagged as:

The Watts Towers

The Avant/Garde Diaries: Aaron Rose & Watts Towers

by Paddy Johnson on August 8, 2012
Thumbnail image for The Avant/Garde Diaries: Aaron Rose & Watts Towers

Objects tell their own stories. Their materials reveal details about place, the form tells us about the maker. Perhaps there is no better example of this than The Watts Towers in California, a series of seventeen spindly structures that look like radio towers built by aliens. Close up, it’s easy to see the details of artist Simon Rodia’s lifelong obsession: streams of countless bottles, seashells, and other bits of refuse carefully tiled into a web of arches, loops, and stems. He called the work “Nuestro Pueblo”, Spanish for “our town”.

The Watts Towers are the subject of The Avant/Garde Diaries latest short featuring filmmaker Aaron Rose. Rose, an ex-gallerist turned documentary filmmaker explains that his attraction to Rodia stems from his own interest in art makers slightly outside the mainstream purview.

Read the full article →


text:
Monday, July 26, 2010

First Photo

Photo taken by Aris

These days I'm lucky if I make it out of my jammies let alone get the chance to put makeup on before late afternoon. It's probably a good thing Aris didn't get a close up of the bags under my eyes;)

1 comment:

Elissa said...

bags or no bags, beautiful as usual :-)


text:
Spurs a good 'measuring stick'

Rose believes beating them would be further proof Bulls can play with anyone

February 16, 2011|By K.C. Johnson, Tribune reporter
  • Spurs' DeJuan Blair has a shot rejected by Taj Gibson as Joakim Noah assists on the play during the third quarte.
Spurs' DeJuan Blair has a shot rejected by Taj Gibson as Joakim Noah assists on the play during the third quarte. (Eric Gay, FILE)

For one of the few times all season, Derrick Rose and Tom Thibodeau were out of sync after Wednesday's practice.

"Definitely," Rose said, when asked if Thursday night's nationally televised showdown with the Spurs is a statement game. "It will mean a lot to see how far we've come.

"When we played them there, we played a decent game but it got away from us in the third quarter. They're a great team. It's a measuring stick for us to see how good we are."

Asked if he believes in statement games, Thibodeau offered a detailed answer that started with one syllable: "No."

To Thibodeau, executing a closeout drill during practice is as much a statement situation as playing the NBA-leading Spurs. Such attention to detail and focus on the task at hand is a large reason the Bulls take the league's second-best home record at 24-4 into Thursday's matchup against the owner of the league's best road record at 21-7.

"The only thing it means is we played well at home," Thibodeau said. "When you start looking at all the other stuff, you get away from focusing on what you need to focus on. And that's the Spurs. Whatever the record is at home, that's in the past."

So is the Bulls' 103-94 loss Nov. 17 in San Antonio, the second stop on this season's 4-3 circus trip. In that game, the Bulls built a 17-point, first-half lead but were outscored 37-12 in the third.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich started Matt Bonner in place of DeJuan Blair to open the second half, and Bonner's ability to spread the floor energized the Spurs. They sank 15 of 21 shots, while the Bulls missed 17 of 23.

"We have to stay together defensively," Rose said. "They play together at both ends and that's what makes them tough."

The Spurs rank second at 39.5 percent 3-point shooting, so closing out on shooters will be critical.

"They have been in a lot of big games, so they handle big moments with a lot of poise," Thibodeau said. "We know they're a good team."

Sponsored Link: Buy Chicago Bulls tickets for the 2010-11 season


text:
Machinists begin organizing effort at Boeing in S.C.

October 17, 2012|Reuters
  • A Boeing 787 Dreamliner rolls out at the company's assembly plant in North Charleston, S.C., on April 27.
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner rolls out at the company's assembly plant in North Charleston, S.C., on April 27. (C. Aluka Berry, The State)

A union representing machinists and aerospace workers took a step closer to organizing Boeing Co.'s South Carolina plant this week, holding informational meetings with workers at a hotel near the 787 jet factory in this strongly anti-union state.

Representatives of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) met Boeing employees Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday, handing out information and answering questions about union rights in a "right-to-work" state, one of 23 that prohibit making union membership a requirement of employment.

"We're a lot closer (to union formation) than folks think we are," said Tommy Mayfield, a southern territory organizer for the IAM. "There's an awful lot of support. They're not ready to take a vote yet, but we're glad the process is out in the open."

Boeing said its workers do not need a union.

"We're continuously working on making Boeing South Carolina a place where teammates have a voice and can speak for themselves without having to rely on a third party," Boeing spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said in a statement.

The organizing drive was long viewed as an obvious move by the union after workers voted to oust the IAM in 2009 at what was then a plant supplying fuselages to Boeing, helping the plant win the second 787 assembly line.

"It was just a matter of time," said Scott Hamilton, an industry analyst in Seattle.

If the union drive succeeds, it could affect Boeing's ability to move production to non-union workers.

For the union, the drive is a test of its ability to hang on to workers.

IAM "can't afford not to have a campaign," said Gary Chaison, professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "They want to discourage Boeing from locating in non-union areas."

The IAM effort has been in the works for two years, Mayfield said. The effort appears to be heating up as the factory begins rolling out finished jets.

Mayfield said more than 50 workers had indicated they would support a union but did not say how many the IAM wanted before it would hold a vote to certify the union.

Boeing South Carolina has about 2,000 potential IAM members, Mayfield said. The meeting this week came after the union sent its first mass mailing to workers.

Boeing delivered its first South Carolina-made 787 this month, to Air India Ltd. Boeing wants combined production of 787s from both factories to reach 10 a month by the end of next year, up from a target of 5 per month by the end of 2012.

The union represents 45,000 current and former Boeing workers in Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region. It also represents 75 to 100 aerospace workers associated with the Boeing C17-Globemaster military transport aircraft at Joint Base Charleston, in South Carolina, and about 700 workers at the Cherry Point Naval Air Depot in North Carolina, Mayfield said.

Workers at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. in Kinston, N.C., are scheduled to vote soon on whether to form a union chapter, he said.

But the union faces an uphill battle at the Boeing plant in North Charleston. Workers might fear losing their jobs for supporting the drive and the union will not want to risk losing a vote.

"Workers don't want to take chances, especially with the economy and the lack of good industrial jobs in South Carolina," Chaison said.

If the workers vote down the union, he added, "it would be tremendously embarrassing for the union."

IAM has been the most vocal of Boeing's unions in opposing the Chicago-based company's move toward non-union labor. The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees unions, charged in April 2011 that Boeing built its second 787 final assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, as retaliation against union workers who struck in Washington state in 2008. The NLRB complaint came after the IAM filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Boeing in March 2010.

The NLRB dismissed its complaint in December after Boeing machinists ratified a new four-year contract, which included an deal to assemble the new 737 MAX jet in Washington state.

The union also has taken on South Carolina. In January 2011, the IAM sued Governor Nikki Haley over anti-union remarks it said showed a state policy hostile to workers' rights.

Haley said South Carolina was and always would be pro-business. She later described her remarks as "talking smack about the unions." The case was dismissed in August 2011.

Mayfield, who is based near Mobile, Alabama, and was in South Carolina for two weeks of organizing activities, said he had never seen hotter anti-union political rhetoric than in South Carolina.

IAM has chapters in 14 southern states and all but Kentucky are right-to-work states, Mayfield said.

"We're here to answer questions," he said. Workers want to know what a union is and how union contracts work.

Many fear the union "will walk in here and say 'We're taking you out on strike,' " he said. "Under our constitution it takes 66 percent of the members (to call for) a formal strike. You can't get three people out of five to agree on what they want to eat for dinner sometimes."


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Slideshows, pictures, humour & stories you may have missed

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YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsDrug Tests

Customs Service to Lead War on Drug Smugglers

May 31, 1987|ROBERT L. JACKSON | Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The Reagan Administration moved Saturday to improve coordination in the war on drug abuse by designating the U.S. Customs Service as the leading agency to interdict drug shipments at the nation's borders.

The move followed recent congressional criticism that petty jealousies and duplication of effort by federal law enforcement agencies had contributed to an influx of cocaine and heroin from Latin America despite the Administration's campaign to win the drug war.

President Reagan, in his weekly radio address from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., said the National Drug Policy Board, a Cabinet-level group he established on March 1, "has developed a plan which will add new vigor and a more comprehensive approach to our crusade against drug abuse."

"The strategy is aimed at coordinating a wide range of anti-drug activities going on in our country," Reagan said, including mandatory drug tests for military personnel and many federal employees as well as drug education and rehabilitation programs.

Reagan, in his remarks, said mandatory drug testing in the U.S. military has resulted in a 67% reduction in the use of drugs, and he added: "We need to achieve these kinds of results in our schools as well."

While stopping short of proposing mandatory tests for all schoolchildren, Reagan said Education Secretary William J. Bennett will work with state and local governments "to lead the campaign for drug-free campuses."

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, in a separate announcement, said the drug policy board that he chairs has selected the Customs Service to direct drug interdiction efforts with help from the Coast Guard as "principal deputy."

Smuggling by Land

Meese said the Customs Service will develop "interdiction strategies" for the policy board to consider and will have chief responsibility for combatting drug smuggling by land, mainly attempts to smuggle drugs across the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

Customs will share duties with the Coast Guard for intercepting drug shipments by air, and the Coast Guard will have primary responsibility for blocking shipments by sea, Meese said. A new communications and drug intelligence center will be set up and operated by Customs at March Air Force Base, near Riverside, Calif.

"Through the lead-agency approach, the American people can look forward to even more effective law enforcement and even greater reduction of drug use," Meese said.

Customs and Coast Guard officials have been warring for months over who has primary jurisdiction for choking off the flow of drug imports. Customs told a Senate committee last March that it should control intelligence-gathering efforts as well as any communications network established to thwart drug smugglers.

Coast Guard Praised

Customs Commissioner William von Raab praised the expertise of the Coast Guard in blocking drug shipments by sea. But he insisted that Customs has the most experience to combat smuggling by land and by air. However, Adm. Paul A. Yost, commandant of the Coast Guard, said his agency should have control of air as well as sea interdiction efforts within 12 miles of the U.S. shoreline.

The Administration's drug enforcement efforts were sharply criticized last March in a study by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment. The report said federal officials were intercepting only a small percentage of narcotics smuggled into the United States, at least in part because the responsibilities for detection were fragmented and poorly organized among the Customs Service, the Coast Guard and other agencies.

Illegal drug imports seem to be increasing, the study said, even though Customs and Coast Guard officers "have seized increasing quantities of drugs over the past five years," at a cost of nearly $800 million in the last year alone.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who had commissioned the study as chairman of the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Governmental Affairs Committee, said Saturday that although he is pleased with the thrust of Reagan's move, "I am troubled . . . the President has decided to subdivide the interdiction arena into three areas, with joint areas of responsibility remaining for Customs and the Coast Guard."

Nunn, a possible Democratic presidential contender who sponsored an anti-drug amendment last year requiring periodic reports from the President, said he is not convinced that the new interdiction plan "complies with either the spirit or letter of the amendment."

Meese said the Drug Enforcement Administration will coordinate investigations of major narcotics traffickers in conjunction with the FBI, the Customs Service and other federal, state and local agencies.

Los Angeles Times Articles


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YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsMusicians

The Aquabats' Saturday Morning Mission : Who Are Those Masked Men? A Brea Band With a New CD and Plans for Capturing a TV Audience

COSTA MESA — The outside world may think it has Orange County ska-rock pegged as a particularly lightweight musical form, but the outside world hasn't seen anything yet. Here come the Aquabats.

If ska is the bouncy balloon of '90s pop, the Aquabats fill it with helium and let go of the string. This band of black-masked, silver-helmeted cartoon superheroes exists for the sake of silliness.

Locals No Doubt, Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris have scored hits by appealing to the sense of fun in preteens along with the usual rock audience of teens and young adults. If the Aquabats prosper, they'll be reaching the sandbox set.

The Aquabats, whose founding members hail from Brea, have a script, a marketing plan, and a mission: to reclaim their lost island of Aquabania from the dastardly Space Monster M, although landing a Saturday morning kid's TV show will do.

After a successful 1995 do-it-yourself CD debut in 1995, "Return of the Aquabats," the band goes national today with the release of its more polished and accomplished sequel, "The Fury of the Aquabats."

In concept, the nine-member ensemble is a cannily organized, craftily packaged marketing phenomenon ready to be unleashed on the Power Rangers/Ninja Turtles demographic, the kiddies who know that in parental anatomy, the heartstring's connected to the purse string.

In reality, the Aquabats are a lot more fun than that. The band's shows are anything but slick and calculating. The eight uniformed Aquabats and their lab-coated, Fedora-topped mentor, the Professor, battle such villains as the Silver Skull, Tarantula and Powdered Milk Man with the chaotic enthusiasm of those kitschy punch-ups from "The Monkees" and the old "Batman" TV series.

The group has even put together a TV pilot and has ideas about episodes for a series, but that longshot aspect of its game plan is still in the embryonic stage.

Singer Christian Jacobs, a.k.a. the Bat Commander, conducts concerts as if he were a kid-show host, flashing a prominent Dudley Doright jaw and enough knowing irony to appeal to grown-up kids who miss the entertainments of their more wide-eyed days. Behind him, the crew manages to keep the music catchy and surprisingly coherent, given the constant onstage commotion.

The Aquabats spring from an unlikely incubator: the Mormon Church, where singer Jacobs, bassist Chad "Crash McLarson" Larson and trumpet player Boyd "Catboy" Terry had formed friendships and discovered a mutual fondness for playing in rock bands. They recruited a bunch of other church-based friends, rehearsed once at the Brea house Jacobs and Larson shared, and played their first gig at a party in August 1994.

The founders had a mutual admiration for Devo and its matching-outfit stage concept, so the enthusiastic Terry brought along some costumes, adapted from the wares available at his brother's surf-equipment manufacturing company in Newport Beach.

"The first performance we did as a joke," recalled Larson, who sports a shaven head and a linebacker's build. "We weren't trying to be a band. We were trying to have fun."

The Aquabats began conceptualizing and adapting. Jacobs' younger brother, Parker, was called in to help out as the Professor. In its early days, the band was known to perform in fezzes and chefs' hats.

It eventually hit on its current look, which recalls the commando sperm from Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)." Ask Terry and he'll tell you he never watches Woody Allen movies and that he was just trying to put together a nice, smooth aquatic look.

On a local rock scene then dominated by snide or snarling punkers, the Aquabats fell by default into the ska underground (this was two years before No Doubt hit the Top 10).

"We definitely weren't ska. We all grew up playing different stuff," Christian Jacobs said as the Aquabats gathered last week to rehearse for a national tour that includes shows Wednesday and Thursday at the Roxy in West Hollywood and an early evening mini-concert Thursday at the Virgin Megastore in Costa Mesa.

"But we happened upon a ska show in O.C.," he said. "No one was fighting or pushing each other but having a good time. It wasn't, 'Let's start a pit and maybe my boots will cause someone to bleed.' We started the Aquabats to be part of the fun."

After a few months, the Aquabats decided to tighten their sound, tapping an established local ska band, the Goodwin Club, for fresh recruits: guitarist Courtney "Chainsaw the Prince of Karate" Pollack, horn player "Prince Adam" Diebert and guitarist Charles "Magnificent Kyu" Grey. Two recently added Aquabats are drummer Travis "Baron Von Tito" Barker and saxophonist James "Jaime the Robot" Briggs. The members' ages range from 19 to 30.

The Aquabats' decision to back up their silliness with more serious musicianship wasn't lost on Bill Fold, one of the leading concert promoters on the Southern California ska and punk scene.

Los Angeles Times Articles


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An old hand -- a new life?

Antonio Tommasi, who helped introduce L.A. to northern Italian cuisine, is back in the house at Ca' Brea.

September 12, 2007|S. Irene Virbila | Times Staff Writer

CA' BREA is back, after being closed nearly a year for renovations. And, for the first time in a long while, chef-owner Antonio Tommasi, who founded the place in 1991 with Jean-Louis de Mori, is playing a much more active role in what's coming out of the kitchen.

The Italian-born chef started his career in Los Angeles in 1979 at Orsini and went on to work at a number of Italian restaurants here, including the now-closed Chianti Cucina. In 1988 he and De Mori opened Locanda Veneta in West Hollywood; three years later they opened Ca' Brea, followed by Il Moro in West Los Angeles and Ca' del Sole in North Hollywood (and a couple of others).

In the last years, though, between spending time in Italy and juggling all those restaurants, Tommasi didn't seem to have been paying that much attention to the languishing Ca' Brea. After 16 years, the once-lovely Venetian-inspired restaurant was looking tired. It took the fire last year that destroyed much of the restaurant's interior to galvanize the chef into updating this seminal L.A. restaurant, which reopened two months ago.

Come evening, the old crowd is back, reminiscing, table hopping. You hear the sound of laughter, of chairs sliding as someone gets up to embrace a friend. The servers are invariably friendly and helpful, so much so, I begin to feel embarrassed that we're not polishing off every one of our dishes.

In the bright of day, the ladies who lunch hand off their vintage Mercedes and BMWs to the polite valet. Inside, the newly refurbished bar has acquired a couple of affable barflies, who are happily sipping chilled Pinot Grigio as they wait for a friend. Three beefy guys huddle at a table on the far side of the bar, delving into plates of pasta and veal chops smothered in mushroom sauce as the waiter pours the last of their Sangiovese.

The hostesses are genuinely warm and accommodating, making you feel as if you've just arrived for the party. Someone takes your coat. Someone else offers cocktails or a glass of Prosecco. The place looks familiar, yet different, and it really evokes Venice; it might be one of those dark wine bars near the Rialto Bridge. In the gloom, there's an impression of an accumulation of dark wood furniture and fittings. A floor-to-ceiling cabinet with glassed-in shelves divides the bar area from the main dining room. Stuffed with bottles of bitters, grappa, olive oil, aceto balsamico, packages of dried pasta and rice for risotto, jars of olives and jams, the piece adds character to the room and conveys the sense that Ca' Brea has been around forever. In L.A. terms, it has.

An oasis on La Brea

In the main dining room, a cozy, intimate space, tables are lined up along the walls. You can either sit in the cloistered dark of that room or walk past the open kitchen and take a table in the enclosed (and air-conditioned) patio where the plastered umber and gold walls exude the cool damp of a Venetian palazzo. The view through the French doors is an enclosed garden with potted plants and trees. But from inside, the sound of the traffic has faded away and we could be anywhere at all.

Our server is Italian, and she's very precise in taking our order, wanting to make sure that she understands exactly which salad or pasta we mean. Some sound very similar. For all the buzz I've heard about Tommasi updating the menu, it doesn't look much different from what I remember, with more generic Italian dishes than truly regional ones. He's basically tweaked things here and there, without substantially changing the formula that's been so successful over the years.

It pays to remember that when the generation of Italian chefs that includes Tommasi along with Agostino Sciandri, Giorgio Baldi and more arrived on the scene, Los Angeles was mired in old-school red sauce Italian. When these chefs started to cook northern Italian cuisine, it was a revelation. Suddenly, Italian was chic and people became conversant in extra virgin olive oil, ribollita, chicken al mattone, bigoletti (Venetian spaghetti) and risotto. Restaurants sold boatloads of Super Tuscan wines, and northern Italian cooking (which was mostly Tuscan, if we're going to be honest about it) became as familiar to upwardly mobile Angelenos as the cut of an Armani suit. It conveyed sophistication and class.

Oh, pioneers

By the time I arrived in L.A. in the mid-'90s, some of these once-lauded restaurants were resting on their bay leaves. Locanda Veneta had great looks and an A-list crowd, but the food was a big, fat C. Hard to fathom that this had once been one of L.A.'s top restaurants. Or that the overcooked and over-sauced pasta at Ca' Brea came from another highly rated Italian. Let's face it, not many restaurants manage to stay at the top of their game for more than a few years.

Los Angeles Times Articles


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YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsBrain

BOOSTER SHOTS: Oddities, musings and news from the
health world

Brain eating amoebas are scary, but water has more common bugs

August 17, 2011|By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times / for the Booster Shots blog
  • A tourist swims in a lagoon in Nicaragua. The Centers for Disease Control reports that swimmers are susceptible to infection by a slew of germs that can cause diarrhea, rashes and other ailments.
A tourist swims in a lagoon in Nicaragua. The Centers for Disease Control… (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles…)

The death of Courtney Nash -- the 16-year-old who succumbed to a deadly brain infection last week after going for a dip in a Floridariver -- marks the third case this summer of death after exposure to the waterborne amoeba Naegleria fowleri.  Earlier in the season, according to news reports, one person in Louisianaand another in Virginia also died from the "brain-eating" malady amoebic meningoencephalitis, which causes headache, stiffness, fever and nausea before leading to almost-certain death.

The cases are terrifying, but they're also rare.  A more immediate concern for most swimmers in the hottest months of the summer is getting diarrhea, a rash or other problems from a number of bugs that frequently lurk in swimming pools, rivers and lakes, and on beaches.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most commonly reported recreational water illness (RWI) is diarrhea, which can be caused by germs such as Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Shigella, norovirus and E. coli.  These can be introduced into the water through trace amounts of fecal matter that cling to people's bodies.

The agency reports:

Swimmers share the water -- and the germs in it -- with every person who enters the pool. On average, people have about 0.14 grams of feces on their bottoms which, when rinsed off, can contaminate recreational water. In addition, when someone is ill with diarrhea, their stool can contain millions of germs. This means that just one person with diarrhea can easily contaminate the water in a large pool or water park.

The CDC answers questions about RWIs at this web page.  Tips to avoid infection are here and here.  The winning entry in a video contest about RWI is posted here.

Check out the related links to the left for additional coverage of RWIs from the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles Times Articles


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YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsBusiness

Google makes major change in search ranking algorithms

The change to Google's algorithms is aimed at helping websites with original content and information rank higher. The action marks a rare admission of fallibility by the search giant.

February 26, 2011|By Jessica Guynn
  • Google has come under attack over the quality of its search results. One academic called it a tropical paradise for spammers and marketers. Above, the company logo is displayed on computer screens.
Google has come under attack over the quality of its search results. One… (Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg )

Reporting from San Francisco — Google Inc., under fire for letting some websites manipulate its powerful search engine, has made a major change to the way it ranks results.

The change to Google's algorithms, which it employs to help users find what they want when they search the Web, is aimed at helping websites with original content and information, including in-depth reports or "thoughtful" analysis, rank higher. The change affects about 12% of queries, Google said.

Making such a significant change to the search engine in such a public way marks a rare admission of fallibility by Google, which handles about two-thirds of the world's search queries and generates most of its sales from search advertising.

Despite the dominance of its search engine, Google has taken hits in recent months for allowing sites to rise in search results that deliver questionable or little value to Web searchers. Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's School of Information, described Google in a blog post as a "tropical paradise for spammers and marketers."

The debate over the quality of Google's search results has not shrunk its commanding lead over Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine. But Google is taking steps to protect its public image as that debate spills into the mainstream from the more arcane world of search optimization, where professionals make a living helping websites rise in Google rankings.

Google has benefited for years from the assumption that its search results are "better than anyone else's," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, an influential technology blog. "There is no doubt that Google's relevancy has come under attack in an unprecedented way in recent months and it has been snowballing. This is an effort to slow down that snowballing."

Google recently introduced an extension for the Google Chrome Web browser that lets users manually block sites from appearing in their results. The effort is similar to that of a new Google competitor, start-up Blekko, which blocks sites that users mark as spam.

Google did not divulge which websites would drop in its rankings, but many search-optimization professionals have speculated that Google is targeting Demand Media's eHow and other so-called content farms.

Google is trying to deliver "more substantial and authoritative answers than the short summaries from websites that have built their businesses on giving bites and chunks of information," Sullivan said. Matt Cutts, who leads Google's spam-fighting efforts, has said in recent weeks that Google was working on tweaks to its algorithms to fix the problem.

Demand Media, based in Santa Monica, said in a blog post that it had not seen a "material net impact," but its shares traded lower Friday on the news. Andrew Shotland, who runs Local SEO Guide, a consulting firm that advises large websites, said some of his clients were "definitely seeing a negative impact."

"Today is not different than any other day: I am telling clients they need more original and better content on their pages, it's just now it's more important than it was a few weeks ago," Shotland said.

The stakes for sites that rely on Web traffic from Google are high. Even a slight dip in traffic can slash revenue. One search-optimization professional said some sites could see drops of as much as 30%. Another who works for some of the world's largest websites said significant drops in traffic would result in "a real human cost," as the affected sites lay off workers.

Jonah Stein, founder of Its the ROI, a San Francisco search-engine optimization and marketing company, said he turned to Google six months ago when his wife tore her rotator cuff. Instead of getting top results from medical sites, he was directed to what he called "garbage" content farms. The same search Friday yielded orthopedic and sports injury sites as top results.

"So much energy has gone into trying to make money online that anywhere you dig a little, you are going to find websites delivering less value than they should," Stein said. "The sad thing is that the sites that are doing a really great job of delivering content and value are not the ones rising to the top."

"Helping put those sites at the top of search results is core to what a search engine should be striving to do," he said. But with so many marketers gaming the system, he said, "it's not clear that anybody knows how to do that at this point."

Los Angeles Times Articles


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The Times' top 25 college football teams

Oregon, Kansas State and Notre Dame are 1-2-3, but the Southeastern Conference is still on Rankman's mind.

November 14, 2012|Chris Dufresne
  • Oregon coach Chip Kelly looks on during pre-game warm ups before the Ducks game against the California Golden Bears on Nov. 10, 2012.
Oregon coach Chip Kelly looks on during pre-game warm ups before the Ducks… (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty…)

The Southeastern Conference, taken out of the national title hunt for as long as three non-SEC teams keep winning, mostly takes the week off as it openly cheers for upsets of Oregon, Kansas State and Notre Dame. SEC schools bully up to play seven 1-AA schools this week, which is seven more than Notre Dame, USC and UCLA have ever scheduled. The SEC is believed to be the first league to stage an exhibition season inside a regular season, but the scary part is Alabama A&M might beat Auburn. And if Florida thought Louisiana Lafayette was tough last week, well, watch out for Jacksonville State. In keeping with the SEC's time-honored November tradition, Rankman has scheduled mostly 1-AA level comments this week.

1; Oregon 10-0; Chip Kelly doesn't acknowledge any injuries but is accepting Red Cross donations. (2)

2; Kansas State 10-0; Ryan Leaf (9-4-2000) says SI cover jinx is just a myth concocted by media to sell magazines. (3)

3; Notre Dame 10-0; Coach admits voting own team No. 1 because there wasn't any ranking higher. (4)

4; Ohio State 10-0; Local parlor offering entire team free "12-0" tattoos if Buckeyes can win last two. (5)

5; Alabama 9-1; School boasts it is still undefeated against all SEC schools not in Big 12 last year. (1)

6; Georgia 9-1; School rewards Coach Richt with 10-minute contract extension for clinching SEC East. (6)

7; Florida State 9-1; Breaking news: Jimbo discovers something called "BCS" may not be a fair way to determine champion. (7)

8; Florida 9-1; Defense wins championships but offense sometimes only outscores Missouri and Louisiana Lafayette, 41-27. (8)

9; LSU 8-2; Passing attack finally rounds into form just in time for the off-season conditioning championships. (9)

10; Texas A&M 8-2; Sports Illustrated promises cover to Manziel if he ever does something noteworthy. (15)

11; Clemson 9-1; Can still win ACC if Maryland pulls off upset over Florida State … ah, never mind. (10)

12; South Carolina 8-2; Warning: Wofford recently defeated Lincoln (Pa.), starring Daniel Day-Lewis, 82-0. (13)

13; Oklahoma 7-2; "Un-circle" your calendars this week as Sooners make at-one-time anticipated trip to West Virginia. (14)

14; Stanford 8-2; This not-so-funny Farm front has allowed average of 12 rushing yards in last four games. (16)

15 Oregon State 7-2; "Civil war" reenactment with Nicholls State (La.) still on Dec. 1 unless Beavers reach Pac-12 title. (12)

16; UCLA 8-2; Heated Mora (Washington) vs. Kiffin (Fresno State) rivalry dates to the Apple Raisin Cup. (17)

17; Nebraska 8-2; Bo Pelini doesn't scream at his players 24 hours a day; it just seems that way. (18)

18; Louisiana Tech 9-1; Big game against Utah State this week could shape WAC football for days to come. (19)

19; USC 7-3; Wide receiver Lee also named semifinalist in Russia for the coveted Fred Baryshnikov Award. (20)

20; Louisville 9-1; Rankman blew giant bubble with Bridgewater's Heisman gum and then watched it pop. (11)

21; Rutgers 8-1; The year 1997 (0-11) is cracking up over the idea Rutgers could win this year's Big East title. (21)

22; Texas 8-2; Last sunset comes as Willie Nelson sings "Healing Hands of Time" at Darrell Royal's memorial. (23)

23; Michigan 7-3; Someone spiked my preseason punch and replaced Denard Robinson at QB with Devin Gardner. (NR)

24; San Diego State 8-3; Paired with Temple next year in Big East's new Philly Phish Taco Division. (24)

25; Kent State 9-1; Golden Flashes might be in BCS hunt if not for that one ugly loss at Kent-yucky. (25)

Dropped out: Northwestern (22).

Moved in: Michigan.

Los Angeles Times Articles


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YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsWalt Disney

Is Disney considering opening a 'Star Wars' land?

March 22, 2013|By Hugo Martin
  • "Star Wars" creator and filmmaker George Lucas poses with a group of "Star Wars"-inspired Disney characters.
"Star Wars" creator and filmmaker George Lucas poses with a… (Todd Anderson / Disney via…)

Is the Walt Disney Co. considering adding a "Star Wars"-themed land at one of its parks in Anaheim?

That question has been on the lips of Disneyland guests and annual pass holders who in the past few weeks began receiving a survey by Disney, asking them about their interest in "Star Wars."

On Twitter, at least one Disney guest posted a screen grab of the survey, which asked: "How interested would you be in visiting a Star Wars themed land at Disneyland Resort?"

Other questions included: "Which Star Wars characters would you definitely not want to see or meet in person?"

Such a development would certainly be possible since the Walt Disney Co. agreed last year to pay $4.05 billion to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd., the company that controls the blockbuster "Star Wars" franchise.

A spokeswoman for Disneyland declined to say much about the survey except, "We continually engage with our guests regarding their experiences in our parks."

"We have nothing to announce at this time," added Suzi Brown.

After dark, the dirty work at Disneyland begins

Disney raises ticket prices for both Anaheim theme parks

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to close for upgrades

Los Angeles Times Articles