Dearly Beloved ? The Princess Speaks

June 22^nd: It?s June, Let?s Have a Wedding?????

The first wedding of import in my life was my sister?s. She had graduated from high school, gone off to college, and returned home to live with us while she was engaged to her boyfriend of several years.

To be perfectly honest, I don?t remember much about the wedding, except that my sister made a beautiful bride. I must not have paid attention, because my long-term memory is generally fairly good. But I do remember how I felt about Betsy getting married and leaving home.

As I have already admitted, my sister and I were not very close as children. That doesn?t mean that I didn?t love and depend on her. But we missed out on making those years a solid basis for a lifetime relationship. That would have to come later.

So I was surprised?to feel vaguely disturbed about her impending marriage. I wasn?t all that comfortable with her husband-to-be, but I had to dig a little further to find the nugget of my real concern. I found that I was worried about the direction everyday life in our house would take without her.

There were tangible things: Betsy did most of the cooking, she shared household chores, and she was a lightning rod?for parental interest. Would we starve? Would I inherit her chores on top of my own and most importantly were Mom and Dad?going to pay too much attention to me? The answer to all of these questions was, ?pretty much?. But aside from these obvious questions, when the wedding day was set?and I knew she would be going to a new home with her husband, I was shocked to find how much I was going to miss her.

Relationships between two people can be?compared to two horses?used to working in tandem to pull a carriage. Walking on, side by side, they pay little attention to each other as they are put?through their paces. Oh sure, if one stumbles the other chuffs, and when one slacks off, the other may nip a shoulder, but for the most part they keep their eyes forward, plodding along. But the day that one of the pair cannot join the team, the remaining horse finds she is alone and pines for her missing partner. Alone, in her stall, the second mare is missing the comfort she derives from standing shoulder to shoulder with her teammate, too. ?

Now, my sister would kill me if I compared her to a horse, but in some ways, as she prepared to leave the barn, eh, the house, I felt like the teammate being left behind.? Becoming an only child was a daunting challenge. Hiding would no longer be an option. All eyes would be on me. Yikes!

A little part of me hoped she would change her mind, a sentiment she would later share. But for the next two years I became a personal testament to the line from the song, ?You Don?t Know What You?ve Got Till? It?s Gone.? When her big day finally came and went, I found myself missing my pesky big sister much more than I anticipated. Somehow the silent bond we had shared could not be bridged long distance.

A wedding can feel like an ending to everyone except the bride and groom. That?s the real reason friends, parents, and siblings cry at weddings. Not that they aren?t happy for the couple, which they are, but more for the changes wrought by this new, stronger allegiance. As sad as I was to see my sister leave I was sadder still when our first attempts to reconnect seemed awkward and strained. But ironically, when I married some years later, we found each other again.

I was reminded of this because I am reading a book, The Big Girl, in which the central character is preparing to leave for college in a distant state. She, too, was leaving without establishing a solid basis for lifetime relationships with her first family. Suddenly I remembered in vivid detail how I felt when my big sister went away. If instead of all those years, months, days and hours that we trudged along shoulder to shoulder, we had invested in face to face bonding, I would not have missed out on twenty years of knowing, understanding, and loving my sister.

But, that is the past for us.? It may not be too late to secure a deep bond with your first family before you leave home. ?The effort will yield valuable interest in the years ahead, I promise. That said, though now Betsy and I now live 1000 miles apart, we are never really farther apart than two tired mares sharing a bag of oats after a long day of lugging our families around.?

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Posted in Humor, Love, Mary Engelbreit, Parents and Kids, Relationships

Tags: Family, Help and Advice, High school, Home, Life is Funny, Marriage, Mary Engelbreit, Relationships, Wedding, Weddings

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The Physics of the Knuckleball

So, what has this analysis taught me? For an ordinary pitch, the trajectory follows a smoothly curving line approximated by nearly constant acceleration. For a knuckleball, rather than a line, imagine that the trajectory is confined to lie inside a tube which itself follows a smooth curve. However, the ball is otherwise free to flutter and zig-zag within the confines of the tube. With that picture in mind, the analysis I have presented shows that the diameter of that tube is very small, on the order of a few tenths of an inch at most.
...

The smoothness conclusion appears to contradict the popular belief that knuckleball trajectories are erratic and often experience abrupt changes of direction. Let me speculate that this belief is the result of the randomness of movement, both in magnitude and direction, giving rise to the perception of erratic behavior. We have all seen instances where the catcher and pitcher get their signals crossed, and the catcher has to lunge for the ball at the last moment. The catcher expects a certain movement, and the pitcher throws something with different movement. With the knuckleball, no one really knows what movement to expect, so it is not surprising that the catcher has some difficulty cleanly catching the ball and that the batter has even more difficulty hitting it.

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Video: Simplify dinner: A.M. prep for P.M. grilling

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Sandusky accuser: I screamed in vain from basement

Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky arrives for the fourth day of his trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Sandusky faces 52 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys over a 15-year span. (AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark)

Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky arrives for the fourth day of his trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Sandusky faces 52 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys over a 15-year span. (AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark)

Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky arrives for the fourth day his trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Sandusky faces 52 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys over a 15-year span. (AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark)

Attorney for Jerry Sandusky, Joe Amendola loads boxes onto a cart after arriving for the fourth day of Sandusky's trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Sandusky faces 52 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys over a 15-year span. (AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark)

Judge John Cleland and his wife Julie arrive for the fourth day of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Thursday, June 14, 2012. Sandusky faces 52 counts of child sex-abuse involving 10 boys over a 15-year span. (AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark)

Former Penn State assistant football coachJerry Sandusky enters the Centre County Courthouse on Thursday, June 14, 2012, in Bellefonte, Pa., for his sex-abuse trial (AP Photo/York Daily Record, Jason Plotkin) YORK DISPATCH OUT

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) ? The prosecution's case in Jerry Sandusky's sex abuse trial neared its conclusion on Thursday after just four days of testimony, with three more accusers taking the witness stand, including a young man who said the former Penn State assistant football coach raped him as a teen guest in Sandusky's home.

The eighth accuser to testify told jurors the abuse began with fondling and forced oral sex and led to several instances of rape in the basement of Sandusky's Centre County home, where he spent more than 100 nights and where his muffled screams went unanswered by Sandusky's wife, Dottie, who was upstairs. He said he figured the basement must be soundproof.

"He got real aggressive and just forced me into it," said the young man, now 18 and a recent high school graduate. "And I just went with it ? there was no fighting against it."

He said under cross-examination by Sandusky lawyer Joe Amendola that the attacks sometimes left him bleeding but that he never sought medical attention.

"I just dealt with it," he said.

Another accuser told jurors Sandusky called himself the "tickle monster" before embracing him in a shower.

Also testifying was Anthony Sassano, an investigator with the attorney general's office, who disclosed that the office learned of a key witness, Mike McQueary, after an anonymous letter was sent to Centre County prosecutors.

Judge John Cleland told jurors there would be no court Friday and to return Monday.

The 18-year-old, described as Victim 9 in court records, became known to investigators after Sandusky was first arrested in November and his mother summoned police to their home. He said he didn't want to talk to them at first.

"Who would believe kids?" he said.

A few weeks later Sandusky was charged with two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and other offenses in his case, among the most serious set of the 52 charges Sandusky has denied and is fighting.

A third accuser, known as Victim 3, was an Army National Guard soldier who testified Thursday that despite being fondled by Sandusky he had viewed him as a father figure and was crushed when he was sent to a group home and Sandusky never contacted him again.

"I would pray he would call me and maybe find a way to get me out of there," he said, "but it never happened."

He testified that he felt uncomfortable when Sandusky touched his genitals in bed and he would roll over to prevent anything else from happening but that he didn't tell Sandusky not to get into bed with him.

"He made me feel like I was a part of something, like a family," the man said. "He gave me things that I hadn't had before."

He said that he loved Sandusky and that Sandusky treated him like he was part of an extended family that made him feel "unconditionally loved."

Sandusky's arrest brought disgrace to Penn State and led to the ouster of both the school's president and its Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno.

Sandusky's attorney questioned accusers on Thursday about connections they had with other accusers. The defense has claimed that the accusers have financial motives, although several have said that police contacted them and that they expressed their reluctance to get involved.

Earlier Thursday, an accuser called Victim 6 testified that Sandusky described himself as a "tickle monster" and embraced the then-11-year-old boy in a Penn State shower in 1998, an encounter that prompted an investigation but ended without any charges filed.

Now 25, he told jurors Sandusky embraced him in a locker room shower, lathered up his back and shoulders then lifted him chest-to-chest to a shower head to rinse out his hair.

The man said the shared shower happened after a brief workout at a campus gym, even though he hadn't broken a sweat. His mother went to authorities when she saw her son come home with wet hair, although the inquiry spawned by her report didn't lead to any charges.

The witness, who described himself as a big football fan, testified that Sandusky showed him Penn State football facilities and let him try on players' equipment.

One of the investigators who interviewed the boy and Sandusky at the time, Ronald Schreffler, told the court that he thought charges were warranted but that the district attorney, Ray Gricar, disagreed.

Gricar cannot explain his decision; he disappeared in 2005 and was later declared legally dead.

On cross-examination, the man testified that in recent years he and Sandusky exchanged text messages, sent notes for holidays and special occasions and last summer met for lunch. He also told the court that Sandusky and his wife had supported a mission trip he took to Mexico.

"As I started to go over it in my mind I quickly realized, my perception changed thinking about it as an adult as opposed to an 11-year-old," he said. "That was inappropriate, what happened to me."

Asked whether he was looking for financial benefit from coming forward, the man replied, "Zero."

Sassano, the state investigator, said authorities obtained lists of children who attended events sponsored by Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile, sending investigators across a wide swath of the State College region to talk to participants. They also poured through Sandusky's biography, "Touched," and other documents found in his home and office.

They brainstormed about who else could have been in university buildings during off hours, including janitors and others. Eventually, they issued subpoenas to Penn State.

"Penn State, to be quite frank, was not very quick in getting us our information," he said.

Associated Press

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Muslims sue to stop NYPD surveillance

>>> former governor howard dean , former d.c. mayor adrian fenty all back with us at the table. in the ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks the new york city police department has turned into one of the nation's most aggressive and sophisticated domestic intelligence agencies . the associated press is out just this morning with a monthlong investigation into the nypd 's intel division , exploring its methods and the controversies surrounding it, joining is matt acuso, thanks for being with us.

>> thanks for having me.

>> nypd changed the way it did business after the attacks on september 11th . what did you find?

>> it not only changed the way it did business, it created a very deep connection with the cia . they started to -- the nypd started to build these intelligence programs that really infiltrated muslim communities in ways that if the federal government did it would totally go against rules that have been set up to protect civil liberties and they did it with this unusual partnership with the cia . a very senior cia officer was dispatched by cia director george tenet to be his personal representative to the nypd and really helped create these intelligence -gathering programs, directed the intelligence gathering , supervised the intelligence gathering and that's relationship that continues today. recently the cia sent one of its most senior undercover officers to work out of one police plaza in new york as a covert officer.

>> so, we're talking about former cia agents now working within the new york police department , traveling --

>> they're current cia officers.

>> on the cia payroll, working with the new york police department , traveling abroad and using intelligence to work in conjunction with the nypd . we should point out the new york police department has put out a statement saying the new york police department is doing everything it can to assure that there's not another 9/11 here and more innocent new yorkers are killed by terrorists. we have nothing to apologize for in that regard. that from nypd spokesman paul broune. what's the biggest complaint with this program that you found in your investigation?

>> one of the things that is little known that they do, they have this program called the demographics program. it was described to us by officers involved as they were mapping the human terrain of the city. they were putting undercover officers, ethnic officers, inside middle eastern neighborhoods of stocity and their job is to hang out and blend in and look for things that are suspicion. and that could be something as simple as who is looking at radical books in a bookstore and who is looking at al jazeera and applaud about a report about an ied in iraq and that could be enough to get you in a report at the nypd , they also have informants that they call mosque crawlers who as the name suggest just go to the mosques and are eyes and ears for the nypd inside mosques. the fbi puts informants in mosques but there's a bar that says there has to be specific information related to criminal activity and that bar isn't there at the nypd , the nypd said it just follows leads, but we've talked to a number of people involved in the mosque crawler program who say we just have them there as our eyes and ears.

>> how does the nypd get away with that, then, if they don't have the legal right to do it as you suggest, how are they getting away with it?

>> so, there's the federal laws that the federal government has to apply and then, you know, obviously nypd is subject to city and state laws. but what's really interesting here while, you know, the real question of the past decade at the federal level has been do we have to give up civil liberties in the name of security and that debate has kind of focused on the fbi and the cia , warrantless wiretapping that sort of thing. there hasn't been that kind of debate in new york . there isn't the level of oversight on the nypd 's intelligence division that there is in washington on, say, the cia or fbi . you know, the -- the tactics that they use don't get the kind of scrutiny by the city council , and the federal government has given the nypd about $1.6 billion since 9/11, but there's very little federal oversight when it comes to what exactly the nypd is doing as far as intelligence gathering .

>> katty kay ?

>> during your reporting, did you come across any officers within the nypd who had qualms about the legality of this? ever since 9/11 there has been a trend here for people to be prepared to give up civil liberties in the name of security, but i was just wondering whether you met people, you know, who knew about the program, within the police force who said we're not quite sure if this is really what we're meant to be doing?

>> there were. it was interesting, there were people who said they felt uncomfortable, but those people didn't tend to be in the -- in the inner circle , the people who were directly involved in these programs. i mean, there's a close hold sort of a shudder of secrecy around a lot of what happens. the people who were directly involved, and we talked to a number of them, said almost to a person, look, we need to -- we need to be doing this. i mean, we have to be out in the muslim community because that's where the -- that's the community that is, you know, that's sending terrorists to attack us. and they compared it to, like, well, we would map drug dealing . we would map murders. the difference is in this instance you're not mapping crimes, you're mapping people. and that's -- that's the difference here. is they're saying it's no different than we would go to where the robberies are, we'd put undercovers there, here they're just saying we're going where the muslims are.

>> are there any court cases pending on this issue? you would think somebody would complain that this is a violation of at least the fourth amendment and who knows what else.

>> it's interesting because there is a lawsuit, a federal lawsuit, related to the nypd intelligence division intilltration of anti-war groups ahead of the republican national convention in new york . but what's unique about this, in order to bring a lawsuit about this, you have to kind of know about it. you have to know that you were -- you were surveilled. and if you don't know, then it's kind of hard to bring standing. i mean, in a lot of ways as we were doing this reporting, i kept going back to the nsa wiretapping program and the people who said, well, i'm going to sue about this, and the government says, you can't sue because you don't know if you were wiretapped, and we can't tell you if you were wiretapped because that would, you know, jeopardize national security .

>> are these people being wiretapped? is that one of the things they're doing routinely?

>> we don't have any information about any sort of wiretapping, you know, blanket wiretapping programs. but we know the nypd did push years ago to try to get fisa authority which was, you know, seen at the justice department as a real -- a real grab to try to have the ability to do wiretapping. you know, that was unsuccessful, but we didn't uncover any information about that.

>> adrian fenty , as mayor of washington , d.c. , another city that, of course, was attacked on september 11th , anything similar to this within the washington police department?

>> you know, we have a much smaller police department . 50,000 here in new york , 4,000 down in d.c. but d.c. absolutely has the counterintelligence units, but there's also the federal government in d.c. , so the fbi and homeland security is in d.c. and in the d.c. region is doing probably a lot of the new york that this new york police department unit does up here. from what i understand about it, it's essential, because the only way that you're going to know about communication around the new york region and what's happening overseas is to be in and around it, and the federal government doesn't have the resources. so, you got to give bloomberg and his team a lot of credit for setting this up, for being so aggressive. from what i understand, the federal government really relies on the nypd to bring back intelligence . one thing was interesting was how many threats come against new york and washington , d.c. my police chief down in d.c. was briefed daily on threats, and they had to follow them and track them to make sure that they didn't escalate into something.

>> and, matt, how much of this is done because the people of new york city say do what you have to do to prevent another terrorist attack ? i mean, you said sanchez, larry sanchez, went in front of the federal government , he was up on capitol hill and said we've been given the public tolerance and the luxury to be very aggressive on this topic. they're going to keep going until they're told otherwise, aren't they?

>> absolutely. and i think -- i think everybody acknowledges new york is different. and what, you know, mayor fenty said is absolutely right, i mean, nobody else has the -- nobody else has the resources. no other police department has the resources to do what the nypd is doing. i mean, i think the question is if this is a model for policing and counterterrorism, well, new york isn't the only -- isn't the only threat in the country. why aren't other police departments doing this? and what we've seen is there are instances where police departments have said, no, we don't want to do that. i mean, you know, in new york one of the things they did -- first things they did was said, you know, run me a report of all the pakistani cabdrivers so they could look for people who maybe got their taxi shields fraudulently so that they can maybe turn them into -- use that as leverage to turn them into an inform amendment. in cambridge, massachusetts, the police chief told us, yeah, we got a very similar request from boston pd for a list of all our somali cabdrivers and we said, no way, we don't do that, unless you have a specific criminal investigation or a cause. and in los angeles , you know, bill bratton , the police commissioner out there, i mean, just got skewered in 2007 for saying i would like to map my muslim community just so i know where this is. and civil rights groups just, you know, just hit the roof. so, i think, look, i think new york is unique. i think they do have a unique background given the -- given 9/11. they certainly have a deep relationship with the cia . the cia trained a police detective at the farm, you know, which is -- i mean, that's an unprecedented thing. so, it's -- they have that. they have 9/11. they have a lot of money. they have a low crime rate . these sorts of things are uniquely new york .

>> matt, were there any instances you were given where the demographics unit, where the intelligence that are gathered have actually prevented some sort of terrorist attack ? a specific example of where it had worked?

>> well, we know that the intelligence division has had successes. you know, the herald square plot ahead of the republican convention is a perfect example. it didn't show the depth of the program, but, i mean, they used an undercover officer living in brooklyn and hanging out and they used an informant who before he was involved in this investigation had been basically a mosque crawler. so, they prevented a -- they prevented a terrorist attack on the subway. they got convictions. i mean, there was also an instance where they were able to -- the intelligence division undercover operating in new jersey was key to -- to arresting two people who were on their way to somalia to train for -- for terrorism. so, i mean, no question the intelligence division has had successes and has disrupted -- disrupted plots. i mean, what we were trying to do is say, look, let's have the discussion. let's -- let's be able to have the discussion about what the -- if there are trade-offs for that security, what are they. because i think that discussion has happened in washington , d.c. , on federal programs, but it hasn't happened in new york .

>> you know, a lot of this is going to be -- depend on the success or failure of this and the backlash if there is some, is going to depend on how the people in power use the authority. the reason the constitutional prohibited -- prohibitions exist and this is on the margins of that is so the government doesn't abuse its power in dealing -- in using this for political reasons, and if they never do that, then this is probably going to fly, i guess. and if they start using it for political reasons, then there will be a problem. but i think this is going to be -- this program is going to be widely supported by the american people and certainly even by many muslim-americans. as long as the government doesn't use it to oppress muslims as a group, most muslim americans don't want muslim terrorists either in the united states .

>> but, i mean, doesn't that raise the question if that's the case, why don't we give the fbi this authority? why do we specifically say the fbi can't do this? i mean, the fbi certainly has its own checkered history with surveillance programs.

>> exactly, they have their own checkered history.

>> so does the nypd , in the '60s and '70s they were using the precursor of the intelligence division to spy a anti-war groups. it's a discussion that's been had at the federal level , it's not a discussion that's been had at the local level. and this -- the -- making the -- you know, making the wall more porous between what the cia can do overseas and domestically is a big aspect here, because if it is something we want from the cia , then why is it just happening in new york ? i mean, why don't we put -- why doesn't the cia direct the intelligence gathering of every police department ?

>> i think it's a really important debate because we have a checkered past of using this information for political reasons as j. edgar hoover did and nixon did as president and others.

>> matt apuzzo, thank you so much. it's a well-researched piece. people can read it at the associated press and draw their own conclusions. thanks a lot.

>> thanks a lot for having

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Defense scores partial victory in WikiLeaks pretrial

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Verizon FiOS Introduces New High-Speed Tiers, Pricing ? Industry ...

Mike Farrell ? Multichannel News, 5/30/2012 2:57:41 PM

verizon Communications will introduce new high-speed Internet service tiers and pricing next month, in one case doubling its fastest level of service to 300 Megabits per second.

The new FiOS Internet portfolio will feature download/upload speeds of 50/25 Mbps and 150/65 Mbps and two new tiers of 75/35 Mbps and 300/65 Mbps.

verizon will continue to offer its entry level speed of 15/5 Mbps as well as 25/25 Mbps, 35/35 Mbps, 50/20 Mbps and 150/35 Mbps.

Pricing for the new portfolio will be announced next month. Current FiOS Internet customers will be able to maintain their existing tiers of service.

The new speeds will be offered in standalone and bundled packages and are designed to address the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications and the increase in the number of Internet-connected devices being used simultaneously in the same household.

In a statement, verizon said the new speeds will also support consumers who are watching more over-the-top video programming on TVs and portable devices, and accommodate the rise in Internet-enabled applications like video and audio streaming, home monitoring devices, video chat, multiplayer gaming and online backup services.
?The ways we used the Internet and watched TV over the past 10 to 15 years have dramatically shifted,? said Verizon?s consumer and mass market business unit president Bob Mudge in a statement. ?With the emergence of smartphones, smart TVs, Blu-ray players, tablets and gaming consoles that also serve as over-the-top devices, consumers need more bandwidth to receive the highest-quality experience.?

In a statement, Verizon said that the 75/35 Mbps service is geared toward households that download HD movies, participate in multiplayer gaming and have three or more interconnected users. The highest tiers (150 and 300 Mbps) are targeted at households with five or more interconnected users who want to download high-quality HD video on multiple devices.

For example, with a 300 Mbps connection, consumers can download a two-hour, standard-definition movie (1.5 Gigabytes) in less than 40 seconds; and a two-hour, high-definition movie (5 GB) in 2.2 minutes. On a 150 Mbps connection, the same two-hour, SD movie can be downloaded in less than 80 seconds, and the two-hour, HD movie in less than 4.5 minutes.

?High-speed Internet no longer is just for techies, as more than half of our residential consumers already use at least a 20 Mbps Internet connection,? Verizon?s consumer and mass market business unit chief marketing officer Mike Ritter said in a statement. ?Streaming online video on an all-fiber-optic connection providing faster speeds is better and more reliable during peak Internet usage hours.

?As recently as 2005, video was less than 10% of Web traffic,? said Ritter. ?By the end of this year, we expect it to be 50%, growing to 90% in just a few years.?

Verizon estimated that today, the average home has seven Internet-connected devices, growing to between 9 and 15 devices by 2015.

The top two tiers require customers to be connected via a GPON (gigabit passive optical network) terminal. For existing customers who have a BPON (broadband passive optical network) terminal and qualify for the GPON service, the installation of a new GPON terminal will be required.

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Article source: http://www.multichannel.com/article/485242-Verizon_FiOS_Introduces_New_High_Speed_Tiers_Pricing.php

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3. Verizon FiOS Reaches Download Speeds of 75, 150 and 300 Mbps
4. Verizon unveils FiOS 300 Mbps data speed tier, doubles existing tiers
5. Verizon Raising FiOS Speed With New Prices in June

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Remembering a young Syrian filmmaker killed in Homs - latimes.com

The death of Bassel Shahade, a young Syrian filmmaker who studied in the United States and returned to his country to document the rebellion, was a harsh blow to his friends, who remembered him as a passionate adventurer, The Times writes. These are a few of the films Shahade made, along with others made in?commemoration.

Shahade directed this documentary, ?Singing to Freedom,? which features interviews about nonviolent resistance with Syrian attorney Razan Zeitouna, political theorist Noam Chomsky and author Erica Chenoweth. It shows Syrian protesters chanting, ?The people want the downfall of the regime!?

Another short film called ?Saturday Morning Gift,? widely circulated after Shahade died, is based on an interview with a young boy recalling his experiences in the 2006 war in Lebanon between Hezbollah paramilitaries and Israel. The film is intimate and spare, almost dreamlike.

Shahade filmed and edited this third film, ?Carrying Eid to Camps,? which shows people handing out food and toys in camps for the displaced during the Muslim holiday of Eid. When the film was created, a severe drought had plunged millions of Syrians into extreme poverty. "Thanks to everyone who contributed in carrying Eid to camps of the drought displaced people,? the video caption says.

After Shahade was killed in Homs, this tribute video surfaced, appearing to show him teaching other Syrians. Shahade came back to his country to share his skills with amateur videographers.

This last video is said to show friends of Shahade standing around his coffin with pictures of him, reciting prayers. Toward the end of the video, a group of men load the coffin onto a vehicle.

RELATED:

Syria violence claims young filmmaker Bassel Shahade

U.S.-Russia dispute over Syria grows louder

U.N. human rights body condemns Syria forces for Houla killings

-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut and Emily Alpert in Los Angeles?

Photo: Bassel Shahade. Credit: Mohamad Khouja

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Sink your teeth into a weekend of culinary delights | Sai Gonbasil

[unable to retrieve full-text content]... Olympics will not be going hungry. Games organizers on Wednesday released details of the food and drink options for the millions of fans expected to converge on the various ? Cooking Tips. cooking tips and techniques ...

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We Have a Winner in the MOO Free Business Cards Contest

On April 12, 2012, Small Business Trends announced the commencement of the FREE Business Cards Contest from MOO,?a digital printing company based in London (U.K.) and Providence, RI (U.S.), specializing in?printing Business Cards, MiniCards (half-sized business cards), Postcards, Greeting Cards, Stickers and Labels.

The contest ran for 30 days, collecting entries from April 12, 2012 until May 12, 2012 and up for grabs was $1000 worth of credit to spend at MOO under a new?MOO Business Services?account.

Now it?s time to close the loop, and let you know who won. ?We are excited to announce that the winner was randomly chosen. ?Without further adieu, drum roll please . . . the winner is:

Steven Reed of Dynamic Solutions Group, Inc.

Twitter: ?@dsghelp

Facebook: ?Dynamic Solutions Group

For the last 12 years, Dynamic Solutions Group?s (DSG) passion has been the dedication of resources, industry intelligence and expertise to working with their clients to help them make affordable design, maintenance, service and support decisions of all their business technology.

As stated on their web site:

?DSG?s core goal is to empower Information Technology to drive greater business value while improving operational efficiencies. By decreasing the amount of time spent on operations management and securing the infrastructure, DSG helps organizations begin to align their activities with the needs of the business.?

Many congratulations to Steve and the Dynamic Solutions Group! And many thanks to MOO for helping deliver an excellent event for small businesses.

About the Author

After being a 20+ year member of "the rat race," Staci traded in her office, opted out, and joined the virtual world and the Small Business Trends community. Staci is the Operations Manager for Small Business Trends, LLC and is also the Producer of the Small Business Trends Radio Show.

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Experts: Okla., not Texas, had hottest summer ever

FILE - In this July 21, 2011 file photo, Liz Moody, left, and Stephanie Russell, right, both of Forest Grove, Ore., cover their heads with towels to keep cool as they watch the Japan-Canada World Cup of Softball game in Oklahoma City. After recalculating data from 2011, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year ? not Texas as initially announced last fall. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - In this July 21, 2011 file photo, Liz Moody, left, and Stephanie Russell, right, both of Forest Grove, Ore., cover their heads with towels to keep cool as they watch the Japan-Canada World Cup of Softball game in Oklahoma City. After recalculating data from 2011, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year ? not Texas as initially announced last fall. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 30, 2011 file photo, sailboats and a floating dock lie on the dry, cracked dirt in a harbor at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City. After recalculating data from 2011, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year ? not Texas as initially announced last fall. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2011 file photo, sweat shines on the face of Larry McMillan as he takes a drink of water after working with a weed-eater in the heat of the day in a city park in Warr Acres, Okla. After recalculating data from 2011, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year ? not Texas as initially announced last fall. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

TULSA, Okla. (AP) ? Oklahoma and Texas have argued for years about which has the best college football team, whose oil fields produce better crude, even where the state border should run. But in a hot, sticky dispute that no one wants to win, Oklahoma just reclaimed its crown.

After recalculating data from last year, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year ? not Texas as initially announced last fall.

"It doesn't make me feel any better," joked Texas rancher Debbie Davis, who lives northwest of San Antonio.

In the new tally by the National Climatic Data Center, Oklahoma's average temperature last summer was 86.9 degrees, while Texas finished with 86.7 degrees. The previous record for the hottest summer was 85.2 degrees set in 1934 ? in Oklahoma.

"I'm from Oklahoma, and when you talk about the summer of 1934, there are a lot of connotations that go with that," said Deke Arndt, chief of the NCDC's climate monitoring branch in Asheville, N.C. "That whole climate episode ? the Dust Bowl ? that is a point in our state's history that we still look back to as transformative."

Yet the summer of 2011, "was warmer than all those summers that they experienced during the Dust Bowl," Arndt said.

The record swap became apparent after extra data trickled in from weather stations and meteorological field reports across both states. That data also pushed up Oklahoma's mark as the hottest month ever by two-tenths of a degree, to 89.3 degrees in July 2011.

Oklahoma had experienced unusually dry, hot weather in the winter and spring, then summer brought regular triple-digit temperatures that fueled wildfires, prompted burn bans and led to water rationing in some communities.

"We didn't just barely surpass the previous summer record, we smashed it," said Gary McManus, Oklahoma's associate state climatologist. "That last summer was so far above and beyond what we consider normal, I don't think there will be another, compared to what we had."

Through the years, Texans and Oklahomans have fought over just about everything, from water rights to barbecue joints. Huge crowds attend the annual meeting of the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma football teams in Dallas. It even took the states until 1999 to settle a boundary dispute that landed before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1894 ? before Oklahoma's statehood.

But residents on both sides of that now undisputed Texas-Oklahoma border want no part in the summer fight.

For Oklahoma rancher Monte Tucker, last summer was a breaking point, and it didn't make him feel any better Friday when he learned about his state's new dubious honor.

Last summer felt like "opening an oven after cooking bread," said Tucker, who ranches in Sweetwater, in western Oklahoma. "We basically got up right about sun-up and did all we could until 11 in the morning, and we basically shut down almost 'till dark and kind of started up again.

"I don't want to do it again, I'll say that much," he said.

Last summer also took a toll on plants and trees, many of which were weakened by the intense heat.

"We had to stop planting last summer because it was silly to plant in 100-degree temperatures," said Stephen Smith, who works at Southwood Garden Center and Nursery in Tulsa.

"I've been in this business 30 years," he added. "And it was probably one of the worst temperatures I can remember."

Associated Press

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Victoria Azarenka Out Of French Open: Dominika Cibulkova Upsets Top-Seed

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus grimaces after missing a return in her fourth round match against Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia at the French Open tennis tournament in Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Sunday June 3, 2012. Cibulkova won in two sets 6-2. 7-6.

PARIS -- Top-seeded Victoria Azarenka has been knocked out in the fourth round of the French Open, losing 6-2, 7-6 (4) to 15th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia.

Azarenka, the Austrailian Open champion, fell behind early and couldn't get any sense of control in this match. She vented her frustration in the second set, slamming her racket to the ground, then smashing it again while during a changeover. The chair umpire gave Azarenka a warning for racket abuse.

Cibulkova, who reached the semifinals at Roland Garros in 2009, had pushed Azarenka to a third set in their five previous matches but hadn't beaten her since 2008 at Amelia Island ? the last time they met on clay.

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Home Improvement Tips You Need To Know | Health Massage ...

If you are not a professional home improvement worker, there is always information that will help you complete your jobs. If you lack some knowledge, the improvement could turn into a catastrophe. This article will provide you with information that will help you defeat what used to be challenging home improvement ventures. You can find out more home improvement product through cordless drill reviews 2011 starting from today onwards. Take a look today.

If your home is an older house there?s a good chance you might have outdated PVC windows, which are difficult to maintain and often yellow with age. Replacing the PVC with modern plate glass can make a significant difference in the look of the house. Glass windows will also allow more natural sunlight into your home, creating a more open, inviting atmosphere.

For the budget-minded homeowner working on a plumbing home improvement project, plastic PVC piping makes an entirely suitable substitute for expensive copper piping. PVC has been extensively tested and used for years without danger or failure. It is easy to work with and highly durable. The money saved by using PVC can be applied to more visible, usable home improvements.

An inexpensive way to improve the appearance of your home?s interior is by replacing your curtains. Old and worn-out curtains will make your home look dated and worn-out too. New curtains will brighten up a room and can be had from discount stores at a fairly minimal cost to you.

When considering renovating your home to create an income property, think about how much of the house you really need. For example, if you have a three story home, consider renting out more than just the basement. If you rent out the first floor as well you can double your income and pay off your mortgage even faster.

When it comes to home improvements, one thing that needs to be understood is that sometimes you have to spend money in order to save money. Buying a new fridge can save you money on electricity, and insulating a room or especially an attic can save on heating and air-conditioning bills. All these types of improvements will also help to increase the value of your home if you decide to sell in the future.

If you have tiles in your bathroom, make sure to use bath rugs in front of your toilet and bathtub. Adding bath rugs not only adds a touch of personality to your bathroom, but also keeps you from slipping and falling; try rugs with different patterns and designs for a look that is uniquely your own.

Have you ever began a home improvement project and it became more that you ever anticipated? One option that many other homeowners use is hiring a temporary labor service crew. If you decide to do this with your next big project, make sure that there are no language issues. There should be at least one person with the crew that can speak both your language and the language of the other workers.

When renovating your house it is very important that you cover all surfaces. For example, if you are painting, be sure to cover the floor with tarp. If you are hammering or demolishing walls be sure to cover the floor to prevent unwanted scratches on the surfaces. It is good to protect surfaces to avoid damage.

Give an old luggage rack a chance to shine by turning it into a low cost, but effective side table in your living room. Take the glass from a large picture frame and secure it to the luggage rack with permanent adhesive. Stack a few books and a lamp, and you have yourself a nice side table.

Give your front walkway a lift! A home improvement that is unique and original is to remove your front walkway and add brick pavers. This is a fairly simple job but does require a lot of labor. Rent a jackhammer to remove the old concrete walkway. Afterwards you should have a good surface to lay down the pavers!

Increase your productivity when installing new kitchen cabinets by planning the order in which you will hang them. Install the top cabinets first so you do not have to lean over the base cabinets to attach them to the wall. Beginning in a corner is the easiest way to avoid fitting problems.

If you have a small bathroom, consider finding ways to save space as your next home improvement project. It is easy to use an adjacent closet or to reformat an old kitchen cabinet into a new storage facility for your bathroom. Always make sure not to remove any structural support that the room has.

Make your renovation plans, then stick to them. Contractors become gun-shy about doing work when the owner constantly changes and tweaks the plans. Even though a huge renovation project seems easier when you break it up, piece-mealing it slows things down because the only thing workers can depend on is the plans changing.

As stated in the beginning of the article, you should always know your limits when it comes to home improvements and repairs. If you abide by the guidelines in the article, you can prevent yourself from make expensive and possible catastrophic mistakes. It is always better to ask for help than to live with your regret. Home improvement can never be easier if you know about iRobot Roomba 560 vacuum cleaner from now onwards.

Technorati Tags: home design, home improvement, home interior design, home structure, house design

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In California, it's Big Tobacco vs Lance Armstrong

FILE - In this Friday, May 11, 2012 file photo, Cycling legend and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong attends a rally at a news conference at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles in favor of Proposition 29, a measure on the June 2012 California primary election ballot that would add a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes. The money raised would go to cancer research projects, smoking-reduction programs and tobacco law enforcement. Fabled as a mecca for the health-conscious and fitness-obsessed, California is also one of only a few states that has not hiked its cigarette taxes in the last decade, meaning it is less expensive to light up in Los Angeles and San Francisco than many other places in the country. The tobacco industry wants to keep it that way. It has amassed nearly $50 million to kill an initiative on Tuesday?s primary ballot that is championed by cycling star Lance Armstrong and supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has donated $500,000 to its campaign. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

FILE - In this Friday, May 11, 2012 file photo, Cycling legend and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong attends a rally at a news conference at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles in favor of Proposition 29, a measure on the June 2012 California primary election ballot that would add a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes. The money raised would go to cancer research projects, smoking-reduction programs and tobacco law enforcement. Fabled as a mecca for the health-conscious and fitness-obsessed, California is also one of only a few states that has not hiked its cigarette taxes in the last decade, meaning it is less expensive to light up in Los Angeles and San Francisco than many other places in the country. The tobacco industry wants to keep it that way. It has amassed nearly $50 million to kill an initiative on Tuesday?s primary ballot that is championed by cycling star Lance Armstrong and supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has donated $500,000 to its campaign. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

File - In this Friday, May 11, 2012 file photo, cycling legend and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong speaks at a rally in favor of Proposition 29, a measure on the June California primary election ballot that would add a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes, at a news conference at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. The money raised would go to cancer research projects, smoking-reduction programs and tobacco law enforcement. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon,File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Fabled as a mecca for the health-conscious and fitness-obsessed, California is also one of only a few states that has not hiked its cigarette taxes in the last decade, meaning it is less expensive to light up in Los Angeles and San Francisco than many other places in the country.

The tobacco industry wants to keep it that way.

It has amassed nearly $50 million to kill an initiative before California voters that has been championed by cycling star Lance Armstrong and supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has donated $500,000 to its campaign.

Marlboro-maker Altria Group Inc., RJ Reynolds and other tobacco heavyweights have spent their millions on a media blitz to snuff out Proposition 29, which would slap an additional $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to fund cancer research.

If the tax passes, California would still have only the 16th highest tax rate in the nation, at $1.87 per pack. But tobacco companies and their allies say that voter approval of an extra tax on Tuesday's primary ballot in the nation's largest cigarette market would crush owners of small businesses and spark anti-smoking measures elsewhere.

"We all know that Big Tobacco has poured tens of millions in this campaign saying, 'Don't tax us any more,'" said Armstrong, who beat testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs more than a decade ago. "But the fact of the matter is the product they sell leads to about $9 billion a year in health care costs for California. I think if this passes, other states will follow."

Its passage is uncertain.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that support for the initiative dropped from 67 percent in March to 53 percent by late May, reflecting the blizzard of radio and TV ads from the tobacco industry.

A statewide Field Poll released Thursday found that 50 percent of likely voters said they will vote yes on the measure, with 42 percent voting no and 8 percent undecided.

As the primary approaches, Armstrong and other smoking foes, including Bloomberg and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, are pouring in their own money to counter the industry.

Bloomberg has banned smoking in New York City bars and parks during his decade in office.

"California is a particularly important state, and it's very visible on this issue," he said in a telephone interview. "A lot of people there will die unless we do something to stop Big Tobacco."

The $12.2 million anti-smoking groups have raised comes to about one-quarter of the $47 million war chest built by the major tobacco companies. The anti-tax contributions exceed those of any other federal independent expenditure committee except the "Restore Our Future" super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to recent campaign finance figures.

Smoking is not as common in California, the nation's most populous state, as it is in other pockets of the country. Smoking rates are among the nation's lowest in California, at 12.1 percent, and highest in Kentucky, at 24.8 percent, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in 2010.

Still, California represents a huge market for the tobacco industry. Smokers in the state bought about 970 million packs of cigarettes ? spending approximately $5.2 billion ? in fiscal year 2010, the most recent year for which national figures are available. Some of that money went to an existing tobacco tax, which sends 25 cents from each pack purchased to fund anti-smoking programs, provide health care services to the poor and fund tobacco-related research.

That helped reduce tobacco sales. In the 15 years after it went into effect in 1988, the industry lost $9.2 billion in pre-tax sales, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

Then, in 2006, tobacco companies spent $66 million to defeat a previous measure that would have created an extra $2.60-per-pack tax.

So far, the opposition campaign has centered its messages on the state's budget mess, calling the California Cancer Research Act a folly that will force taxpayers to support a bloated bureaucracy that will send research money out of state. Opponents also have said it could end up raising millions of dollars yet produce little research that develops new cancer treatments.

"The tobacco companies realize that we have a like mind in opposing both tax burdens and policies that create a business-unfriendly environment," said Joel Fox, president of the Los Angeles-based Small Business Action Committee, which he said has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from tobacco companies to support anti-tax policies in the last decade. "It's the first domino of potentially taxing all kinds of products."

The nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst's Office says Proposition 29 would generate about $735 million a year in revenue if approved.

The anti-tax campaign has been quick on the ground, launching radio and TV commercials a month and a half ago.

Armstrong and his coalition, including the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, American Heart Association and California Medical Association, were too poor to mount an early advertising campaign, he said.

Aside from Armstrong, who visited with young patients during an event at a Los Angeles children's hospital earlier this month, the measure has not attracted much celebrity support. Laura Ziskin, a Hollywood producer celebrated for the "Spider-Man" movie franchise, was on the initiative's campaign board until she died last year of breast cancer.

Even so, in the final days before the primary, the battle over Proposition 29 is arguably the most high-profile campaign in an election season that has failed to generate much enthusiasm.

"The supporters and opponents wouldn't spend these millions of dollars if these commercials weren't persuading voters," said Daniel Newman, president of MapLight, a nonpartisan group that analyzes money's role in politics. "When one side has a specific financial interest, they are going to spend much more because they get such a high return on investment."

Associated Press

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3 Stars Homebrew Shop Opens Today - Young & Hungry

D.C.'s first and only home brew shop opens this afternoon. The store is part of 3 Star Brewing Company's new Takoma brewery, which will begin operating in a week or two when final inspections are complete.

3 Stars co-founders?Mike McGarvey and Dave Coleman say the brewery was born out of their own home brewing experiments. But until now, there have only been two stores in the region for home brewers to get supplies: Maryland Homebrew in Columbia, Md. and My Local Home Brew Shop in Falls Church.

"You pick your poison as far as which traffic you want to fight, " McGarvey tells Y&H.

3 Stars Homebrew Shop will sell ingredients like yeast, hops, and malt as well as ready-to-go beer kits with recipes, fermentation buckets, thermometers, bottles, and any other beer-making equipment you might need. McGarvey plans to staff the shop with people who actually have home brew experience. Eventually, 3 Stars would like to teach classes on site too.

The brew shop opens at 3 p.m. today. Chupacabra food truck will be on hand with tacos, and McGarvey expects a pretty good crowd from the local home brewing club to show up too. To start, it will be open Thursdays from 4-8 p.m., Fridays from 3-8 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

In about a month, after the brewery is up and running, 3 Stars will open a tasting room for people to try their signature beers as well as some experimental ones. The brewery will also supply local bars and restaurants and eventually sell retail.

3 Star Homebrew Shop, 6400 Chillum Pl., NW; 202-670-0333; 3Starsbrewing.com

UPDATE: There's one more home brew shop in the area:?The Flying Barrel in Frederick, Md.

Photo courtesy of 3 Stars Brewing Company

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Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Hiring Human Resources Business

Job Title : Human Resources Business Partner
Company : Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
City : Chalk River
State : Ontario
Country : CA
Location : Chalk River, ON
Date : 2012-06-01 12:07:56
latitude : 46.016483
longitude : -77.44505
Status Active
Job key 72cb2576d4b345b5

Published at June 1, 2012. Is actually Atomic Energy of Canada Limited at the date engage Human Resources Business Partner. The job nicely situated in the town Chalk River, ON middle of nowhere of Ontario ON.

And therefore the status of the job is Active. So besure to check out the job information below and continue click the APPLY THE JOB button to go forward further.

The summary of job description of Human Resources Business Partner :

Human Resources Business Partner Job information provided by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. If you can quick apply this job you only click the Apply the job button at the bottom of this information.

Duties Reporting directly to the Manager, HR Services you will develop business partnerships by managing a portfolio of clients and be the primary point of contact for all human resources issues in areas such as employee relations, recruitment, compensation, benefits/pensions, training, organizational development and performance management. Key responsibilities include the following: Develop...

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