salejerseysblog

Another year, another transfer window. Time to wonder, do I dare? Roberto Mancini was probably only joking when he suggested Liverpool might like to make Manchester City a belated Christmas present of Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres, though for one member of that talented trio his humour must have touched a nerve.

Torres and Mascherano are both young enough and sufficiently coveted in Spain to make new careers elsewhere should Liverpool prove to be a stumbling block rather than a springboard to their trophy ambitions. Neither player has actually won anything at Anfield yet and both are too good to be sustained indefinitely by empty promises and collective underachievement.

Gerrard is a bit different. Four years older than the other two and 30 next birthday, he has done what few English players will manage in lifting a European Cup. He scored the FA Cup final goal of the decade the following season to enhance his medal collection, and had his chance to join a slicker club with real title prospects but rejected it in favour of staying on Merseyside.

So far so good, but Gerrard must have imagined Liverpool would have added a league championship by now so that he could stop feeling inferior to Liverpool captains of the past, players who not only treated Europe as a playground but maintained a near stranglehold on domestic success. Gerrard is not a greedy individual, and will recognise that only the nuclear option of joining Manchester United would have brought him honours over the past decade to compare with those stacked up by Kenny Dalglish and Co a quarter of a century earlier, yet it is reasonable for a player of his ability at a club of Liverpool's stature to hope for the occasional title. Liverpool know more than anyone that winning the league is the true measure of a team's worth and that long gaps between titles do not look good in the history books, and while Gerrard may be being unnecessarily harsh on himself by dwelling on his failure to match the standard set by his predecessors, he is aware that his own value is unquestioned and his frustration is surely understandable.

Unfortunately, just as Liverpool's story of annual disappointment has crept up almost by stealth to amount to a startling two decades, giving Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United the time to reel in their record number of titles, so the greater part of Gerrard's playing career has flashed by with the eye trained on the future rather than the present. It only seems five minutes since Gérard Houllier was protecting his leggy young colt because he had not yet finished growing up. The bundle of energy who played all over the pitch in Istanbul in 2005 and ended up at right-back as his team completed their unbelievable comeback had already been captain for two years. Gerrard had already turned down Chelsea once by then, though admitted in 2004 that he was unhappy with the progress Liverpool had made. He was pacified by the arrival of Rafael Benítez and as emotional as everyone else about the riotous instant success in the Champions League, yet it was clear his commitment to the club was based on a conviction that Liverpool would continue to improve and would soon be ruffling United's feathers, if not knocking them back off their perch. Even with the arrival of Torres, Mascherano and Pepe Reina, that has so far not happened and Benítez has just admitted, having little choice, that Liverpool's goal for the rest of the season is merely recovering their top-four place. Life, as another famous Liverpudlian said, is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

So what should Gerrard's plan be? There is no shortage of leading clubs in England and elsewhere who would want him. Mancini was not joking to that extent. Gerrard has done his growing up. He is not a colt or a perpetual youth any more, he is a fine player at his peak with one big move left in him, should he wish to exercise that option. Michael Ballack was almost exactly the same age when he came to England to join Chelsea, though given that the perennially unlucky German has not yet managed to get his hands on the main prizes at Stamford Bridge either, that is possibly not the best comparison to make. Neither is Michael Owen, who left Anfield in search of silverware the year before Liverpool conquered Europe.

In abstract at least (his contractual position is settled) Gerrard has a dilemma of Shakespearean complexity. He longs to win a title, but would a title with another club do, or does it have to be with Liverpool? The latter might never happen, the former might not feel the same (and still might never happen). What is a loyal, one-club player to do when titles are two-horse races? Would it be letting the side down to seek a move from Merseyside, or are Liverpool letting Gerrard down by failing to mount a proper challenge? These are difficult questions when Liverpool performed so well in the league last season and in Torres have arguably the sharpest striker in the business. Liverpool are tantalisingly close to success – even in their present state – yet for all Gerrard knows that situation could pertain for the next five years or even longer.

He is tied to Liverpool for the rest of his career, or at least until what he imagines will be close to the end of his career in 2013. His chance of a move to Chelsea may have gone and he has probably never spent more than five seconds of his life imagining he would play for Manchester City, yet, even so, Mancini may be on to something. Liverpool cannot carry on as they have been doing. Clubs who do not win trophies sell players. And nothing in football is unthinkable.

Short change is no good in hard times

After the unedifying example set by Wolves at Old Trafford last month, the Premier League urgently needs to do something to prevent weaker teams picking their matches.

In case no one had realised, money is tight at the moment, and any branch of the entertainment industry that expects people to pay Premier League prices to watch acts of surrender is heading for trouble. At least Wolves were honest about what they were doing, even if Mick McCarthy would be well-advised not to try anything as feeble again.

Roberto Martínez has just managed to lose 5-0 on the same ground with his first team, meaning that the aggregate score for the season now stands at Manchester United 10 Wigan 0. This is the same Wigan that managed to beat Chelsea quite convincingly, yet apart from a brief period under Steve Bruce they have always played like doormats against United.

Portsmouth were just as bad against Arsenal on Wednesday, displaying all the defensive strength of a wet paper bag in losing 4-1 at home and generally playing like a team who never gave themselves so much as a prayer of getting any kind of result. Maybe there are dozens of reasons for the bottom-placed and most financially stricken club to feel that way, though 10 days earlier Pompey had ambushed Liverpool, vigorously contesting every challenge and overwhelming their opponents through sheer work rate.

This sort of in-and-out running gives the Premier League a bad name. One might expect Manchester United and Arsenal to be better than Wigan and Portsmouth, but recent results suggest they are vastly superior to Chelsea and Liverpool, too. Supposing United now win the title on goal difference, as Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested they might? Supposing Pompey's disappearing act over Christmas means Arsenal edge Liverpool out of the top four? If the test of a competitive league is whether bottom can beat top, Wigan and Portsmouth have both posted notable, encouraging results this season. Sadly, that means nothing at all if they award themselves a day off the next time.

Pressed to choose a favourite among the 100 things featured in his new radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects, British Museum director, Neil MacGregor, settles on a stone carving of a couple from near Bethlehem. It says much about the distance the Scottish art historian and former National Gallery director has travelled that far from a Christmassy depiction of the holy family, this is the first-known representation of a couple making love.

“It's an extraordinarily tender thing,” he say. “If you think of something like Rodin's The Kiss, it's the beginning of that tradition. But not only is it fascinating to look at how you construct tenderness out of stone, which goes on being a very interesting question I think, but what does it say about how people thought about the relationship with another person 11,000 years ago? Because it's not in any sense like a conventional fertility object. This is actually about a couple and the tenderness of the couple. Is this the moment at which the notion of the mate in sexual reproductive terms is overtaken or accompanied by the notion of the spouse, the partner?”

MacGregor's series, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 100 15-minute instalments over the course of this year is an anthology of such epoch-defining moments. Starting with an Egyptian mummy and ending with an object made in 2010, to be acquired by the museum and for which a worldwide search is now under way, it aims to pull together human civilisation in its entirety and use the British Museum's collection to tell a story (not “the” story, as MacGregor is at pains to point out) about how we came to be the way we are.

Fittingly for this most donnish of presenters, the series has been divided into three segments to mimic academic terms. By the end, MacGregor hopes to have deepened public understanding of time and our place in it – “I think the purpose of a museum is to allow people to think about themselves in the context of a very long history” – and broadened our knowledge of how cultures developed across the globe.

MacGregor is widely regarded as the saviour of the British Museum, in debt and out of fashion when he took over in 2002. When you meet him, immaculately turned out in suit and tie in his big office, genial and well-spoken with his faded Scottish accent, it is obvious why he is so good at what he does. As he talks me through the pictures on the walls, his erudition and enthusiasm are hard to resist. “It's done with this great sweep of a sort of spatula with cloth on it, you dip it in ink and then you have to turn it terrifically carefully in one great sweep,” he says of the Chinese calligraphy of a Qur'anic text on one wall. “It takes enormous control not just of the hand but also of the whole body.”

His success has been built on his ability to combine scholarship with sensation, to make the museum seem not boring but fun. So a stream of blockbusting exhibitions has pulled in crowds and revenue while groundbreaking loans and deals with museums abroad have raised the status of the BM (famously it was a phone call from MacGregor that alerted Downing Street to the fact that the Baghdad museum was not being guarded).

MacGregor is renowned as an astute politician – and one who knows to keep well out of party politics. When I ask if he fears Conservative spending cuts, or whether there is anyone in the Labour government he has got on particularly well with, his answers are studiously non-partisan. “Gosh!” he says, as if amazed to be asked. “I think one of the pleasing things is that for over 20 years now, neither party in power has actually made culture a political matter.”

He turned down the official residence attached to the museum on the grounds of needing a life apart from work, and rarely discusses his private life. He is gay and currently single – his last partner moved to Australia – but he has family in London and speaks warmly of great-nieces and nephews and “sending letters up the chimney to Father Christmas, it's such fun isn't it?”

Though he was back at his desk on Christmas bank holiday Monday and admits to thinking about the museum all the time, he does not give the impression of living a monastic, joyless life. He planned to spend new year with friends, including “enough Scots to make it a proper party”.

2010 will be the year of the museum's permanent collection – “the greatest exhibition you could ever have” – and the radio series must be its best-ever showcase. Although MacGregor refers often to “the colleagues” and says no one can any longer remember whose idea it was, the whole thing has the feel of a personal project. “Coming from a totally European collection to here, I was shaken to discover just how little I knew about the history of non-European cultures,” he says, “and how much I'd learned about them only when Europe interacted with them, usually very disagreeably.

“I grew up with an assumption that somehow everything that mattered had come out of the Mediterranean world and Europe, and while there were great civilisations in China and India I didn't ever learn anything about them. I'd no idea when they were doing what, and how that might connect with what was happening anywhere else.”

MacGregor's year-long exercise in comparative history is his response. It firmly shoos us out of the art history we know – from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissances of northern and southern Europe – and into something much bigger and wilder. “We decided we'd try to organise the programmes by date, so that you were able to look at the world at the same moment, spinning the globe,” he says. Week 11, for example, offers a cross-section of the world around 800: “You can look at what's happening in Mexico, what's happening in Baghdad, Samara and the courts, Europe following Charlemagne, in south India, Sri Lanka and in China. And what you find is that all those cultures by that stage have quite highly structured courts and in all of them women are playing very particular roles.”

The son of Glasgow doctors, MacGregor was turned on to art – and away from the expected professions of medicine, the church and the law – by a crucifixion painted by Salvador Dalí in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum that he saw as a boy. He did train as a lawyer but gave it up and moved south to the Courtauld, in London, where he was taught by Anita Brookner and Anthony Blunt. Religious art maintained its hold, and while at the National Gallery in the 1990s he made a television series called Seeing Salvation, about representations of Christ.

About his own faith he is more reserved. “I don't have very clear views on any of these things except that it's all very difficult,” he says. “I mean the key thing is to recognise, surely, is that there are many truths … That's why I think this museum matters so much. It was designed to demonstrate that there is not one set of truths or one set of answers but many different ones.”

Has being here changed his beliefs?

“I think every one of my colleagues would say that coming to work in the museum has changed the way they think because you actually are confronted with different parts of the world in a very immediate way.”

I imagine that Christian faith, however uncertain, must be complicated for a gay man, but MacGregor draws a clear line when I attempt to enquire further: “I really don't want to talk about my private religious convictions. I think those are very private.”

The donation bins at the BM's entrance bear the legend “Free to the world since 1753″ and MacGregor takes every opportunity to honour the museum's founding fathers. He believes it was their idea, when they created the museum for the benefit of “all studious and curious persons both native and foreign born”, to reduce conflict between cultures by increasing understanding. But he acknowledges that their approach had its limits: “I think there's no doubt that in the past the way Europeans conceived of different bits of world history has been very determined by whether or not those cultures had written sources.”

MacGregor has taken their idea and run with it, and his History of the World sets out to break down the old hierarchies between the west and the rest. He believes that objects, uniquely, make it possible “to look in some sense equally” across cultures, and explore what it is that makes us human. In case anyone misses his point, in the spring drawings by Renaissance masters will be shown at the BM alongside a show of Ife sculpture from west Africa: “None of us learns when we think about the Italian Renaissance that there is a great artistic movement flourishing in west Africa, producing works of art of exactly comparable quality. Two renaissances, the African and the European one, happening at the same time.”

But when I ask how he feels about the British empire – the source, after all, of so much of BM's collection, including such contentious holdings as the Elgin marbles and Benin bronzes – he gives me a funny look.

He shoots back: “Well, how do you feel about all the other empires?” before continuing: “It's a key bit, isn't it, of why our city is the way it is? This wonderful, cosmopolitan world city is one of the consequences of an empire and I think what I find fascinating about the museum, and its collection, and the publics we now have, is that whereas in the 18th century it was the things that moved to London, as it were, now it's the people that have moved.”

This idea, of the British Museum as a world collection in a world city, is Neil MacGregor's vision – his mission statement, though he wouldn't be so vulgar as to use the term. The museum's £135m new extension, plans for which were dramatically knocked back by Camden council last summer but which have now got through, is grandly called the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre. It will feature beehives and swallow boxes as well as underground laboratories and a new exhibition space.

Casting his museum as an international hub is also his answer to the questions that won't go away about whether the BM should give some stuff back. “You have to decide what kind of museums you want, and whether you want museums that try to put the whole world into one context, into one building, so that you can actually look and compare and take a view of the whole thing, or whether essentially you feel that you want museums to be about individuated national stories, local stories,” he says.

He mentions China, where most people “will quite literally never have seen anything that was not made in China”, and refers to the web and World Service as powerful tools for sharing information: “I think that what flows from the fact that these big collections do exist … the responsibility to make themselves available but as totalities, not dismembered.”

But isn't the museum itself an enormous monument to a time when Britain ruled the waves? “It's not, it's not. I mean that is the really important and interesting thing. Of course some of these objects come to the museum directly through imperialist function. Others come from intellectual collecting, others come from trade or whatever … But I think what is so interesting is that you have a pre-imperial collection that is now operating in a post-colonial world.”

Museum policy is that “de-accession” – the ugly phrase itself suggests how distasteful they find it: those on the other side of the fence talk of repatriation – is a “last resort”. The only things to be sent back under MacGregor's watch have been human remains, which he briskly points out are “not things, in law they're a completely separate category”.

So aren't there any cases in which the circumstances in which an object came to be here are so regrettable that the only solution is to give it back?

“Well, that's obviously a question for debate, I mean people have their own views. Where there are real issues about the current location of the objects, that's part of their history so we've addressed that in the programmes.”

MacGregor remains a vigorous champion of free admission, though I can't persuade him to stamp his foot and say he'll resign if policy changes under a future government. He has already turned down the top job at the Met in New York and, at 63, plans to stay at the BM “until I'm pushed out”.

“I think one of the great achievements of this country is free admission to public museums and galleries,” he says, “because that has given the public a sense of ownership of these collections that you get nowhere else, and I think that allows institutions of this sort in the UK to have a completely different relationship with their public, and a far more interesting and deeper relationship with their public, than is possible either on the continent or in the United States.

“But why this is such a fascinating museum and why it's the best job imaginable is precisely because these historical, intellectual issues have real importance for living in the world today. I mean, right from the beginning when parliament set the museum up, it was about allowing a citizen to understand the world, and ideally to make a kind of global citizen. And that's an extraordinary set of arguments to be engaged with now, isn't it?”

A History of the World in 100 Objects begins on BBC Radio 4 on 18 January

A New Year begins at 12:00 A.M. tonight and many of us will be celebrating the New Years Eve at parties with our loved ones, enjoying amazing dinners in fancy restaurants, sitting at home with our families playing games and eating our favorite foods, or standing in time square waiting for the ball to drop. Some of us even use this New Year's Eve Celebration as a new start to life or as away to say good bye to the way things use to be and hello to the things that will be in the New Year to come in 2009. Whatever it is you will be doing to ring in the New Year this year things will be different because there will be one extra second before 2009 is here. Question is what will you be doing with your one extra second before the New Year begins?

I know what some people will be doing with their extra second before the New Year of 2009 begins, but it isn't something most of us think about! Some people will be in a hospital sitting by a hospital bed praying for a miracle for a loved one who is ill or injured badly hoping for a second chance with them to either make things right after a bad fight or just simply for a chance to say all they need to say that they have never been able to say before. Others will be praying and hoping alone in their home for there loved ones to come home from the war, while others will be in a church, home, or car praying for peace in their country and for all terrorist attacks to stop happening. There will even be children in foster care and adoption centers waiting for a family to come take them home and fill their lives with love and hope, and there will be people on the streets, or in cars praying to God and wishing upon stars for away to survive this year after losing their job.

Truth is while some of us our out having fun just using our extra second bringing in the New Year of 2009 some people are looking for moments and miracles that will last a lifetime! Most of these miracles and moments can be given just by people by simply praying for someone you don't even know or simply by lending a helping hand to someone who is in need. One extra second, one word, and one action from a person can change a whole life and situation. Question is will you be one of those people who will be part of a special moment or miracle this year? Will you be a person who helps someone or even helps a whole family make this New Year a special one? Will you be the one using your extra second to say a prayer for ones you don't even know? Will you use your second to give a child a home and a chance at a better life? I guess we will have to wait and see what you will do with your extra second this year! All I am going to say is make sure you use it wisely because one extra second can change anything and any ones life forever! So remember that as we bring in the New Year of 2009! Happy New Year Everyone and make sure you use that extra second wisely!

wholesale nhl jerseys,
discount nhl jerseys

AFP Dollar to Gain as Rising Yields Damp Carry Trade Use, RBS Says Bloomberg Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — The dollar may extend this month's biggest gain since February versus the yen as a recovery in the US economy pushes up yields, damping the greenback's use in so-called carry trades, Royal Bank of Scotland … Dollar Trades Near Three-Month High Amid US BusinessWeek ASIA FX: US Dollar Eases, Quiet Session Due to Japan Holiday Market News International WORLD FOREX: Dollar Racks Up Gains On Rivals Wall Street Journal Reuters  - Bloomberg  - Wall Street Journal all 434 news articles »

The rest is here: 
Dollar to Gain as Rising Yields Damp Carry Trade Use, RBS Says – Bloomberg

Use of this site means that you agree to hold harmless i156 Inc., usacarry.com's internet host, and usacarry.com's administrators. Content, photography and all items depicted and described can be edited, excised or removed in part or totally to conform to the image of the site as deemed by its administrators. Submissions made to usacarry.com become the sole property of i156 Inc. Any views expressed by users of usacarry.com do not reflect the views of i156 Inc. or usacarry.com's administrators. By using this site, you agree to indemnify i156 Inc. for your own statements and all information, photographs, opinions and content that you post on usacarry.com.

Although the administrators and owners of this site make every effort to verify the accuracy of all information posted herein, the information on usacarry.com is not guaranteed to be accurate. We are prohibited to give legal counsel; should you have specific legal questions that require accurate answers, we suggest you hire an attorney who is licensed in the appropriate state.

The purpose of the information on usacarry.com is to give you an overview of the topic of Carrying Concealed Weapons (CCW) and where to look for authoritative information on CCW. We make every attempt to provide a resource for contact information (State Police, State Attorneys General, Licensing Authorities, etc.) for you to verify the information on this site. If the appropriate contact information is absent from the site, the responsibility to find that information lies solely with the user.

It is completely up to the user of the site to verify any and all information found herein.

nfl jerseys,
discount nhl jerseys

Thanksgiving Side Dish: Sweet Potato Mash with Whipped Cinnamon Honey Butter – Traditional sides vary in every household many of which are a real familiar treat, everything from parsnips, glazed carrots and yams, to cheddar potatoes, turnips and even a baked pasta. I like to alternate my Thanksgiving side dishes every year so not to follow a too repetitious menu. Although I find that sweet potatoes, in some form, always seem to show up at the table.

Ingredients

4 large size sweet potato's, this serves 6 to 8 people at about ½ a cup each, please adjust as needed.

1 stick of butter or margarine softened, the butter will give it a creamier taste while margarine is less expensive.

¼ cup of your favorite honey, this provides a really good flavor but compared to table sugar may be more costly.

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Whipped Cinnamon Honey Butter

Combine softened butter, honey, and cinnamon in a medium size bowl, beat on low for about one minute and gradually increase the speed until you obtain a nice fluffy whipped texture. Scoop into a small serving dish and refrigerate until ready to use.

Preparation and cooking the sweet potatoes

Peel and cut potatoes into small chunks rinse to remove any dirt or residue. Place in a large pan of cold water on high and bring to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are tender, approximately 20 to 25 minutes, this will depend on the size of the chunks, a smaller chunk will cook quicker while a lager one will take more time. Potato's can be tested to see if they are done by sticking a fork into the chunks, if it glides in and the potato falls off rather easily then they are ready.

Drain and transfer the potatoes to a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer set on low, beat until light and fluffy. If no electric mixer is available use a hand held masher or a large fork, mashing in a downward twisting motion and pulling the potatoes up from the bottom, this will help to make them fluffier and ensure that you get to all the none mashed chunks in the bowl. Serve with the whipped cinnamon honey butter in a decorative bowl along with all your other Thanksgiving side dishes to complete your meal.

Presentation idea

Take the softened, freshly prepared,whipped cinnamon honey butter spoon it into a cake decorating bag and select a decorating tip. Make roses , scallops, leaves or any style you choose. Pipe out as many designs as the mixture will allow onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Freeze and when ready to use put on top of the sweet potatoes to create an appealing Thanksgiving side dish. Any remaining butter designs put on a serving dish to serve along with the meal.

Note: For cost cutting ideas

Fresh sweet potatoes can be hard on the budget because they usually cost more then the canned variety. Substituting canned sweet potatoes or even yams can help defray some of the cost.

Using margarine instead of butter can save quite a pretty penny. Try using margarine in place of the butter, in the whipped cinnamon honey butter, the results should be the same.

Honey is sometimes an extremely expensive item depending on where it's purchased. Your local discount stores may be worth the time of searching because they often carry a much less expensive variety and could be well worth your effort.

nfl jersey,
wholesale mlb jerseys

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has fired a warning shot across the government's bows over its decision to list BBC Worldwide in its portfolio of assets for sale, warning that any sale could lead to Worldwide becoming “an empty vessel”.

In a comment piece for MediaGuardian.co.uk, Thompson ruled out a wholesale privatisation of the BBC's commercial arm, saying the BBC “cannot envisage a Worldwide in which the BBC does not continue to play a central role”.

He also said Worldwide would “only be worth a fraction of its present value” if it was sold off and stripped of the BBC brand and that “the right question to ask is neither how to chop it back … but how to develop and exploit it”.

Thompson's defence of Worldwide follows the news revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk last week that the government has included BBC Worldwide in the portfolio of assets it is considering selling and is urging the corporation to “look more widely at the options for greater financial and operational separation, including a sale or partial sale”.

In response, Thompson said: “What we cannot envisage is a Worldwide in which the BBC does not continue to play a central role.

“Without the BBC brand, BBC intellectual property and the ability to deliver international BBC services, Worldwide would only be worth a fraction of its present value. And a BBC stripped of Worldwide would not only fail to capitalise on its present opportunities, but would struggle to maintain international visibility and relevance.”

Thompson pointed out the success of BBC shows around the globe such as Top Gear and the international version of Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing With the Stars, was because of Worldwide.

“We should recognise that, in BBC Worldwide, not just the BBC but Britain has a unique asset,” he said. “The right question to ask is neither how to chop it back, nor how to separate it from the creative well spring in which its success depends, but how best to develop and exploit it – to the delight of global audiences and the benefit of the whole UK.”

Thompson argued that “a Worldwide wholly separated from the BBC makes no strategic or commercial sense”. He added that “global audiences flock to BBC programmes and to the BBC brand; take those away and Worldwide becomes an empty vessel”.

“Even if the potential for a tie-up between Worldwide and Channel 4 is more modest, politicians from across the spectrum continue to make the case for a dilution in the BBC's ownership of Worldwide to enable it to grow further,” he said.

Thompson added that the BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, and the trustees were keeping an “open mind about the long-term capital structure of BBC Worldwide”.

But he added: “Reports that the BBC is already preparing for a partial flotation are simply untrue. Indeed, a change is not inevitable or even necessarily desirable at any point in the future. But nor should it be automatically ruled out.”

The decision to include Worldwide on the government's list of assets for sale raised eyebrows within the BBC.

Worldwide is wholly owned by the BBC and, if a stake were to be sold, it is understood the money would return to the corporation, although it could be urged to use the windfall to subsidise other activities or to make up any reduction in the licence fee.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

Justice minister Maria Eagle has promised to reduce the number of prison places for women by 400 within two years as part of a drive to develop alternatives to jail.

A total of £15.6m is being spent on expanding community sentences in order to provide a “tough and credible” alternative to short prison sentences for female offenders.

Eagle said today that a majority of women offenders had mental health or drug and alcohol problems, backgrounds of abuse or welfare concerns about their children that meant they were better dealt with outside prison.

The number of women in prison has already fallen from 4,398 a year ago to 4,277 last Friday. But this is against a background in which the women's jail population in England and Wales has risen by 60% since 1995.

“We have already made good progress in taking forward our strategy to divert women from crime. Over the last two years I have ensured there is a specific push to direct resources to stop vulnerable women from becoming trapped in a cycle of crime,” said Eagle.

“Women's offending is a complex phenomenon which burdens society, damages children and families and creates misery for the women themselves.”

The pledge to cut the number of prison places for women involves a reduction of 300 places by March 2011 and of 400 places by March 2012. As well as expanding the number of community punishment projects, the Ministry of Justice is to provide a further £5m to be spent on expanding probation hostels for female offenders who are under supervision after release from prison and to keep out of prison those with high levels of needs.

The strategy will also see a new project starting next April under which family early intervention projects will specifically target a group of women with dependent children who are at risk of becoming involved in crime.

A Ministry of Justice report published today assessed the progress made since Baroness Corston's 2007 report on the position of women in prison.

It said an impact was starting to be made on what were complex and deeply entrenched problems.

“We are implementing a strategy that is focused on making a difference for women within the criminal justice system.

“But we aspire to go further and make more widespread changes which will stop women getting into the system in the first place,” says the official assessment.

mlb jerseys cheap,
nhl jerseys cheap

Published reports on Sunday state that both rear passenger windows on Tiger Woods' SUV were smashed after Woods' accident in the early morning hours on Friday, November 27th.

If both rear passenger window were smashed, it further hurts the credibility of the claims made by Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren Woods, who claimed she smashed one rear window to extricate Woods after he his SUV hit a fire hydrant and then a tree.

This revelation is merely the latest in a steady drip, some would say flow, of new information that at this point has almost completely discredited the version of events that Elin Nordegren Woods gave both to the Windermer, Florida police department as well as the Florida Highway Patrol. There has already been a report that states the Elin Nordegren Woods gave two very different version of events to the local police and Florida Highway Patrol, but the widely reported version had Elin Nordegren Woods hearing the accident, running outside and then running back inside the Woods' home to get a golf club to break open a window to extricate Tiger Woods after his accident.

As the entire incident occurred within about 36 hours after it was reported that the National Enquirer was set to publish an explosive story claiming that Tiger Woods has been cheating on Elin Nordegren Woods, many have speculated that she was using the golf club for reasons other than to extricate Woods after an accident.

While there are all sorts of discrepancies, contradictions and seemingly unbelievable coincidences in the official story, if both rear passenger windows were smashed, it probably is the most incriminating piece of evidence yet that Elin Nordegren Woods' version of events is not accurate; obviously there would be no reason for her to smash both rear passenger windows to extricate Woods. What it much more likely is is an indication that Elin Nordegren Woods smashed the windows out of anger and vengeance. As both admitted to police that they had been fighting that night, it is not at all a stretch to think that the fight spilled over and led to both rear passenger window being smashed.

As of Sunday afternoon, neither Elin Nordegren Woods nor Tiger Woods have met with police to provide full details on what exactly happened on Friday morning. When they do finally meet, Elin Nordegren Woods will have to explain why she decided to smash both rear passenger side windows if her intent was simply to get Tiger Woods out of the car. Source: Paul Thompson, “Police to Quiz Tiger Woods' Wife After Revelations Both Rear Passenger Windows On His Car Were Smashed In”, Daily Mail

nfl jersey,
nhl jersey

We just posted this cool, modern, winter table setting in The Guide. I love this because it is so simple and really makes for a perfect holiday table. Gone are the days of strictly adhering to the red & green palette!

Your dining room table is not going to be just any other piece of furniture. Rather, it is the place where the entire family sits together and has a meal. It is the place for conversations, discussions and even arguments. Dining room tables survive longer than other furniture and you may have a chance to pass it to the next generation as well. It’s better to make a thoughtful and sensible choice while zeroing in on it, as you (and even your kids) will have to live with it for long. There are many factors to consider when you are buying a dining table, other than taste and style. The article brigs you some tips to consider before purchasing a dining table. Read on to know how to buy a dining room table set. nfl jerseys,
nfl jersey

So, after being down for a while you have finally gotten back on your feet. Maybe you were sick for a while and unable to work or laid off but things are finally starting to look up. That is until you try to purchase something on credit. 

Your vehicle is more then a few years old and has some mileage on it, you go into your local car dealer and after looking around and test driving a few models you find your dream car. You sit down and fill out all the paper work and BAM they are unable to finance you at this time. They politely tell you they will keep trying and will call if they come up with anyway to get you financed. 

You leave, your dreams smashed and you heard whirling. You start receiving letters from different banks and financial institutions the dealership had tried to get you financed through and they all say the same thing. “We're sorry we are not able to finance you at this time based on your FICO score, the number of late or delinquent payments, etc…. 

What happened? What is a FICO score? What do you do now? 

A FICO score is a credit method of determining the likelihood someone will pay his or her bills. The method was developed by Fair Isaac & Co. in the late 1950s and has become widely accepted by lenders as a reliable means of credit evaluation. A credit score attempts to condense a borrowers credit history into a single number. Fair Isaac & Co. and the credit bureaus do not reveal how these scores are computed. The Federal Trade Commission has ruled this acceptable. 

Credit scores are calculated by using scoring models and mathematical tables that assign points for different pieces of information which best predict future credit performance. Score-model developers find predictive factors, after studying thousands of people and how they used credit, in the data that have proven to indicate future credit performance. Credit-bureau models are developed from information in consumer credit-bureau reports. 

Late payments, the amount of credit established, the amount of credit used versus the amount of credit available (debt to credit ratio), the length of time at a residence, employment history and negative credit information such as bankruptcies, charge-offs and collections are used to determine a FICO score. 

The lowest possible score is 200 and the highest is 900. A score of about 620 is needed to get decent credit. A score of 680 to 700 is considered excellent, less than 620 is considered sub-prime. There are three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Trans Union and Experian. 

Some things that bring a credit score down are late payments, missed payments, bankruptcies, having too much credit, moving often, changing jobs often and credit inquiries. Each time you apply for credit, regardless if you get the credit or are denied, it can lower your score down by as much as five points. 

The first thing to do when trying to repair your credit score – and something you should do on a regular basis when you have good credit – is to get a copy of your credit report and make sure it's correct and all belongs to you. 

“Ninety percent of credit reports have mistakes,” Family Financial education Foundation business development manager Carrie Wood said. “If you find something wrong, write to the credit bureau and tell them what is wrong and why.” 

By notifying a credit bureau of a mistake, the item shows “in dispute” on your credit report until the issue is resolved.
“When an item is in dispute, it cannot be counted against you by a potential lender,” Wood said. 

Disputing an item takes 60 to 90 days to be resolved. A creditor has 30 days to respond and prove the charge is valid. If they do not respond the item has to be removed. There is a seven-year stature of limitations for an account with no activity. If you find an account on your report over seven years it has to come off. 

When trying to repair a credit score, pay your bills on time, do not apply for credit frequently, reduce your credit-card balances and if you have limited credit obtain additional credit. Not having sufficient credit can negatively impact your score. 

Repairing credit or increasing your score takes time. Accepting a settlement offered by a creditor will show as a negative on your credit report and you could be taxable by the Internal Revenue Service. 

“You can’t repair a credit score in a matter of days … it might take six months to a year, or more,” Wood said. “The problem didn’t happen overnight, it won’t be solved overnight. It takes at last 30 days to get anything off a credit report, even when it is not correct.” 

Harassment by collectors is the number one complaint filed by consumers. Even consumers who have not paid or are not paying their bills have rights. If a collector is calling at work, the consumer can tell the collector once not to call them at work and they legally have to stop. At home, a collector cannot call before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m. (the consumer’s time). 

When a collector calls the consumer should get the name of the person calling and the company they are with and representing. If the collector is in violation, such as calling a workplace after being told not to or calling a home before 8 a.m. or 9 p.m., the consumer should tell the collector they will be filling a complaint against them. 

A collector cannot keep calling once they have spoken to someone. If they call and leave a message on an answering machine or with someone, they can continue to. However they cannot disclose why they are calling (or whom they are with if it will allude to the reason for the call). 

With the exception of vehicle repossession, a collector cannot come into the home of a consumer without permission and take property unless a member of law enforcement accompanies them. 

When being harassed by a collector, it’s a good idea to have a tape recorder handy. The laws are governed by the state the person recording is in. In Wyoming, only one party has to know about the recording and give consent. 

Never make a payment over the phone with a company that is or has harassed you, especially a check over the phone. Doing so gives the collectors access to your account and while you can recover monies taken out of your account without your permission, it may take a while and cause other items not to clear, making your credit worse. 

If you have good credit some ways to help keep it are to minimize credit inquiries, pay bills early, pay off revolving cards monthly, never close a credit account, don’t switch credit cards to get the best rate, keep the oldest credit account on your credit report, don’t have more than two major bank cards and never use more than 50 percent of your revolving credit limit.
Another reason to be aware of what is on your credit report when you have good credit is to make sure no one has stolen your identity and is using your credit. Preventing identity theft is much easier and cost a lot less then recovering your identity and repairing the damage. 

Purchasing identity theft protection can be a good investment to protect your credit. A good identity theft; compiles your personal credit report from different credit bureaus, monitors your credit daily, alerts you to account openings or inquiries into your credit files, can reimburse you for the cost, or a percentage of the cost, incurred in recovering your identity and the cost to repair your credit. 

Credit scores are used for more and more things these days. You no longer need a good or decent credit score just to purchase a home or vehicle. Many renters check credit records on potential renters, utility companies check credit records to determine if a deposit, or how much of one, will be required. Many insurance companies now check credit reports to determine rates and if the score is too low, some companies will deny coverage. So with more and more of our lives being determined or affected by credit scores having good credit and always knowing what your report looks like is a wise decision.

nhl jerseys cheap,
wholesale mlb jerseys

3. Travel Time

If you plan on leaving the house, plan on giving yourself a full 30 minutes just to get ready to depart, Turner said.

“I think you should be prepared that leaving your house will take 30 minutes longer than it did before, and you will definitely leave something behind,” he added. “In a diaper bag, keep extra diapers, wipes, baby clothes — even an extra shirt for yourself.”

4. Prepare to Be Homebound

For the first two months of your baby's life, you should avoid taking the baby to enclosed, public places where they could catch germs, Turner said.

“For example, taking the baby for a walk around the neighborhood is fine, but really, when so many people are sick, avoid subways and shopping malls,” he said.

When you do leave the house, say for a doctor's appointment, dress the baby in one more layer of clothing than you have on, Turner advised.

5. Rock-a-Bye Baby

Most newborns will sleep an average of 16 hours a day, or in-between feedings.

And new babies can feed every two to three hours, Turner said.

So try to rest when they are resting.

6. Medical Concerns

Don't go looking for sickness, Turner said.

“Only take the baby's temperature if he or she feels warm, or appears to not feel well,” he said.

If the baby's fever is 100.4 degrees or higher, then contact the doctor.

Be on the lookout for any changes to the baby's coloring, Turner said, as pediatricians want to be aware of any jaundice that might occur.

Also, even if you are breast-feeding your baby, he or she will need to take a vitamin D supplement, as that is important source of calcium.

7. Introducing Solid Foods

Solid foods are introduced when the baby is between 4 and 6 months old.

“It's a personal preference of when to start feeding the baby solid foods,” Turner said. “There is no wrong answer.”

When you do introduce solid foods, emphasize vegetables and fruits. To get your baby to eat the vegetables, feed the veggies first, then reward the baby with fruit, since it's sweet.

8. Vaccinate Yourself

Many new parents think about vaccinating their children, but forget about their own vaccination needs.

Turner said new parents should make sure they are vaccinated against these diseases, in order to protect the baby: whooping cough, seasonal influenza and H1N1.

• See Next Story in Health

• Print

baseball jerseys,
nhl jersey

A lot of hoopla has been generated over the last of the Golden Globe Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in movie history, that being 2008's Slumdog Millionaire, but I have my own top 5 list of movies winning this honor that have stood the test of time for me, but with a twist: they didn't go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. I want to share with you these particular top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in movie history, which span 1973-1989. These top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in movie history that didn't win the Academy Award for Best Picture were made at a time when movies were generally a heck of a lot superior to what's mostly being made today. These films range from the very scary to the very tear-jerking!

Top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in Movie History Selection Number 1: The Exorcist (1973, but would lose out to The Sting for The Academy Award for Best Picture)

To me, The Exorcist isn't just about green goo or Linda Blair's rotating head. It's about different kinds of possession that humans have to deal with, including the possession of guilt that Father Damien Karras (masterfully played by Jason Miller) must deal with. The setting for this movie, Georgetown, is so perfect for this movie. It adds more eeriness to the film. I've been there, and I've even walked up those infamous “Exorcist stairs” which are extremely steep and hard to climb! As I looked at the house where Regan MacNeil was possessed at, a priest walked by me! This Golden Globe Award winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama selection also made my top 10 thriller movies list, which you can read about here at Associated Content.

Top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in Movie History Selection Number 2: Midnight Express (1978, but would lose out to The Deer Hunter for The Academy Award for Best Picture)

I think parents who advocate their teenaged or young adult children going on a trip abroad for the first time should be required to show them this movie because it will make those youngsters think twice before even thinking about trying to smuggle drugs out of a foreign country. Billy Hayes thought he could, but he was in for a very rude awakening after he was dramatically busted by authorities at the airport…then the Turkish justice and penal system got a hold of him for several years. This top 5 Golden Globe Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama selection is also one of my favorite movies of 1978, of which you can read more about here at Associated Content.

Top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in Movie History Selection Number 3: On Golden Pond (1981, but would lose out to Chariots of Fire for The Academy Award for Best Picture)

Self-serving lust amongst the young, shallow, self-absorbed, and twit-brained beautiful people is lauded via today's movie screens, yet On Golden Pond celebrates a genuine long-standing love between two senior citizens who are in the twilight of their lives Norman and Ethel Thayer (played by Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn). Their performances really touched my soul. The title suggests such pastoral serenity, but I remember seeing this movie for the first time as a teenager, and when the first melancholy note of the film score played, I was already on the verge of crying, not worrying about the network warning before the movie began about the salty language in the film. That fateful summer at their retreat would set the stage for not only the reinforcement of that long-standing love, but for reconciliation, too, between Norman and his daughter Chelsea (ironically played by Henry Fonda's real daughter Jane). It was an outrage that this personal top 5 Golden Globe Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama selection lost out to Chariots of Fire for the Oscar, a movie that is about as stimulating as watching paint dry.

Top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in Movie History Selection Number 4: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, but would lose out to Gandhi for The Academy Award for Best Picture)

Even I can't leave out that cute little space alien who likes those awful-tasting Reese's Pieces. If you were a movie watcher back in 1982, you, like me, won't forget just how it raked in the cash, and as of the present, it's made around 800 million dollars at the box office worldwide according to Wikipedia. I worked in a mom and pop video store when this Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama selection was released on VHS in 1988, and the interest was absolutely incredible! It kept me very busy because I had to help process the special orders for this movie by customers.

Top 5 Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in Movie History Selection Number 5: Born on the Fourth of July (1989, but would lose out to Driving Miss Daisy for The Academy Award for Best Picture)

When this movie first came out, I heard it called “Oliver Stone's Sermon on the Gun Mount”. This movie is so epic, bombastic, and colorful in presentation as it tells the story of Ron Kovic, a gung ho All-American teenager who would eventually become an anti-war activist after serving and being paralyzed in Vietnam. I think this is probably Tom Cruise's best performance. The film is one of my favorite biographical movies, too, which you can read more about that subject matter here at Associated Content. I was lucky enough to see this Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama selection on a gigantic movie screen (which this movie was definitely made for) during a discount movie house's double feature billing. The other movie I got to see was Glory. Two great movies for $1.50 if I remember right (in 1990: Holy cow!).

The Wikipedia links here about the Golden Globe Award Winners for Best Motion Picture in Drama in movie history and here for the Academy Award Winners for Best Picture in movie history helped me verify the dates of the wins.

nba jerseys,
discount nba jerseys

This is the Lumino project, a new way of interacting with the Microsoft Surface. In fact, it takes it to a whole new dimension: the third one.

You mean that there is more to do with a Surface than shifting two-dimensional images? Absolutely! Not only can the Lumino project recognize a three-dimensional object on the table, but it can recognize when one object is put on top of the other.

So far, it seems good enough to make various structures in three-dimensional space. Sort of like playing with Lego with a computer that recognizes what you are building with the bricks.

That is about as good as another use the developers found: a checkers game. That’s right, it can recognize when players are “kinged”, and it can even give the player an idea of the best moves to make in the game.

Think that is pretty much useless? So do I. However, I did see one application that looked very interesting. This guy used a cylinder to make a dial control on a picture on the Surface, and was able to control the brightness and contrast. I realize that I didn’t describe it very well, but check out the video at the Source, and you can read and see more about it.

Source

Wow!! This is good stuff! The stellar magazine Surface, more exactly, the Chinese edition of Surface just chose the Finnish-Chinese Design Networking event Snowball as the best design event in China of the year 2009!

As you might have read before, CTRL was a part of it with the exhibition over at the stellar SOURCE store.

Big up to everyone who made this happen. Especially Design Forum Finland, Neebing, the multi cunning all over guy who made things click and The SOURCE who let us have our exhibition at their premises. Good way to wrap up the week…

XIU XIU!

This entry was posted
on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 6:31 pm and is filed under News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

football jerseys,
mlb jersey

With all due respect to American Idol, there are people out there who can sing but aren't necessarily the next Kelly Clarkson, or really even something very close. And of course we all have known someone who thinks they sing well, but are clearly deluding themselves. So, how do you know for sure yourself? The ten on-key tips below on how to know if you can sing are for all those out there who are secretly wondering.

1 – The dog doesn't run away when you open your mouth. While it's true your dog may love you, it's also true that he probably has sensitive ears that are likely to flee if the sounds coming from your mouth are painful to him.

2 – People actually ask you to sing for them. Most people simply will not ask someone to sing unless they truly love them and want to hear something heartwarming, or they like the sounds of the person singing.

3 – In church people try to stand next to you during the hymns. When people sing in church they generally find it easier to sing along with someone that knows what they are doing. Also, it helps to make them sound better too.

4 – You get invited to sing anytime, ever, for anything besides Happy Birthday. Again, the odds of you being invited to sing for anything, by someone who has heard you sing, are pretty slim if you aren't any good.

5 – When you record yourself singing you don't have to make excuses to yourself. Everyone sounds odd or different to themselves when they hear their own recorded voices. This is true for singing as well, but the truth is, most people can tell if what they are hearing is any good. If you find yourself trying to console your sympathetic ear by telling fibs, such as the microphone was cheap, etc. then the odds are against you being any good.

6 – If you have friends, or relatives who tell other people how well you sing. Most people can tell if someone can sing or not. And very few people are willing to tell other people that someone can sing if they can't. This is a really good sign.

7 – If people ask you to join them for Christmas Caroling. Singing with someone who can't sing generally isn't very fun. So, if a group of people that have heard you sing before asks you to go caroling with them, it's a good sign.

8 – If someone who knows what they are doing invites you to join a choral group. It the choir leader or other person who is in charge of a singing group has heard you sing and still invites you to sing with her group, the chances of you being reasonably good are high.

9 – If people stop to listen when you sing in the shower. A lot of people sing in the shower. Very few of them sound good doing so. If anyone stops to listen while you are doing so, it's usually a very good sign.

10 – If you are brave enough to ask someone who knows, and they tell you. Truly one of the definitive ways to find out for sure; simply ask someone who is in a position to know and listen to what they have to say.

These ten on-key tips are for anyone who enjoys singing but doesn't know for sure if they can do it in ways that are pleasing to the ears of others. If you are such a person, I hope these tips help you figure out where you stand. Good luck.

hockey jerseys,
nfl jersey

It is that special time of year again, when we spend lots of time in our kitchens, and make fabulous feasts for our family and friends. Whether you are cooking for a crowd, or just having an intimate dinner with your significant other, it pays to incorporate some turkey cooking tips to help ensure a juicy and tasty bird.

Roasting a turkey is much more difficult than many other types of poultry. A turkey has a much larger breast in comparison to the rest of the size of the bird. This means that the breast of the turkey will dry out before the rest of the bird cooks through. Commercial turkeys have been breed to have huge breasts because that is what consumers want. The modern commercial turkey's breasts are much larger than those of wild turkeys.

This is a dish that you only prepare once or twice a year, and you will probably be entertaining many friends and family too, so why not try to make it as perfect as possible? Here are some tips that I have picked up over the years:

1. Pick the right Turkey
   The first secret to the perfect bird is to get a good quality turkey. If you have a large budget, there are online stores where you can purchase wild turkey breeds. You can also find a free range organic bird at your local organic grocery store. Or, for a small budget, just get the frozen sale bird from your local grocer. After all these tricks, we will make even the cheapest bird juicy and delicious.

   Another consideration when picking a bird is its size. It is much better to use two little birds, than one huge old bird. Large old birds are tough, and will be very difficult to keep juicy through the long cooking process.

2. Brine
   The next secret to the perfect bird is to use a brine. Using a brine helps to moisten and flavor the bird. Most brines are made with 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of salt, 1/2 cup or more of sweetener, and any spices and herbs that you would like to add. When preparing the brine, you dissolve the sugar and salt in the water, and then ice it. When the brine is ice cold, you add the turkey , and let it sit in the brine for at least 6 hours, and up to to 24 hours. When you remove the bird from the brine, you have to rinse it very well. If you do not, the bird will be too salty.
3. Flip it
   Another secret to a perfectly juicy bird is to roast it upside down. Placing the breast side down will allow the juices from the fatty part of the bird to baste the breast during the cooking process. This does not produce a very pretty bird at all, but it tastes great. I have only done this method once, because appearance is important to me for my holiday turkeys.
4. Where to cook
   The next secret to a juicy bird is to use a counter top portable roaster. This will free up your oven for your other items. There are many people that swear by this method. I started using mine a couple of years back, I couldn't be happier with it. You do have to use a smaller bird with the roaster, but the bird won't dry out, and stays much juicier.




5. Changing Heat
   The fifth secret to a delicious bird is to first start the roasting process in a very hot oven, about 450-500 degrees for the first 30 minutes of cooking. For a perfectly browned bird, rub some cooking oil on it. Rub the oil all over the turkey, after you have patted the skin as dry as possible.
6. Cover it
   The sixth secret to a perfect bird is to cover just the browned breast for the rest of the cooking time in aluminum foil. This will protect the breast more from not drying. Be sure to leave the rest of the bird exposed.
7. Know the temperature
   The next secret to a perfect turkey bird is to use an internal thermometer during the cooking process. An oven probe thermometer with an external wire and digital read is the perfect way to keep tabs on your bird, without opening the oven repeatedly and losing your precious heat. This will ensure more even and faster cooking. You put the thermometer in the thickest part of the breast and set the thermometer to 161 degrees. The turkey's internal temperature will continue to rise to the magic 165 degrees while it is resting outside of the oven.




8. Hold the Stuffing
   The eighth secret to the perfect bird is to never ever put the dressing in the bird. By the time the center of the stuffing is up to temperature, the bird has been overcooked, and the breast will inevitably be dry. Instead, use fruits, vegetables, or herbs and wine in the breast cavity to help moisten the bird. You can even do a beer can turkey, but you will have to use a small turkey, about 8-10 lbs. If you insist on using a giant bird, you will have to use a big beer can, like Foster's.
9. Don't rush to eat
   The last secret to the perfect bird is to let it rest when it comes out of the oven. You should tent he whole bird with aluminum foil, and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. I have read an ideal resting time is half the amount of the cooking time. So I make sure to rest the bird for as long as I can hold my family back.

Using all or some of these secrets will hopefully help make your holiday bird a bit juicier this year. Hope you have a tasty Thanksgiving turkey bird.

Don’t you know about the bird?  Well everybody knows, that bird is the word.   Bird, bird, bird.  Bird is the word.  -Ramones

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  Here we go to the Three Point Contest.  Here we go to the big tent.  Over where they pay the big rent.  With today being Larry Joe Bird’s 50th birthday and all, I can’t help but reminisce back to a happier place and time.  Back when Larry Bird was still in his three point prime.  Back when it was still fun to rhyme.  So just like my main man Nas, I’m takin’ y’all on a trip straight through memory lane.  It’s like that y’all…it’s like that y’all.  It’s like that.  Takin’ y’all on a trip straight to 1988.  Takin’ y’all on a trip to the Prairie State.  Sherman, set the Way Back Machine.   

 
Chicago, Illinois.  1988.  All-Star week-end.  His Airness and the Human Highlight Reel going toe to toe.  Slam for slam.  Daaaaamn!  And, there was the Legend.  Larry Legend.  Larry Joe Bird.  Bird, Bird, Bird.  Bird was the word. 

1988.  Larry Bird.  Reigning three point king.  Larry Bird.  Two-time reigning three point king.  Larry Bird, doing his thing.  The world on a string.  All that and a chicken wing.  The Legend going for a three-peat.  You know what happened next.  I know you do.  But I love telling it. 

As the shooters dressed in the locker room, Bird stood up and announced, “All right, who’s playing for second place?”  Wooo doggie.  It’s on.  Dale Ellis.  Dale Ellis, the Silent Assassin.  Dale Ellis, fresh off his NBA Most Improved Player Award season.  Dale Ellis, third all-time in three-point shots made. 

Dale Ellis had one of the sweetest jump shots I have ever seen.  Deadly off the screen.  Like a three point machine.  Eliis was unconscious.  Knocking ‘em down one after another.  Knocking ‘em down all the way to the finals.  All the way to Larry Joe Bird.  In the Finals, Dale still kept knocking ‘em down.  He wanted that crown.  Showing everybody in old Chi-town. 

Knocked down shot after shot in the final round too.  Finished with a score of 15.  Pretty, pretty good.  Not good enough.  Larry’s tough.  He plays rough.  Larry Joe ties it up.  Ties it up with one ball remaining.  The money ball.  Goodness gracious.  You know the rest.  You know why Bird was the best.  Like he wearing a bullet-proof vest.  Shooting as if he were blessed. 

The Legend puts it up.  A split-second later, the ball barely off his fingers, the Legend turned and walked away.  Turned and walked away with his index finger in the air.  I…am…number one.  No matter if you like it, ready take this, sit down and write it.  I…am…number one.  What does it take to be number one?  Two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers.  Larry Bird:  “I’m the three-point king, I’m the three-point king!”

Public Spectacle:

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

wholesale nba jerseys,
wholesale nfl jerseys

Thinking about Christmas early?  Good idea.  Avoiding the crazed shoppers during the shopping season is probably best for your health.  Why bother stepping foot in the overcrowded malls anyway?  Online shopping is in vogue,  but while looking for the perfect gift for the geek in us all, some of the strangest things every can be found. 

Oddities are expected, and commonly accepted from EBay, but looking around at some of the specialty sites online can truly make one sit and think, 'People pay money for that?'  Yet there are some truly innovative and outright whacky ideas that can make the perfect gift, if you can get your mind around the concept (and realize that just because it's geeky to you, doesn't mean it's geeky to them).

And while many are still concerned with the safety of shopping online, look at it this way.  The chances of you getting scammed are much much less than your chances of getting run down by some crazy last minute shopper in the parking lot  So take your chances, suck it up, and start clicking.

Here are a few crazy ideas to spice up the Christmas for the computer enthusiast in your life:

Jinx.com has some of the best geek gear, appealing to the gamer, the modder, and every designation in between.  The quality of the clothing is top notch and most of the slogans are absolutely hilarious.  Their crazy logo will stick in your head as well. 

Computergear.com boasts a wide range of products, from the practical to the practically insane.  A few of the standouts from it's offerings:

The Swiss Army Knife with usb flash drive: While some would consider this a bit overboard in the all in one department, functionality and style combine in this knife, repleat with a 64 meg usb flash memory drive.  What's one more thing added onto a swiss army knife anyway?  It's not like you know what half the things do to begin with.

The Roll Up Keyboard: It's weird looking, it's squishy, and it rolls up and out of the way rather nicely.  So why in the world would someone want this?  Perfect for the laptop user needing a full sized keyboard, the lan gamer wanting something lightweight, or the accident prone office worker who constantly spills coffee on it (it's waterproof!).

The Gaming Lounger: Gaming in style..serious style.  It looks similar to a floor mat, props you up in a comfortable position to play games, and adds on subwoofers.  Yes, subwoofers.  The vibrating controller idea was bad enough, but now you get to be in danger of being shaken off your seat if the game gets too intense. 

Key Caps: These are little plastic toppers that go over your normal keyboard keys.  Such novelties as the panic button and the any key make them cute gifts or amusing pranks – or, if you're tech support for your company, an end to the never ending “Which one is the any key?” calls. 

Recycled Circuit Board Earrings: Who says the geek girl in your life likes computers more than jewelry?  Now she can have both! Judging from some of the designs in style today, I would venture to say that these probably won't draw as many looks as you would think.

Thinkgeek.com is the third repository for weird and wacky gadgets.  Some of the previously mentioned products are also listed here, but they also have quite a bit of their own fun toys.

Usb Mini Desktop Aquarium: You've had pet rocks, sea monkeys, and an ant farm.  For the latest in low maintenance pets, look no further than the usb powered aquarium.  Marvel at the plastic tropical fish and rest assured that, no matter how long you've neglected to feed them, they won't go belly up on you.

Usb Devil Duckie Drive: It's a usb flash drive – shaped like a devil duck.  Nope, I don't get it either.  At any rate, this guy can hold 256 megs of data, has eyes that flash when it's in use, and can probably scare the crap out of any nearby children.  Just don't try and use it as a substitute for your bathtub duckie. 

Usb cup warmer: I wonder what it is, exactly, about the usb interface that makes designers think up really strange devices to go with it.  But if you find that your coffee just isn't staying hot enough, and really want a usb powered device to fix that – well I guess this would be perfect for you then.

Datasurfer PC Workstation: This is the perfect thing to get the dedicated coder, hacker, or gamer in your life…if you never want to see them again.  This goes far beyond any computer desk that I've seen, with a load of features and an aim for comfort. It also looks to weigh more than any desk I've seen too – but no matter! 

Activision 10 in 1 games: Sometimes you just have to wonder why anyone makes new games and systems.  Gameboys are still selling at a phenomenal rate, arcade classics show up on compliation disks nearly every week, and then you have this little toy.  10 of the best games from your youth are packed into this joystick, letting you indulge in your nostalgic game playing urges. 

So after fending off countless boxes of sweaters, underwear, and towels, giving someone one of these items is sure to bring a smile to their face.  Well, that or an extremely puzzled look.  But either way, it's better than the barely civil smile as their great aunt waits for them to try on the knitted sweater of doom, destruction, and an annoying bright embroidered dog pattern.

nba jersey,
jerseys

In scenes reminiscent of protests in the Arab world during the administration of George W Bush, they castigated Mr Obama as an imperialist from the same mould as his predecessor.

“Obama is continuing Middle East Imperialism,” read one banner, “Was hoping for change – Got the same old imperialist,” another.

Despite falling domestic approval ratings, Mr Obama remains the subject of much adulation abroad. But there is little evidence of such sentiment in Israel, where less than 10 per cent of the population claims to trust him, according to opinion polls.

The American president has become the focus of right-wing revulsion in Israel ever since he called for a freeze to Jewish settler construction earlier this year, even though he has since appeared to soften his stance.

The demonstrators at the rally had no doubt that Mr Obama was the real cause of the settlers' woes.

“He's fairly young and doesn't know the history of it,” said Max Cohen, a retired chartered accountant who emigrated from London to Jerusalem 12 years ago. “He sees Palestinians living in squalid conditions and he doesn't realise that they put themselves in those conditions.” Others were blunter.

“When Netanyahu was chosen he said he would rebuild settlements and make them bigger,” said Riya Harari, who had joined the protest even though he did not live in a settlement.

“But after Obama put pressure on him, he changed his mind. Obama wasn't to be seen as hero of the whole world.”

Many demonstrators also directed anger at Mr Netanyahu, saying that his capitulation represented a betrayal of his natural constituents from the Israeli right.

The Israeli prime minister reluctantly agreed to impose a 10-month moratorium on residential settlement construction at the end of November.

Although the moratorium has prompted fury in the settlements, it has been denounced by both Palestinians and some left-wing Israelis as a gesture devoid of meaning because it excluded predominantly Arab East Jerusalem and allowed building on 3,000 settler homes in the West Bank to continue.

Critics further maintain that the moratorium will not actually slow the rate of Jewish construction in the occupied West Bank, which is already home to 300,000 Israeli settlers.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has refused to resume negotiations with Israel unless a total settlement freeze that includes East Jerusalem is in place.

Mr Netanyahu is unlikely to give in to those demands.

He will point to violent if sporadic scuffles between police and settlers since he announced the moratorium as evidence of the political price he has already had to pay by making even limited concessions. Critics say the prime minister is overplaying the level of domestic opposition.

The settlers gathered outside his residence, however, insisted that they would continue to resist any government attempts to limit their plans for expansion. Many said that the West Bank was Jewish by Biblical right.

“This is the land of Israel,” said Aryeh Blumber, a plumber from the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim. “It was given to the Jewish people. It is our God-given right to live anywhere in it and build anywhere in it.” Palestinians maintain that the presence of a growing population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank undermines the viability of a future Palestinian state.

After losing two out of three to South Florida and Cincinnati, West Virginia (9-3, 5-2 Big East) had seemed destined for a disappointing finish. But beating Pittsburgh last week appeared to put the Mountaineers back on track. Playing Rutgers might have helped; West Virginia is 31-4-2 against the Scarlett Knights, including 15 wins in a row.

“After some of those tough losses, we could have easily shut it down,” said strong safety Sidney Glover, who returned an interception for a touchdown in the third quarter to give the Mountaineers a 21-3 lead. “Especially losing to teams we felt we should have beat, it’s easy to shut down. But we didn’t.”

Rutgers (8-4, 3-4) was limited to 218 yards, including only 65 rushing yards.

“I was very proud of our defense and our special teams,” West Virginia Coach Bill Stewart said. “Our defense was phenomenal.”

Rutgers quarterback Tom Savage was 9 for 27 for 153 yards and 2 interceptions. Mohammed Sanu caught six passes for 105 yards.

The Knights’ defense was not too bad, either. It allowed 278 yards and held Devine, the Big East’s second-leading rusher, to 65 yards. Mountaineers quarterback Jarrett Brown completed 10 of 20 passes for 116 yards and rushed for 36.

West Virginia opened a 24-14 lead with 8 minutes 44 seconds left in the final quarter on a 41-yard field goal by Tyler Bitancurt. Rutgers came back on its next play from scrimmage when Savage threw a 62-yard touchdown pass to Sanu.

After West Virginia’s Kent Richardson blocked a punt, the Mountaineers had the ball at the Rutgers 40. But they gave it back when Brown dropped a low snap and Alex Silvestro recovered at the Knights’ 47.

On fourth-and-6 from the 49, Savage’s pass went off the hands of Sanu, and Thomas intercepted. West Virginia sealed the game when, faced with a third-and-6 at the Rutgers 42, Brown appeared caught for a loss but stiff-armed defensive end George Johnson and gained 12 yards.

“Coach always says I’m the best guy on the field when the ball is in my hands,” Brown said. “He knew I would be one-on-one with a corner. In that case it was a defensive end, I just had to go get it. I did juke at first, he didn’t go for it. So I had to bring out the stiff arm. That’s the only thing I could bring out.”

After a second quarter in which the teams combined for 3 yards, each side scored third-quarter touchdowns without their offenses being on the field.

West Virginia expanded its lead to 21-3 when Glover intercepted Savage and returned it 24 yards for a score.

Joe Lefeged returned the ensuing kickoff 91 yards and Savage scored on a 2-point conversion run. San San Te added a field goal late in the quarter to pull Rutgers to 21-14.

nfl jersey,
mlb jerseys

A recent study published in The Lancet took a hard look at the system of classification used in the United Kingdom to rank drugs under the Misuse of Drugs act and found it to be severely flawed.

The current system groups misused drugs into three classes: A, B, and C. Class A carries the heaviest penalties and Class C, the lightest. And many of the drugs that you would expect to see in the highest class are there, including cocaine and heroin. But why are magic mushrooms (both the psilocybin and muscimol varieties) in there? Are there any clear cut rules as to what makes a substance a Class A instead of a Class B or C?

According to the study “Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse.” by David Nutt, Leslie A King, William Saulsbury, Colin Blakemore, the system looks very arbitrary and places a great deal of importance on the serious but highly unusual reactions of a few people while not properly taking into account the relative risks of individual drugs.

The proposed new system would assess the harm of each substance in what is described as an “evidence-based fashion.” There are three main factors that the study's authors propose to use to determine the potential harm of a substance: physical harm to the user, tendency to induce dependance/addiction, and the effects of use on families and communities. Each of these catagories would have, in turn, three sub-catagories which would form a nine catagory “matrix of harm which could then be used to form a reasonable and scientific ranking of the harm of each drug.

Each sub-catagory would have a score between 0 and 3, with 3 being the most harmful. They ran twenty drugs through the system, including five legal ones (such as alcohol and tobacco) with a potential for misuse. And some of the results were a bit surprising. Heroin and cocaine came in as numbers 1 and 2, respectively, but alcohol came in at number 5 overall, and tobacco was number 9, two ranks higher than cannabis. Ecstacy, despite all the bad press it's received, was number 18 and the lowest ranked of the illegal substances ranked in the study.

Compared with the standards currently in place in the UK (and other parts of the world, including the United States), this was a pretty shocking result. Mind you, if the government doesn't pay any attention to the study, it won't do any good. But it does demonstrate that there are members of the scientific community who believe strongly in making sure that the laws do their purpose: protecting people. And not with an arbitrary mishmash of rules, but with a quantifiable system to determine what is the most dangerous so that the laws can be shaped around them.

discount nba jerseys,nfl jerseys

"The recession is hitting families not used to using government programs," said Chuck Johnson, the state's assistant human services commissioner for children and family services.

What's happened, Hennepin County spokeswoman LuAnn Schmaus explained, is that the "solidly middle class have fallen into the safety net."

Fruitless search

Darlene Maroney, 59, went on food stamps — technically called "food support" — to ease the load on her sister, who opened her Minneapolis home when Maroney lost her job.

"I had to help my sister out some way," she said. "I certainly hope to get off food stamps. I keep looking for jobs. I keep applying, but I don't hear back."

Like so many of those now seeking government aid, Maroney worked for decades and never expected to need any form of welfare.

In May 2008, she lost her job scheduling repair orders. Since then, she has applied for hundreds of jobs. A few weeks ago she got an all-too-rare callback. She went through eight interviews in an attempt to get a production job. She made it to the final five but lost out.

Coming close doesn't count when you have a family. After putting it off for three months, Denise Jourdain, 45, came to a Catholic Charities food shelf in Minneapolis on Friday morning to apply for food stamps.

"The fear of not having enough food" drove her there, she explained. "What if I don't have a job at the end of the month? I have to do this."

Jourdain and her husband, who works part time and goes to school, are responsible for seven children, grandchildren and adoptees. Jourdain spent the past 14 years working for a private nonprofit agency helping people sign up for the very services she now requires because the agency laid her off.

"I know what they put you through," she said.

Roughly half the people trying to get food support in the current push are not eligible because they have too many assets, according to Johnson of the state's human services department.

"A lot of people, when they break down and come in, are frustrated when they can't get [food support]," he said.

After last year’s historic presidential campaign, a new season of opportunity seemed at hand for African-American candidates in the South. Not only had a black man been elected president, he had carried Virginia and North Carolina along the way.

But Dixie is slow to yield its traditions and paradoxes, as Rep. Artur Davis is finding as he tries to fashion an Obama-style cross-racial coalition in his bid to become Alabama’s first black governor.

If anything, Davis, a Democrat, is finding it may be more complicated than ever for African-Americans to win statewide races in the Deep South. In today’s complicated political landscape, it’s not just old-style prejudice that must be overcome but also a more complicated stew of long-simmering personal grievances, generational tensions and intraracial rivalries.

Never a favorite of the state’s Democratic establishment, Davis has come under fierce attack from Joe Reed — for years the most influential African-American in Alabama politics — for being the only black House member to oppose health care legislation. Reed savaged Davis as a political opportunist who opposed the bill to curry favor with the state’s conservative-leaning white majority.

Davis’s vote showed that “because he is now running for governor, he is looking out for himself and not the people,” Reed wrote in the newsletter of the influential Alabama Education Association, where he’s a top official. He added: “You cannot curse Bubba and Cooter, Big Man and June Bug in the daytime and beg them at night.”

Davis shot back this week that Reed “believes that a public official’s race matters more than his capacity for independent judgment.”

“He believes that a black American who holds elected office must follow a certain path or be inauthentic,” wrote Davis in a statement.

The sniping continued. Reed, noting that he had helped create the black-majority district that Davis represents, retorted that he had been registering voters and helping candidates “when Congressman Davis was making mud cakes under the shade tree.”

The exchange vividly illustrates Davis’s multilayered challenge in breaking the political color line of the Deep South, where no African-American has been elected governor or senator since Reconstruction. (African-Americans have had more success in border-state Virginia, where L. Douglas Wilder was elected governor in 1989.)

Running in a state where just 10 percent of white voters supported President Barack Obama last year, Davis cannot win unless he makes deep inroads with Alabamians who supported John McCain and don’t like the president.

By voting no on health care reform and then taking after the embodiment of the state’s black old guard, Davis sent an unmistakable message that he’s not a conventional African-American politician. 

Yet when he takes steps to distance himself from the White House and his national party, he will be given no quarter from the likes of Reed, which could dampen enthusiasm for Davis among the blacks he needs to turn out in high numbers to have a chance to win.

nhl jerseys,
mlb jerseys cheap

Being able to retrieve important information is dependent upon how the information was classified and stored in the brain when it was initially received. Brain research has shown that we store information by similarities or patterns and we retrieve the information by differences. When students learn new vocabulary words as isolated units (e.g. defining the word rather than connecting and integrating the information) they miss perceiving the patterns, that is, they miss perceiving the similarities and differences that give true meaning to words. To prevent this from happening, students need to understand the categorical nature of words. When we directly teach our students how to classify new words by categories, by their function, or by synonyms or antonyms we are training them to see the relationship between words, and we are giving our students powerful strategies for committing the new words to memory. The word analysis activities presented here involve grouping and categorizing words in some way.

Train Students to Think in Categories.

Have students list as many words they can think of a given category.

Have students list the new words in categories such as animals, habitats, clothing, etc. When the students recall one member from the category that usually triggers the recalling of other members from the same category.

Within a category, have the students classify words into different attributes: shape, color, size, composition.

Rearrange, so that the student sees how words and concepts can be categorized differently according to one or more characteristics.

Point out how a word can be part of more than one category, e.g. apple: round, red, smooth, sweet.

Point out the differences between words as they change categories, for example, an apple and a ball are round, red, and smooth, but only the apple is sweet and only the apple can be eaten.

Have students substitute a word with another word from the same category, e.g. “The kitten was only one month old.” (puppy, cub)

Teach students that categorizing words can be done at one of three levels: by their physical attributes (e.g. a cat and a squirrel are furry and have a tail); by what they do or function (e.g. they run, eat, and climb trees); and/or conceptually (they are both animals but only the squirrel is a rodent). Make sure that all three levels of analyses are included in your vocabulary lessons.

Provide activities for students to manipulate the new information, by sorting or classifying, rather than copying from the board or rote memorization.

Teach the Students to Describe Words by Classes.

Teach how to describe word classes, for example, all the figures are round, green, and striped.

Teach the students how to classify words in more than one way, e.g. the same object belongs to class 'a' because it is round and to class 'b' because it is green.

Have the students identify class and members relationships –color: amber, yellow, purple, gray.

Have the students classify from the whole to the part –house, kitchen, window, and chimney.

Have the students describe a group by what belongs/does not belong, adding another member to the original group.

Present four words for students to identify the word that does not belong. Have one student tell why the word does not belong.

You give three words and students supply a fourth word that belongs, e.g. fall, winter, spring, _____.

Other Word Relationship Exercises that Students can do are…

Show how big things break into smaller things, then into even smaller things, for example, decade, year, month, day…

Have the student rank from lowest to highest or from highest to lowest, e.g. week, month, year, and decade.

When you are discussing difficult or new words relate them to previously taught words by pointing out their similarities and differences.

Have students tell how two objects or concepts are alike (comparing) or different (contrasting).

Have students explain the exception, e.g. kayak, yacht, motorcycle, canoe –motorcycle is the exception because it travels by land.

Have the student continue the sequence –baby, girl, teen, _____ (woman).

Have students create analogies, for example, kitten is to cat as boy is to man.

Have the students give verbs that they can use with the new word, e.g. dirigible: flown, floats, slides, transport, steered.

Have students tell places where the new vocabulary word can be seen, for example, throne: castle, palace, church, paintings, and fort.

Have the students give associations of the new vocabulary word –circular: wheel, tabletop, zero, coin, pancake, and globe.

Introduce the concept of integration as a way to associate or connect the new concept with known ones. This involves adding new bits of information to a known group, category, or concept, for example, “Add two more forest animals.” Through integration, the student (a) reviews and recalls previous information related to the new concept, and (b) integrates the new information into what has already been learned. Integration is an important sub-skill in building conceptual frameworks and in comprehending the information.

hockey jerseys,nfl jerseys