First Snow Of The Season
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Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson may be the best quarterback the school has ever seen, and who might lead the football program to its first national title, hadn't even stepped on campus until July. Ben Cohen has his story on Lunch Break.
Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson has led the No. 4 Badgers to a 6-0 record coming into this weekend's showdown with No. 15 Michigan State. He has the country's best quarterback rating. He's a serious Heisman Trophy contender (Wisconsin's athletic department calls his campaign "RussellManiaXVI" after his jersey number). Last weekend, he even caught a touchdown pass.
As any seasoned college-football fan knows, the ability to enjoy this sport often requires the parallel ability to endure the occasional glimpse at its unsavory side—the predatory recruiting, the salaries of the coaches, the occasional NCAA rules violation. There are always inconvenient details to brush aside, judgments to suspend and ethical gymnastics to perform.
But this season, Wisconsin fans are going through something entirely new. Wilson, who may be the best quarterback the school has ever seen, and who might lead the football program to its first national title, hadn't played for Wisconsin before this year. In fact, he hadn't even stepped on campus until July.
To make the situation even more unusual, Wilson isn't pursuing an undergraduate degree at Wisconsin: He already has one from North Carolina State, the school whose football team he quarterbacked last season. Wilson is, for all intents and purposes, a hired gun—a college-football free agent.
"When we're looking back on it, it might be kind of weird to think about how this all happened in one season," said Adam Hoge, the editor of Bucky's 5th Quarter, a Wisconsin sports blog. "But the way he's fit in, it doesn't seem like he's an outsider at all."
Wilson owes his Wisconsin adventure to a series of NCAA bylaws, none of them especially controversial, that have conspired to produce a rare outcome. Under eligibility rules, an athlete can play a sport for four seasons. But if an athlete is held out as a freshman, or is injured, or leaves the team for a season, that athlete's eligibility doesn't expire—even if the athlete keeps taking classes. Since Wilson "redshirted" as a freshman at N.C. State, he had a year of eligibility left after four years.
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When he arrived on campus, Wilson was such an instant hit with his teammates that they elected him a co-captain.
What makes Wilson's case unusual is that he's not just good at football. In 2010, the Colorado Rockies picked Wilson, a second-baseman, in the fourth round of baseball's amateur draft. Caught between two sports, with one year of football eligibility left, Wilson faced an ultimatum from his coaches at N.C. State, who wanted him to commit to playing football.
Wilson said no, so the Wolfpack released him from his scholarship. This spring, after playing short-season minor-league ball in 2010, he went to play for the Class-A minor-league Asheville Tourists. While there, he hit a mediocre .228. (He hit .230 the year before.)
Because he had already graduated from N.C. State, Wilson was freed from the usual NCAA transfer rules, which ordinarily force a player to sit out a season after switching schools. So as he spent the summer playing baseball, Wilson found himself in an enviable position: He was an experienced college quarterback who was free to play, for one year only, at any school that would have him.
Naturally, Wilson said, he wanted to join a title contender, which by all rights Wisconsin was. He said some 30 schools contacted him and that his decision came down to the Badgers and another top team that needed a quarterback: defending national-champion Auburn. Scott Kennedy, Scout.com's recruiting director, said Wisconsin's quarterback vacancy made it the perfect example of what he calls a "doughnut" team. "They've got all this talent and a big hole in the middle," he said.
After six games, Wilson has thrown for 14 touchdowns, rushed for two and caught one as Wisconsin has averaged a 40-point margin of victory. "I thought he would start, and I thought they would win, but I didn't think the transition would be this smooth," said former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach.
Since 1996, 10 quarterbacks have used their last season of eligibility at another Football Bowl Subdivision school, according to Stats LLC. Wilson has put up better numbers than almost all of them—and he's the only one who has put a team within striking distance of a national championship.
"Was it everything I expected? Definitely everything I expected—and maybe a little more," Wilson said of his time so far at Wisconsin.
This arrangement comes on the heels of a number of high-profile cases that have stretched the boundaries of what defines a college-football player. Last year, quarterback Cam Newton, who had transferred twice, and whose recruitment had been the subject of an NCAA investigation, led Auburn to the title (the NCAA recently closed the investigation, saying it found no new violations). This season, the highest-scoring team after Wisconsin—Oklahoma State—is led by a 28-year-old quarterback named Brandon Weeden, who took a detour from college to try to make it with the New York Yankees.
Wilson's unusual case has made him vulnerable to message-board critics, who see him as a mercenary. "You're going to ruffle some feathers when you bring in a guy and hand him a starting job," Kennedy said. "I can't think of a guy with one year left that was basically a free agent that had this kind of résumé and pedigree to come in and do something like this."
No matter what you think of his circumstances, Wilson is, by all accounts, easy to like. When he was recruited in high school, many colleges projected the 5-foot-11 Wilson as a cornerback. But in his time at N.C. State, he emerged as one of the Atlantic Coast Conference's top signal callers. He was named first-team all-conference in 2008.
Before pursuing him, Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema did his due diligence—from sifting through minor-league box scores to dispatching offensive coordinator Paul Chryst to Richmond, Va., to learn about Wilson's time at Collegiate School. There they discovered that Wilson had been elected class president and was so committed to football that he never lost at team sprints.
Charlie McFall, Wilson's high-school coach, said Wisconsin was the only team to gather so much information.
"They didn't want to leave any rocks unturned," he said. "They knew it was such a critical component of their team, but also what it could do to their chemistry."
When he arrived on campus, Wilson was such an instant hit with his teammates that they elected him a co-captain. "It does have this weird feel-good quality," Leach said. "You've got something shaping up in a Frank Capra movie sort of way."
It's unlikely a case like this will happen again. In 2007, the NCAA overturned the rule that allowed graduates with remaining eligibility to transfer to any school and play immediately. The only reason Wilson was able to circumvent the rule is that he obtained a waiver that is usually granted only to student athletes who enroll in a master's program that isn't available at their original institution. (At Wisconsin, Wilson is taking classes in educational leadership.)
That repeal didn't go far enough for the Southeastern Conference, which recently passed a bylaw prohibiting players from transferring into the league with just one year of eligibility. It went into effect Oct. 1 and would not have affected Wilson had he enrolled at Auburn, the only other school he visited.
Cafe at the museum
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Measuring up
In the 50h forest monitoring plot, each tree with a trunk diameter of greater than 10mm get geo-referenced, tagged, and a full bio-survey. Researchers will survey the plot every 3-5 years, so over time, we can build up a rich GIS map of the plot, showing the dynamics over time. This will allow valuable insight into the functioning of PNG's rainforest ecosystems
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_DSC8528
Hand held shot looking down from Pyrmont Bridge onto Darling Harbour.
Pretty clean image @ ISO 2000.
It's shots like this that make me glad I forked out for FX.
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Full Moon on the Aegean Sea, 7:52 p.m.
We spent hours on our starboard side balcony upon departure from the port of Pireaus (Athens) because we were scheduled to pass the Temple of Poseidon around 7:30 p.m. Though the temple was too far away and the lighting too dim by then for any really good pictures, we stayed on our balcony finishing our bottle of wine and admiring the sunset, followed soon by the moonrise. It was a fantastic full moon, bright pinkish orange against the hazy blue sky and water. I don't think I've ever seen a moon that appeared to be so large on the horizon! It was mesmerizing to watch.
Since you can't shoot from a tripod on a moving cruise ship, I had to crank up the ISO to 2500 and shot this at 1/40th, thus the noise, but I think it's a compelling sight nonetheless.
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(289/365) Birds
October 16, 2011 - Birds
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Dan Wheldon speaks with reporters after finishing second in the 2010 Indianapolis 500 race. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press / May 30, 2010)
Based on nothing more than one lunch and 90 minutes of interviewing, it is clear that the world of IndyCar racing will be hurting for quite some time. It has lost a tremendous young talent, as well as a tremendous young person.
Yes, Dan Wheldon died doing what he loved to do. Yes, racing cars at speeds in excess of 200 mph is dangerous, and those who do it know it.
Bill Dwyre
Bio | E-mail | Recent columns
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And yes, his death in a fiery 15-car crash Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was so horrific that the word "carnage" kept coming up in news reports.
Those are the boilerplate observations. More appropriate at the moment is a discussion of the person he was.
Wheldon was 33 years old, and a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, including this year. He flaunted none of that. He looked you in the eye when he shook your hand, he asked questions as well as answered them, and he had a sense of humor that included a taste for others who also had one.
Last Tuesday, Wheldon was on a promotional swing, creating media attention for the unique challenge he was attempting at the Las Vegas race. He would start last in a field of 34 and try to make his way all the way to the front at the end. If he did so, he would share $5 million with a randomly selected fan.
He was quick to put the promotion, and its gimmick aspects, into context.
"I don't need money to be the incentive," he said.
Others in sports' saying that would prompt an eye roll. Wheldon, young, movie-star handsome, and ideally positioned to say something like that and not mean it, really did. After you've done several hundred interviews, it becomes easier to separate the hot dog from the bun.
The interview took place at a Los Angeles restaurant. Wheldon was double-teamed by two sportswriters, both veterans of this and both longtime friends inclined to needle each other between questions. Wheldon seemed to enjoy the shots taken and given by Doug Krikorian, longtime Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist. He kept score and announced it at the end.
He was remarkably less full of himself than most athletes who had accomplished things on his level. Two Indy 500s can turn a walk into a swagger quickly. Wheldon just walked.
With little prompting, he talked much more about others than himself. A situation came up where he had taken over a car from driver Alex Tagliani for a recent race in Kentucky. He was asked why Tagliani would give up that ride.
"Alex is just a nice guy," Wheldon said.
He was asked about the presence of Danica Patrick on the Indy circuit. It was a perfect opportunity to do the macho thing, to openly or subtly put her down or question her ability or place in a testosterone-dominated sport. Instead, he replied with a story.
"She did wonders for all us guys, for getting us in shape," he said. "When she first came on the circuit, we'd wonder why she was so much quicker than we were. Then our teams started leveling with us, explaining that her car was 50 pounds lighter every time she got into it, because she was 50 pounds lighter.
"Pretty soon, we were all in the gym."
He lighted up when he talked about family. He told of his mother's recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's, about how his three brothers and sister wanted nothing to do with racing. He described his father's plumbing and heating business in England, based in the area 40 miles north of London where he came from.
"It's England, after all," Wheldon said, "so he certainly does more work in heating than air conditioning."
And he talked about the blessing for him and his wife, Susie, that he didn't have a regular ride this season on the Indy circuit, despite being the Indy 500 winner.
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Iglesia de Valdepeas
Un HDR de una panoramica de 6 fotos en blanco y negro... demasiada faena para volver a repetir algo asi ;)
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1556 - Sunrise point - Sunrise
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YANGON—Myanmar residents knew something unusual was afoot this August when state-run newspapers suddenly dropped their regular slogans denouncing the BBC and the Voice of America for "sowing hatred among the people," followed by moves to unblock their websites in the country.
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A man sells a newspaper with a photo of Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon Oct. 6. Below, another recent paper.
Pictures and articles about famed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi began showing up in the press for the first time in years. Journalists have started posting articles online without the approval of government censors—previously a no-no—and even dared to criticize government policies in print.
While still tightly controlled, Myanmar's media landscape is cracking open in significant ways, local journalists and residents say, as authorities loosen restrictions in a country long seen as one of the most repressive in the world.
In recent years, Myanmar residents have been able to use the Internet and have had access to some foreign media, including CNN in hotels and some foreign news publications online. But the websites for many foreign news sources deemed overly critical of the government, including the BBC and Reuters, were customarily blocked, along with YouTube as well as dissident publications that reported closely on Myanmar affairs from outside the country. With the latest steps to unblock sites, Myanmar residents now have access to a wide array of foreign news sources, as well as dissident publications such as the Irrawaddy, which is based in Thailand and regularly publishes scathing criticisms of Myanmar's government.
Myanmar's Political History
Myanmar, the Southeast-Asian country formerly known as Burma, has faced political turbulence since its oppressive military regime gained power in 1962. See some key events in the country's history.
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Myanmar ranked next-to-last out of 196 countries in press freedom last year, ahead only of North Korea, according to U.S.-based advocacy group Freedom House—which put China in 181st place—and journalists are routinely imprisoned there, human-rights groups say. Daily coverage is dominated by a small handful of government mouthpieces, while articles in most of the country's 350 or so independent news publications—typically weeklies and monthly journals—must be approved in advance by a censorship board. For years that left essentially all critical reporting to be done by exile publications working with undercover reporters inside the country.
But in recent weeks, reporters inside the country are openly writing about controversial topics—including a mass amnesty of an estimated 200 political prisoners that occurred earlier this week.
The changes are among a host of recent developments that have boosted hopes Myanmar's government is looking to turn the page on decades of harsh rule since the military took over there in 1962. Soldiers handed over power to a civilian government this year after an election that was widely decried by Western observers as a fraud. But since then, authorities have rolled out a slew of conciliatory gestures, including the prisoner release and numerous economic reforms, that have caught many Western diplomats off-guard.
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A newspaper from Myanmar with a photo of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.
A more robust press is already helping shape public debate in unforeseen ways in the resource-rich country between China and India. Last month, the government suspended construction of a $3.6 billion China-backed hydroelectric dam in a rare concession to environmental activists after weeks of unexpectedly critical coverage in Yangon papers, which galvanized local opposition and added pressure on the authorities to act, people familiar with the government's thinking said.
The dam suspension "reflects that the government pays attention to the voice of the people and the media" now, said Than Htut Aung, chairman of the Eleven Media Group, which publishes the Weekly Eleven news journal and several other publications in Myanmar. Six months ago, he said, he wouldn't have agreed to be interviewed by a foreign reporter—saying there might have been "a lot of complications and repercussions." But "now the situation is good," he said.
There are crucial limits to the media opening, which highlights why some residents remain wary of the government's recent changes. Many topics—including criticism of the military or former strongman Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who stepped down earlier this year—remain off limits, and Western-style investigative journalism into issues such as corruption is out of the question, local reporters say. Many fear the latest easing could be rolled back at any time, putting today's more outspoken journalists at risk.
Even with the loosened restrictions, journalists fear they remain subject to punishments, including prison terms, if they publish something deemed later to be detrimental to the state.
"Compared to what we had a few years ago, we are much freer," said Thiha Saw, editor of Myanma Dana, a monthly business magazine. But "it's not a full opening," he said. "They may be opening up, but we know they are still afraid of many things."
Government officials and advisors have said authorities are serious about creating a more open media, and are contemplating a new media law that would potentially eliminate Myanmar's censorship board entirely.
"What the government would like to see is a free and responsible media, not a restricted media," said Ko Ko Hlaing, an adviser to Myanmar President Thein Sein.
For now, editors and journalists are trying to see how far the boundaries can be pushed.
Numerous publications have splashed pictures of Ms. Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who was released from seven years of house arrest last year, on their front pages—an act that was unheard-of until recently. The Weekly Eleven newspaper this month published an interview with Aung Zaw, a known critic of the Myanmar government who edits the Irrawaddy news journal.
"I had to pinch myself" to believe it was all happening, Mr. Aung Zaw said. Even so, "the openness is very limited—it's a baby step.""I don't know exactly why they are doing it," he said. Perhaps "they want to show a good face to the international community," he said, adding, "we cannot see behind the curtain."
Myint Kyaw, a local freelance journalist, said several reporters have even started posting news stories online via Facebook and some newspaper websites in real time rather than waiting for censors' approval—and no one has complained, he said.
He described covering a recent small protest rally to mark the four-year anniversary of the so-called "Saffron Revolution" in 2007, when thousands of monks marched on Yangon streets before the rallies were stopped in a bloody crackdown by government soldiers, killing at least 30 people.
Not only were people allowed to gather on the anniversary—an unlikely occurrence in past years—but he and the other journalists were allowed to interview rally leaders and even take pictures of riot police nearby, which wouldn't have been possible before, he said. "Clearly they were instructed not to arrest" people, he said.
Daily news in Myanmar is still dominated by state media, whose coverage in a handful of papers and TV news programs continues to focus on topics such as state meetings or government tours of infrastructure projects, while downplaying or ignoring controversial topics. Editions of the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar published Thursday, for instance, focused on a presidential visit to India and a "Full Moon Day" holiday, with scant reference to the massive prisoner amnesty a day earlier that also included thousands of everyday criminals.
Gone, though, are the paper's well-known rants against the Western media, such as one bold-faced warning published last year calling on citizens to "not allow ourselves to be swayed by killer broadcasts designed to cause troubles," such as those by BBC or the Voice of America. Absent, too, are once-common front-page headlines such as "Myanmar citizens must be for Myanmar and not be a stooge of any alien."
—Celine Fernandez in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this article.
Online.wsj.com
basilique St-Jean Lyon
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Tom Pugh called his quarterback, Yianni Gavalas, on Sunday morning and told him not to hang his head.
“Look outside,” the Holy Cross coach told him. “The sun is up. We’re aright. You gotta just pick it up and go.”
Gavalas was understandably down. The senior threw four interceptions as the Knights got dismantled, 43-0, by Mount St. Michael on Saturday afternoon. Gavalas said it was the worst game of his life. But he got some cheering up Tuesday morning when he found out he had won the NYPost.com poll for best quarterback in New York City.
In a tight race, Gavalas beat out Lincoln’s Jessel Jones with 22,507 votes (39.19%). Jones finished with 22,226 (38.7%). Mount St. Michael’s Najae Brown came in a distant third with 5,111 votes (8.9%).
Denis Gostev
Holy Cross coach Tom Pugh called quarterback Yianni Gavalas on Sunday morning with the message to move on from Saturday's tough game.
“I guess people still have faith in me,” Gavalas said. “It made me happy that people know I’m a good player.”
There’s still no doubting that fact despite a bad game Saturday. Coming in, Gavalas had thrown for eight touchdowns and only one interception. In his first season starting full time at Cross, he was being considered one of the league’s premier passing quarterbacks.
“I really like their quarterback,” St. Anthony’s coach Rich Reichert said after his team’s 29-19 win over Holy Cross two weeks ago. “He hangs in there, took some shots. Good player.”
Pugh’s biggest issue with Gavalas against Mount wasn’t the four picks. It was that he lost confidence in his own leadership when things hit the skids. The Knights center kept snapping high, making it harder for Gavalas to make his read quickly before the Mountaineers rush was on top of him.
“When things are going bad and you’re doing bad, you still have to get in people’s faces,” Pugh said. “He has to realize, ‘I’m the quarterback, this is my team.’ If the center is snapping high, you have to get in the guy’s face.”
That was one of the things Pugh said in that Sunday morning conversation. Gavalas plans on taking heed. His confidence is not shattered. He knows how good of a year he’s still having and that Holy Cross remains one of the city’s best teams.
“I just gotta put the past behind me, keep working toward the future,” Gavalas said. “Don’t let the loss hang on your head like that.”
Pugh isn’t worried. Things already looked better Monday in practice with a game against tough Archbishop Stepinac looming Saturday.
“I think he’ll respond,” the coach said.
He already got a heck of a response in the poll.
mraimondi@nypost.com
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Sing-sing march
Celebrating the Bargam New Testament dedication
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Acer H5360BD Projector
Acer H5360BD – Colorboost 3D
Projection throw ratio: 1.59-1.82 :1
Brightness: 2500 ANSI Lumens
Brightness (long life) : 2000 ANSI Lumens
Resolution: 1280 x 720 WXGA
Type: DLP
Contrast: 3200 : 1
Noise: 32 dB
Noise (long life): 27 dB
Lamp life: 3000 hours
Lamp life (long life): 4000 hours
Manufacturer’s warranty: 24 months
Weight: 2.2 (kg)
Connections: HDMI,
D-SUB 15pin in (VGA), Component Video (RGB),
Composite Video, S-Video
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Oslo, Norway
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Telling stories in dance
Celebrating the Bargam New Testament dedication
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FRANKFURT—German retail sales fell much more than expected in August, although analysts said the mood among German consumers remains broadly positive.
Retail sales dropped by 2.9% from a month earlier, after having risen by 0.3% in July and 4.0% in June. Analysts had forecast a decline of 0.1%.
The drop has to be seen "against the backdrop of the very strong increase in June of 4%", said Commerzbank analyst Ralph Solveen.
In the second quarter, confidence was hit by slowing economic activity and worries over future incomes, said Newedge economist Annalisa Piazza.
"We expect household consumption to regain some strength during the summer. The picture is certainly not very rosy but at least spending is not expected to collapse any time soon," she added.
Earlier this week Germany's GfK consumer research firm said that its forward-looking consumer-climate index would remain unchanged in October compared with September. Consumers expect general economic performance to weaken, the group said, but are also more optimistic about income-growth expectations, due to the strength of the domestic labor market.
The retail sales average for July and August is 0.8% above the second-quarter average, Berenberg's Christian Schulz said, indicating that consumer consumption will add to growth in the third quarter. Still, he cautioned that the uncertainty surrounding the debt crisis "weighs on consumer sentiment," and households might hold off buying durable goods.
Data from the country's labor agency Thursday showed the labor market remains strong, as unemployment dropped by far more than expected. Total unemployment reached a 20-year low in September.
On an annual basis, retail sales rose 2.2% in August, and 3.6% in nominal terms.
The statistics agency only breaks down annual data by category. Sales of groceries, drinks and tobacco products rose 2.2% from a year earlier, and sales of non-groceries 2.5%. The agency also pointed out that firms that are heavily reliant on distribution via internet or mail orders saw real sales up 8.4% year-to-year.
Retail sales data are often revised, sometimes significantly.
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