Blog

BP’s Doug Suttles addresses inaccurate estimates and dispersant concerns:

Strawberries have started appearing on shelves here in California.  It is a cheery announcement that summer is upon us!

Unlike traditional salsas that have onions for some bite and spice, this one is intentionally kept simple to let the fruit really shine. If you’re looking for a more complex salsa to serve with meats or an entree — add some onions, perhaps some jalapeno, and read our list of a dozen things to do with salsa.
 
If strawberries or mangos aren’t available yet where you live, try substituting other fruits such as melons, kiwi, pineapple, or whatever is in season and fresh.  This dish will only be as good as the fruit you can find.

There was quite a bit of dicing and chopping, I will admit, and the task was interrupted often by eager little ones who kept returning for more juicy samples.  But the colorful and flavorful confetti was worth the wait.  I cut the fruit into a small dice to make the salsa easier to pick up with chips.  And the chips of choice?  Try cinnamon pita chips for a real flavor surprise.  It would be a great appetizer for any poolside party or back yard BBQ.  If you prefer milder flavors, serve with regular pita chips or tortilla chips.

And please, don’t throw away any leftovers!  Simply throw into a blender with some yogurt and ice for a delicious smoothie.  You can even freeze the smoothie mixture into popsicle molds for a tasty afternoon treat.

Strawberry Mango Salsa Recipe

2 cups diced strawberries
2 cups diced mango
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice (from 1 lime or lemon)
¼ cup chopped mint or cilantro (optional)

1. Stir all ingredients gently in a serving bowl. 
2. Allow to rest for 15 minutes for flavors to meld.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Serves: 8

Apple’s stronghold on the music industry is greater than once thought. After knocking Walmart off the top of the ladder back in 2008, iTunes now sells more music than both Walmart and Best Buy put together these days. More »










ITunes – Music – Business – Arts – Arts and Entertainment

Remember the saying that “third time’s the charm”? Well it is not always the third especially if you are talking about “Shrek”. The third installment of the first two hit movie “Shrek” was not enough to satisfy some movie critique and thus they have decided to release another new story that will bring in another twist in the story.

Dream Works just announced that “Shrek Forever After” will be better and bolder than “Shrek the Third.” The 4th movie will be having another new villain, Rumpelstiltskin which will be voiced over by the very own film story editor, Walt Dohrn.

With the additional character like Rumpelstiltskin, Dream Works have become very creative by incorporating other fairy tale history on the movie “Shrek.”

Rumpelstiltskin magically sends Shrek back into a world where he had never been born. Shrek, who hates his family oriented life, lacks appreciation with his wife and his three adorable baby ogres now wants his old life back, the days where people fear for their lives and he can do anything he wants to do. To cut the story short, Shrek’s life is a mess.

Related posts:

1. It’s All Ogre for Shrek
2. Shrek 4: Shrek Forever After, The Final Installment
3. Lifetime Movie Networks presents ‘Deadly Honeymoon’

Article Tags: Roy Spencer, World Temperatures

Click source to read FULL report by Dr. Roy Spencer

Source: drroyspencer.com

Read in full with comments »   

Oracle’s Vice President of Database Security, Vipin Samar published an open letter on Oracle’s site yesterday, May 20 2010, announcing the company’s intention of buying database security firm Secerno.

Started after a research project at Oxford University’s Computing Laboratory, the company offers database security systems to companies a… (read more)

Spectators will bet their fortune come May 23^rd on the court of Roland Garros while players will be on the arena to get their first French Open title or bounce back from a depressing 2009 in the case of Rafael Nadal.

While not everybody can stage a successful comeback, Nadal has stepped into 2^nd rank which places him in a high stake to meet 2009 title holder Roger Federer on June 6 for the Men’s Single final this year.

From losing his 4-year reign in French Open to Robert Soderling in 2009, Nadal began to recover his own lost since winning the Davis’ Cup in December ’09.

To date, he has 15 successful matches that include a very crucial win against Roger Federer in the Masters 1000. This track to vengeance is keenly observed by tennis fanatics therefore making Nadal the instant favorite. As of this time he is ranked as the most possible winner in the men’s division.

Although offset can happen in any of his match, winning Rome Masters plus Monte Carlo Masters makes Nadal a very tempting talent to bet on.

There are other names that poses a threat to what can be his 5^th title in the French Open like Juan Martin del Porto and Andy Murray but his famous rival Soldering is sitting low at this point.

Related posts:

1. Henin, Nadal Back To Regain Lost Glory
2. Masters golf tournament 2010 scoreboard
3. Master’s Tournament Final Round Updates!

A simple predicate is the part of a sentence that links (agrees) directly with the main or simple subject. So if your sentence is “Mary plays on the beach every day”, “plays” is the simple predicate and “on the beach” etc is the complete predicate. You can find a very good, clear explanation here.

“We’ve got to do something, man! It’s just criminal,” said Billy Nungesser. The president of Plaquemines Parish was visibly upset after a local wildlife officer showed him two sea turtles covered in oil and clinging to life.

Nungesser has proposed an ambitious plan utilizing the U.S. dredge fleet to build an 80 mile “sand boom” along coastal Louisiana’s barrier island chains to protect against the BP oil spill. But the parish leader is growing impatient with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has yet to issue a permit to carry out his plan.

“We prepare for the worst for hurricanes and hope for the best,” Nungesser said. “Damn it! We’re not preparing for the worst. We’re sitting here hoping something doesn’t happen that we see happening in front of our eyes and we aren’t doing a damn thing about it.”

Oil has already breached some of the traditional barriers that were installed to protect beaches and wetlands in this ecologically fragile area.

“We’re putting boom out that washes ashore every day,” Nungesser said. “What are we gonna do — just keep doing this until everything’s dead?”

Frustration over the oil spill is being felt from Louisiana’s wetlands to the White House.

Two top Obama administration officials claim BP has “fallen short” on its pledge to keep the American public and government informed about the spill.

In a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson write, “The public and the United States Government are entitled to nothing less than complete transparency in this matter.”

The letter requests all records of sampling, monitoring and internal investigations — as well as any videos related to the spill.

Under pressure from federal lawmakers, BP has made public a video feed from the ocean floor that shows the spill site in real time. The live images have led independent researchers to conclude the oil spill is much larger than originally thought.

BP officials say an insertion tube is capturing oil from the leaking well at a rate of 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) per day — a figure equivalent to original estimates of the spill. However, the live video feed shows additional quantities of oil still billowing into the Gulf.

“BP’s numbers just don’t add up, and the video proved it,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass) said in a press release. “The whole world could see that there must be much more than 5,000 barrels per day coming from BP’s spill. That is just what we saw today, who knows what we will see tomorrow?”

In an interview with FOX News Radio reporter Eben Brown, BP spokesman Mark Salt insisted the original 5,000 barrel per day estimate of the total spill came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and not his company. However, the new revelations of additional oil have prompted BP’s critics to suggest the company has been less than forthcoming with bad news.

Neither the oil company nor federal officials would speculate on a new estimate of how much oil has spilled into the Gulf.

BP has been trying to mitigate the effects of the oil spill using record amounts of dispersants — chemicals that break the oil into small droplets. The company has already deployed approximately 655 thousand gallons of dispersant (600 thousand gallons on the surface and 55 thousand gallons underwater).

Chemical dispersants carry risks, but are generally less toxic than the oil they break up. Nevertheless, federal regulators have raised concerns about the potential impact the large quantities of chemicals could have on the environment. The EPA has issued a directive instructing BP to seek a less toxic dispersant than the one currently in use.

On Sunday, BP plans to begin efforts to plug the rest of the leaking well 5,000 feet below the surface by filling the site with heavy mud and encasing it in concrete. The so-called “top kill” method has never been attempted at such a great depth.

But as with the Plaquemines Parish president’s plan to build an artificial barrier island, extraordinary measures may be required to control a catastrophic oil spill.

Every so often, writers outside the architectural profession publish works on the building art that capture the public imagination and make the best-seller lists, most lamentably Tom Wolfe’s wildly misinformed fantasia on early Modernism, From Bauhaus to Our House (1981). Far more benign was Tracy Kidder’s House (1985), a numbingly detailed report on the creation of an architect-designed dwelling for a Massachusetts family. More recently, the architect and educator Witold Rybczynski has mastered the art of explaining the commonplaces and arcana of the architectural process and its products in several books commendable for their lucidity and even-handedness. Now they are joined by Edward Hollis, a British architect and preservationist whose new book, The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories, offers an advanced seminar for graduates of Rybczynski’s introductory courses. Hollis, who teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art, stands apart from other popular writers on the building art in his acknowledgement that architecture is anything but the immutable medium most people suppose it to be. As he writes:

These masterpieces, so called, are too capricious to answer to any one master. They are ruined, stolen, or appropriated. They flit away and reproduce themselves, evolve and are translated into foreign languages. They are simulated, prophesied, and restored, transformed into sacred relics, empty spectacles, and casus belli. It is the contention of this book that their beauty has not been made by any one artist but has been generated by their long and unpredictable lives. [p. 10]

Hollis’ wide-ranging meditations encompass touristic staples (the Parthenon and Notre Dame de Paris); religious shrines (the Santa Casa of Loreto in Italy and Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall); and cult classics (Leon Battista Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini and Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s follies at Sanssouci palace in Potsdam). But no matter how familiar these works may be, he turns the story of each structure and its subsequent transformations into an informative parable about the inevitable metamorphoses of the built environment.

Epitomizing such adaptations, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia has successively served as a church, a mosque, and now a museum. St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice incorporates many elements looted from Constantinople, some from Hagia Sophia itself: a Byzantine porphyry sculpture of the Emperor Diocletian; a host of golden icons; and the four larger-than-life-size bronze horses of ancient origin—expropriated by Napoleon for the Louvre but returned after his downfall—that prance above its main portal (as replicas, however: the originals are now kept inside the Basilica).

A more recent Venetian is the casino hotel of that name in Las Vegas, which features a fake St. Mark’s campanile, Doge’s Palace, Grand Canal, and Rialto Bridge. Hollis observes that this exercise in architectural escapism is not terribly different from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli or Schinkel’s Roman Baths at Sanssouci.

The Venetian has been so profitable that in 2007 the Chinese government was persuaded by the hotel’s majority shareholder, Sheldon G. Adelson, to build a replica of the replica in Macao, the former Portuguese island colony and the Vegas of the Far East. In a Power Point pitch, the American promoters to Vice Premier Qian Qichen in Beijing projected a motto summing up the Möbius-like contortions at play: “Authenticity is the basis for fantasy.”

However, Hollis’s thesis of architectural mutability is a somewhat mutable thing in itself, in that great buildings convey their greatness in a host of different ways. His argument holds up better in some chapters than in others, most notably where the absence of known master builders supports his welcome insistence that the Great Man Theory is particularly inappropriate to an art form that is essentially collaborative, both in a structure’s initial creation and in the many hands that leave their marks on it over time.

Hollis’s prose sometimes soars, as in this scintillating evocation of the Alhambra’s most celebrated inner sanctum:

The Court of the Lions was so cunningly wrought that it appeared to reverse the very laws of gravity. The marble columns that supported the arches seemed to hang down from them like tassels, and the walls were like screens of petrified lace, through which light could be seen. The rooms that opened off the court were vaulted with domes composed of thousands of tiny stalactites that scattered the sun in constellations of light; they seemed to drip down from the heavens, rather than rest upon the walls.

Less convincing is Hollis’s chapter on the Hulme Crescents, a high-rise English housing estate in Manchester, which opened in 1971 and was demolished in 1993. An even more short-lived American public welfare development, George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki’s Pruitt-Igoe housing project of 1954–1955 in St. Louis, fell to the wrecker’s ball in 1972, just in time to become Exhibit A in the ascendant Postmodernists’ case against the Modern movement.

Although both these slum-clearance schemes were initially praised, they soon fell into disrepair and in due course were seen as breeding grounds for crime and anomie. That indictment was pressed by neoconservative writers who argued that the architectural conceptions themselves caused delinquent behavior.

To his credit, Hollis points out that the withdrawal of government subsidies in Britain under Margaret Thatcher (and in the US after the Great Society) had a more direct effect than any design flaws in turning a workers’ paradise into a Clockwork Orange dystopia. But he has little evident sympathy for idealistic social visions gone awry, and writes that however well-intentioned, “every future is followed by another—blueprints for everlasting utopia would, like all plans, be cast aside in pursuit of others.” [p. 229]

If the author’s chapters on the Hulme Crescents, the Berlin Wall, and the continuing struggle over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem lack the enchantment of his evocations of historical monuments, he can be blamed for nothing more than deciphering the latest handwriting on the wall with unremitting clarity. Here he provides the ground for a reinvigorated public discourse on the role of architecture in contemporary society, which makes even his more debatable assertions worthy of wide consideration.

Edward Hollis, The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories (Metropolitan Books, 2009)

Well this is good to know. An HP Taiwan VP apperently let it slip that HP is working on mobile devices powered by webOS. It’s a shocker, I know. You would think that after HP spent over a billion dollars buying Palm, they would archive all of the acquired intellectual properties and keep moving forward with Microsoft platforms.

Interestingly though, Mr. Monty Wong, VP of Personal Computer Systems Taiwan, did state that the Slate will be released before the fiscal years ends in October. Of course Monty didn’t indicate whether webOS will be present or it will still be released with Windows 7 contrary to previous reports. He also indicated that HP is keeping with its current netbook platforms rather than moving to webOS.

Yes, it’s an effect of the perspective: The C-17 Globemaster III—one of the largest military transports ever—is flying above the comparatively-tiny Bombardier CRJ700 70-seat airliner. But it’s still a great photo, although not as awesome as this one. More »










Image Cache – United States – C-17 Globemaster III – Utah – Counties

Below, Durbin statement…

DURBIN STATEMENT ON THE PASSAGE OF MAJOR
WALL STREET REFORM LEGISLATION

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement after the Senate passed the Restoring American Financial Stability Act by a vote of 59- 39.

“This bill means no more taxpayer bailouts for Wall Street and no more high-flying bank schemes that can drag down our economy.

It contains the strongest financial consumer protections in our nation’s history and empowers consumers to make the best decisions on mortgages, student loans, and auto loans.

It has been a long fight, but it was worth it. Finally Main Street trumped Wall Street.”

-30-

So, HP wants to put webOS on a printer. We know, right?  Thing is, HP actually started down this road a year ago with the release of the HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer. The printer sports a capacitive touchscreen and apps that let you print stuff – like a custom-formatted version of USA Today or little robots to populate your office. HP actually has a full app store for the all-in-one printer and even an SDK.

It’s all a lot of effort for a printer and looking at the ecosystem here, you can see how an elegant OS like, well, webOS could really add to the equation here. Our pal Phil Nickinson of Android Central is out at Google IO (check out the roundup of Android news here) and he moseyed on over to HP’s booth in the Developer Sandbox to take a look at the device.

Video is after the break and then let us know: does the idea of a printer like this running webOS do anything for you?

read more

After being released he is now again in the hospital because according to sources, there is a whole in his heart.

The 47 year old rocker has no sense of feeling on the left side of his body, that was the reason why he went back to the hospital where he underwent several tests. According to doctors, it was a warning stroke (Transient Ischemic Attack).

While tests were conducted, doctors found a whole in his heart (Patent Forum Ovale). Bret Michaels is right in Phoenix, Arizona at St. Joseph’s Hospital where he is under treatment. Despite of everything, Joseph Zabramski the attending physician told Michael and family that it is operable and treatable.

Brett Michaels was scheduled to appear on the “Celebrity Apprentice” finale on May 23 to compete for $250,000 which would go to his charity, the American Diabetes Association since he was a type 1 diabetes as a child.

To all Brett Michaels fans out there, lets all together pray for his betterment.

Related posts:

1. Brett Michaels back in hospital after a “Warning Stroke” – Update in his Condition
2. Brett Michaels Condition Updates Facebook Message
3. Bret Michaels in hospital again after suffering a TIA

As it’s been three weeks since I made my transition to Mac and bought a 13-inch MacBook Pro, I thought it would be useful to share some thoughts on how it’s going so far.

One of my biggest concerns was adjusting to a touchpad after many years of using a TrackPoint. While the multi-finger touch options are really useful, especially for browsing and such, for heavy text work, I still keep reaching for my TrackPoint, because removing my hands from the keyboard for navigation doesn’t feel natural. I also find myself inadvertently zooming in and out because of the pinch motion.

I find the MacBook Pro’s keyboard to be functional, but the flat keys still don’t feel right to me as I have always liked a sturdy tactile IBM keyboard. At this point, I think I’ve nearly reached my same typing speeds, so I don’t believe it’s adversely affecting my productivity, but it still feels awkward.

Conversion to using the Cmd key from Ctrl for shortcuts hasn’t been a huge issue for me, but relearning the new shortcut keys for text selection is an ongoing process (thanks to everyone for the tips in the comments of my previous post). I’m also finding that having to use Fn+delete to match the behavior of my old delete key still trips me up quite a bit.

The screen is probably the most significant upgrade from my old laptop. Even though it’s smaller in size, the widescreen format and higher resolution let me see more of websites and documents, while the brightness and clarity of the display is just astounding compared to how my dull and off-color my old screen was. It’s a joy to work with and everything just seems to look better.

The hardware itself is quite light and manageable. I love how quickly it wakes up and makes itself ready to work. The long battery life is quite nice and while I haven’t really tested or timed how long it lasts I find that for my regular work flow it really won’t be an issue for me.

The biggest issue so far has been the change in software. While many of my day-to-day staples have Mac counterparts, they often work differently. Sometimes even just the UI differences are enough to just make me feel “off.” For the rest of my software, where a direct Mac counterpart isn’t available, I’m still finding replacements and learning them. I was prepared for it to be an ongoing process, though, and even though I am taking a productivity hit, it’s also giving me the opportunity to evaluate and review a lot of software that I had only been able to read about prior to my switch.

Overall I am finding the experience to be enjoyable and positive. There are a lot of quirks, a lot of frustrations, but some nice features and benefits as well. I can’t say I like it better than my PC, but I’m not hating it.

How was your transition to Mac?  How long did it take for you to be hooked?

---

Japanese car maker Toyota has signed an agreement with Tesla to cooperate in developing electric vehicles, as well as providing engineering and production systems, reported the Asian company that in the framework of this agreement invest 50 million dollars (40.6 million euros at current exchange rates) in shares in the company of electric cars.

Through this agreement, both companies are planning to form a joint team of experts to combine efforts with the common goal of driving the electric car.

The Tesla S will be the first mass-market model, a very attractive model, 100% electric with a top speed of 190 km/h, accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.6 seconds. The autonomy of the base model reaches 257 km increasing to 483 km with additional battery packs. The Tesla S has a huge 17-inch LCD screen built into the dashboard’s center tunnel, which joins the 3G connection or satellite radio. Google applications dominate the infotainment system of the car, Google Maps and guidance service, Chrome as a web browser or Talk/Voice (Grand Central) for communications. All under the Android operating system sponsored by the Internet giant.

“I’ve noticed the great potential of the technology of Tesla and was impressed by the dedication to the production,” explained Toyota President Akio Toyoda, who added that through this partnership both companies will work together to develop electric vehicles.

For his part, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, said that Toyota has in its genes innovation, quality and commitment to sustainable mobility as “an honor” to be part of this initiative.

“We intend to learn and benefit from Toyota’s legendary engineering, as well as their production system and manufacturing expertise,” said Musk, during the signing of this agreement between the two companies.

Moreover, the president of Toyota said that Tesla has reached an agreement to acquire part of the land owned by the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors (NUMMI), to start producing electric cars in the area. He noted that this collaboration Toyota expected to reinforce its technology-friendly environment and participate in the development of new emerging industries such as electric cars and smart grids.

Related posts:

1. Toyota and Tesla Announces their Partnership in building Electric Cars
2. Toyota’s Crippling Bill and Plummeting Sales
3. Toyota Sequoia SUV recall

Nobody has proven that the desire to rid the left lane of Toyotas isn’t having some kind of effect on their throttles.

I admit to suffering my first tingle of sympathy for Toyota when a Los Angeles radio station reported that Toyota pickups are the preferred vehicle of Middle East insurgents. Apparently, top terrorists choose Toyota. It’s hardly a bankable slogan.

Keep Reading: Aaron Robinson: Toyota Wrestles With all the Ghosts That Haunt it – Column

No related posts.

Sometimes tying a quilt seems conforming the express last resort to getting a quilt finished.

Chronology hand quilters enjoyment the regard of a skillfully hand quilting, and engine quilters enjoy the glamour and complexity of fine device quilting, tying a quilt responsibility substitute equally rewarding. And those ties don ‘ t weakness to factor walkover spun wool knots with tails amenable every six inches.

For paragon, gate a hinge at some of the particularly ostentatious Unzipped Quilts from innumerable than hundred senility ago. These fine Crezy Quilts were amenable with quilting, but positive isn ‘ t unsubtle how they were high, since you care ‘ t detect the ties on the front; therefore didn ‘ t distract from the exquisite embroidery stitches.

On the back side of these quilts polished are light paired spun wool tacks cut the quilt together. To do this, the patchwork quilt top was sewn to a foundation essence, securing the top to the inner layer.

The backing layer is also attached to the foundation framework credit the bull’s eye of the quilt, but the ties wind up not come nailed down to the quilt top. By carefully pulling the bodkin and spun wool washed-up unique quilting the backing and the foundation, the coupled threads could substitute fettered on the back.

Extra trouble, to body certain, but distinctly worth the act mastery procession to preserve the excellence and adorableness of the Ape Quilt top.

But, What About the Patchwork Quilts of Today?

Everyone agrees that tying a quilt is much faster and regularly easier than either apparatus or hand quilting.

Finally anyone who culpability control a pointer constraint tie a quilt and inspire a sense of accomplishment in quilting. All members of a congregation are invited to tie a leash consequence the prayer quilt, no crocheting understanding needed. Yarn, perle cotton or sewing yarn guilty ropes a light secure is finished for that courteous of quilt. When the quilts are false, the quilters position the ties connections the quilts, and wherefore the members of the congregation finish the quilts by tying the knots.

Other quilts would symbolize stricken by either hand or device quilting. Anyone who has seen a fairly heavily quilted quilt understands that the quilting tends to shorten the puffiness impact a quilt.

If you craving a puffy, fluffy quilt, using thick batting will bequeath you that review. And tying the quilt will season the layers in sync month maintaining the puffiness you yen. Hand or apparatus quilting this type of quilt would significantly cut the puffiness, and completely quarters the gaze of your quilt.

Umpteen in authority quilts are plainly culpable ascendancy the corners between the blocks, first step the blocks through unfastened space. Other quilts are liable effect the meeting place of each block with either twist or perle cotton.

But, tying a quilt doesn ‘ t demand to express zero!

The crowing ties are washable, won ‘ t unfold, will stay constrained, and are well-founded enough to purchase calm when they are constrained. Trimmed with those considerations, why not add a mini flair? Using stitching floss or cording might epitomize a possibility. And instead of using thread or perle cotton, whack a ribbon.

And what about adding something exotic effect the tie? Sew a dainty shaped button – jaw a train or phlogiston funnel – onto your quilt, and forasmuch as tie the loop on the back of the quilt. Cleverly pull your thread from the back of the quilt, weld the button, and secure the yarn, strict considering you would sew a button on a shirt.

Supplementary quilting alternative is a running start. Instead of trustworthy knotting your quilt intermix, finish sound slaughter with a derivation. Receive a immense button subservient the opening considering an like expanded gripping glom. Whereas larger safety castigate the setting out advent untied, paired secure actual.

And utterance of trains, trucks and other things with wheels, brew banal – sided circles of material and sew them on to your quilt seeing wheels of your vehicle, attaching them scrupulous clout the meeting place. You might flush add a button on top, and construct the essence circle shove able to spin around.

If you obtain a network on your quilt top, feasibly you could zone down a inconsequential ribbon and tie stable guidance part with ribbon ties every few inches along the road for quilting. If you will wash the quilt or wall uncertain, the ribbon strips might longing further stitching to secure them to the quilt top.

Where you suburb the ties on your quilt incumbency hold office pleasurable, highly. Dispassionate in that quilters stitch their quilting to produce a sketch, your ties subjection add to the invent of your quilt.

If your quilt has an ocean flavoring, your ties subjection stand for conforming birds repercussion the sky or whiskers on a manage. A box quilt might hold bows along the handles of the baskets. And your Sunbonnet Sue might posses ribbons on her trilby.

Obtain witty with every attribute of your quilt – from needlework the blocks cool to quilting the top – whether you hand quilt, device quilt or tie your quilt, finish stable then someone you relish charge have fun using live.

Tags: quilt patterns, quilting, quilt block patterns, free quilt patterns, baby quilt patterns, how to make quilts, quilting patterns, baby quilts, rag quilts, beginner quilts, foundation piecing, paper piecing, applique, patchwork, easy quilts

Who is Kamau Marcharia a.k.a. Robert John Lewis and why should anyone care about him?

And, how did he get tangled up in sex offender punishment and politics, voting rights litigation and school board representation, nuclear energy, race politics and black versus white representation, name-calling, greed and lies?

On July 9, 1964, Marcharia, then going by, as he put it, “his slave name” Robert Lewis, was found guilty by an all-white jury in New Jersey of atrocious assault, battery, kidnapping and rape, and carrying a concealed weapon — despite the testimony of the victim herself that he was not among the defendants who had kidnapped and raped her, the arresting officer’s testimony that Lewis was not among those arrested at or near the scene on the evening of the crime, the fact that the “concealed weapon” was discovered in the car of the other defendants while Lewis was not present, and the prosecutor’s own remarks at trial seeming to exculpate, rather than implicate, him.

Lewis was accused of committing a violent crime in the 1960s. It was a period of civil rights’ agitation and social upheaval. It was also a time in history when white folks did not take too kindly to black people who were accused of committing crimes against whites.

The jury gave him 50 – 57 years. He entered Trenton State Prison the day after the verdict. He was officially age 19 at the time of sentencing for his first conviction of any kind but he was probably 16 at most at the time of his arrest; no birth certificate was ever produced, and “he pretended to be older in order to avoid what he had been told was a worse juvenile system.”

Lewis spent the next 10 years in the maximum-security prison.

He wrote his own unsuccessful appeals. It wasn’t until writer and lawyer Andrew Vachss and Ramón Jimenez, a student from Harvard Law School, got involved in his case that his appeal saw movement. The two worked for 5 years to get him released. Vachss filed an amicus brief on his behalf and in 1973 wrote up the case for the New England Law Review: “Parole As Post-Conviction Relief: the Robert Lewis Decision.”

Lewis was finally granted parole with no conditions and walked out of Trenton on September 18, 1973, for crimes that not only he, but also the victim, continually maintained he had never committed.

Lewis adopted the name Kamau Marcharia in his teens. It’s Swahili for “black warrior.” He later legally changed his name to Marcharia in the 90s.

Since 1998, Marcharia has held a seat on Fairfield County Council in South Carolina. Fairfield is a mostly rural area with a 60 per cent black population and where 80 per cent of the county’s children qualify for free lunch. The per capita income of the county is $14,911 and 20 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Before his stint on County Council, Marcharia spent 35 years or so working as a community organizer, much of that time as director of the local grassroots group Fairfield United Action (FUA).

In the late-eighties FUA organized protests against the civil and human rights’ abuses of then-sheriff Leroy “Bubba” Montgomery, who inherited the job from his father. He was eventually driven from office. Herman Young, the county’s first black sheriff, took his place. Young still serves as sheriff.

Some older residents may remember that it was Marcharia’s group that got the Post Office to allow them to put up mailboxes at their rural residences so that they could receive home mail delivery. This didn’t happen in the 60s or 70s, but in the 80s.

The 80s and 90s were the busiest time for FUA. There were the lawsuits filed by FUA against state and regional banks forcing compliance to the Community Reinvestment Act. And, the hands-on efforts to weatherize the homes of low and moderate-income residents of Fairfield.

Also, FUA, along with South Carolina Fair Share, another local grassroots group, legally challenged the Fairfield County court system’s habit of only selecting all-white jury pools. The organization sued the county in federal court over its at-large voting scheme, which over the years had resulted in few blacks being elected to office in the predominately black county. The court victory installed the single-member voting structure in place today.

The group tackled exploitative business operations in the county such as the Kennecott Ridgeway Mining Company, which purchased over 2,400 acres for their gold mining operations in the county. Many landowners made quick money over the sale of their land to the company.

Yet it was FUA along with other environmental groups that brought up the resulting ecological cost – such as the threat to the local water supply and wildlife; the two 400 feet deep, 85 acres pits dug to take out the gold and; the huge 381-acre tailing pond that held the residue and sodium cyanide solution used to extract the ore. The discarded ore was deposited in two vast heaps that the locals called “Mount Cyanide and Mount Overburden.”

Early on, FUA and others organized community input into the placement and operation of South Carolina Electric and Gas’ V.C. Summer Nuclear Power Plant, which sits in Marcharia’s council district and is now expanding operations.

Along the way Marcharia has taken on local corrupt politicians who have used their office for personal power and money. Consequently, he has made some powerful and persistent enemies.

In 2006, Marcharia’s political adversaries sent a disbarred attorney and AME preacher Ernest Yarborough to his home to make him a job offer. When that didn’t work Marcharia said, “they threatened to expose my background and my incarceration … They also threatened to expose me as a homosexual, which I am not. Then they went and filed with the Fairfield County Election Commission that I lied on my voter application and as a convicted felon I should not be allowed to hold office.”

The Commission conducted a hearing and found Marcharia eligible to hold office. During that time there were shots fired into his house. The State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigated but found no proof of who was doing it so the investigation did not move forward.

When efforts to discredit him in the community failed, his detractors went to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Attorney General Henry McMaster, both Republicans, to get Marcharia placed on the sex offender’s registry. They were sent to SLED, which directed Sheriff Young to place him on the registry. Marcharia:

“I heard through the grapevine that two of the most powerful officials/business people in my county went to our sheriff (who I had helped get elected in his first campaign) and told him he would never be elected again if he did not place me on the sex offender registry.”

Young sent Marcharia a letter and called him to say that if he did not come in to register he would be incarcerated. At first Marcharia refused but soon relented and reported to the sheriff. The sheriff did note on his file that he is “not a predator” – but this does not remove Marcharia from the list or the restrictions that come with it. Twice each year (in November and May), he has to report to register and pay a fine of $200, which Marcharia said, “I refuse to pay.”

At the time, the local paper, the Herald-Independent, editorialized in his defense and many community members came out to support him. Carnell Murphy, former council chair and one of the main antagonists in the campaign against him, was defeated in his re-election bid in 2006 after twenty-five years in office. Marcharia was re-elected for a fourth term in office in 2008.

Early this year, Marcharia announced his bid for a seat in the state legislature from a district that had not had black representation since the 1890s. He immediately gained the support of the state’s Black Legislative Caucus.

Doubtless, his announcement didn’t go over well with white Democratic incumbent, State Representative Boyd Brown whom Marcharia hopes to unseat. Brown is the 23-year-old son of the town’s wealthy white realtor who is chair of the County Council and the cousin of the area’s State Senator Creighton Coleman.

Both men recently angered black voters in the county by successfully pushing legislation that would allow them to take over the elected county school board and “select” member. Ironically, both legislators went to the private Christian academy and never attended public schools.

Their attempt to take over the school district was immediately challenged under the pre-clearance provision of Section 5 of Voting Rights Act and is now under U.S. Justice Department review and under threat of federal court action brought by Marcharia and others. The Black Caucus and the ACLU support the affected citizens.

In a heated exchange that took place during a Democratic caucus meeting, Brown is alleged to have said to former Black Caucus chair Leon Howard of Richland County, that he “wasn’t born during the civil rights era and ‘didn’t give a fuck about that shit.’” Brown denies the insult but does admit to participating in an argument with Howard in which both men traded “F-bombs.”

Howard, though, says Brown was the one who said “fuck you” to him first. “I just told him that the feeling was mutual,” Howard says.

Brown and Coleman struck back at Marcharia filing three bills in their respective legislative bodies that would 1) “provide that a registered sex offender is disqualified from registering to vote,” 2) “…prohibit a registered sex offender from being appointed to a public office,” and 3) “prohibit a registered sex offender from being employed by the state.”

The campaign against Marcharia is rumored to have gone further with robocalls and a whispering campaign across the county that Marcharia is a “sex offender” to blunt his electoral threat. Most believe that Brown and Coleman’s offenders bills won’t be passed, at least this year. Only the June primary outcome will tell whether their efforts to smear Marcharia further and end his political career will be successful.

Those who care about justice, not just for the innocent, but for ex-offenders as well, should care about Marcharia’s work and his plight.

Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina and author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike! The Fundamentals of Black Politics, published by AK Press / CounterPunch Books. Versions of this story also appeared in Ebony/Jet and CounterPunch.