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We are awash, of course, in clouds of yellow pollen, now that the oaks have begun their annual sex party. I'm still sort of amused at myself for thinking yesterday was the right day to wash our cars. In fact, I remember thinking, as I did so, "Oh, good, this means it'll rain soon." But no...just waves and waves more pollen...coating everything, including this sunflower seedling in the back garden.Posted by PicasaFortunately, the pollen doesn't give me too much trouble, except as regards appearances...and the odd explosive sneeze. Which is good, as this is sort of an exciting time in the garden. In the fall, and throughout the spring, in my quest for the ultimate, overgrown cottage garden look, I've followed each weeding session with a pretty casual scattering of different seeds. Some were collected in other parts of the garden, or in other gardens...or just along the side of the road.
Nongaming, luxury hotel for A.C.
The Chelsea will begin taking reservations next month for its 330 rooms and 12 suites that offer sweeping ocean and bay views, and debuts to the public Memorial Day weekend. Prices will range from $95 to $275 a night during the off-peak season, or $225 to $450 a night during the peak summer season. Bashaw's sister, Colleen, designed the interior of the Chelsea, revealed yesterday for the first time. There will be a 15,000- square-foot rooftop swimming pool area with private cabanas; a 6,500-square-foot luxury spa; and a fifth-floor social area - the Terrace Lounge - with a bar, game room and living room. Philadelphia-based restaurateur Stephen Starr will manage all food and beverage at the property, including room service. There are two Starr restaurants - Teplitzky's, a diner on the ground floor, and Chelsea Prime, an upscale steakhouse on the fifth floor, which has the feel of a supper club of the 1960s.
Petfinder.com Offers Enhanced Support for Military Families and Their ...
SILVER SPRING, Md., Aug. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Petfinder.com today announced the release of its Military Services Pet Tips and enhanced support solutions to help enlisted personnel find the right solutions for their pet before leaving on a tour of duty. This critical information was developed as a result of a recent member survey conducted by Petfinder.com. The survey found that over half of its shelters and rescue groups located near U.S. military bases experience significant increases in surrendered pets surrounding large deployments. Petfinder.com's Betsy Saul offers tips to the community that surrounds the military to assist soldiers in making sure their pets are kept safe and ready for them upon their return from serving their country. In addition, Petfinder.com has also stepped up efforts to support its military base shelters and rescue groups to help find appropriate deployment foster care in the event that a friend or relative is not available.
Math-challenged Sheriff Joe Arpaio can’t account for the $41 million ...
Alt-Weeklies Provide Web Links to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Home Address Action Taken in Solidarity with Phoenix New Times Letters From the Issue of Thursday, March 8, 2007 Letters From the Issue of Thursday, March 8, 2007 Letters From the Issue of Thursday, March 1, 2007 Letters From the Issue of Thursday, February 15, 2007 .
Kidnap leader 'showed off bomb ingredients'
Parviz Khan, the ringleader of the Muslim soldier beheading plot, was running ingredients used in the July 7 bombs to Afghanistan to be used in training camps, police believe. Plot leader 'groomed children for terrorism'Beheading plot ringleader jailed for lifeOn surveillance tapes he seemed to be showing off tablets of hexamine used in camping stoves - one of the ingredients used by the suicide bombers in the construction of their devices. .
Inside Politics
"This will come as a shock to throngs of delirious Democrats, but the winner of the party's nomination does not automatically become President. There will be — repeat, will be — a general election. And John McCain is already showing he is going to be one tough opponent," New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin writes.
"With their party's huge primary turnouts and record-shattering contributions, many Dems act as though the survivor of the showdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wins a cakewalk to the White House. There is talk of a landslide and big gains in Congress," Mr. Goodwin said.
"The prevailing sentiment is not that the GOP is weak. It's that the GOP is dead.
"McCain, the aging, craggy-faced warrior, begs to differ.
THQ oils up Big Beach Sports
THQ has made a major push onto Nintendo's hot-commodity console the Wii in recent weeks. Two Thursdays ago, the publisher debuted its combative music rhythm game Band Mashups, where players arm themselves with sniper violins and flame-throwing guitars to best their opponents and change up the music style. Last Thursday, THQ continued to attack the underbelly of the Wii with the creepy-crawler action game Deadly Creatures. Today, THQ said it would be adding yet another title exclusively to the Wii's library with Big Beach Sports. Slated for a global release in summer 2008, Big Beach Sports plans to bring fun in the sun indoors with a variety of sand-friendly physical minigames. Aiming squarely at the casual Wii-gaming crowd, Big Beach Sports will include football, volleyball, soccer, cricket, disc golf, and bocce.
Great runners keep their eyes on the prize
Awesome Detroit Lions Roll Toward Playoffs: (Note: New running item that might not last long.) Sign of the times: I just changed the "JK" entry in my AutoCorrect from "John Kerry" to "Jon Kitna." The Lions are 12th in offense and 28th in defense, yet somehow 6-2; the football gods promise an investigation. Detroit switched to eight- or even nine-man fronts, daring Patrick Ramsey to throw. And unfortunately for Denver, he accepted. Note that once the score was 37-0 in the fourth quarter, Kitna and most of Detroit's other starters sat down. And if you haven't seen the highlight clip of 340-pound Detroit defensive tackle Shaun Rogers running 66 yards for a touchdown with an interception, you must. Perhaps "running" is not the correct verb. Rather, let's call it "moving" 66 yards. Anyway, go to the happy-talk NFL.com (see below) and watch it under Game Clips.
War Blog
AQI got a message today: their days in Mosul are numbered. The only place left to them will be Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Kurds will tear them to pieces if they show their faces there. Sunday, March 2, 2008
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Price, Canadiens take on Sharks
Montreal, which is 20-9-4 on the road this year, will also visit Phoenix, Los Angeles and Anaheim over the next week.
San Jose picked up some goaltending depth at the trade deadline, signing Brian Boucher to a one-year contract last Tuesday, and the netminder made his Sharks debut on Saturday.
Boucher stopped 24 shots in a 2-0 victory over St. Louis for his 14th career shutout. Boucher had been playing for the Philadelphia Phantoms, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Flyers, and hadn't played a game in the NHL since March 30 of last season with Columbus.
Starting netminder Evgeni Nabokov has played in all but three of San Jose's games this year, and is tied for the league lead in wins with 35.
Joe Pavelski and Mike Grier scored for the Sharks, who won their season-high fifth straight game.
Autonomy’s renaissance
The problem with staring at the horizon is that it becomes easy to trip. The UK software darling Autonomy has undoubted potential. It is the market leader in “unstructured search" – clever software that can grasp context and identify relationships across a variety of files, from e-mail and spreadsheets to audio and video. It can listen to call centre conversations, for example, and suggest actions to staff as they speak, cutting down on training needs. Duplication of effort can be avoided in large and disparate organisations. Productivity gains as yet undiscovered lie in wait for businesses who can better exploit information not gathered up into neat databases. So the grand hope is that Autonomy's technology will become embedded into the very infrastructure of business software.
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