Monthly Archives: September 2012

Wake Forest holds on to beat Liberty 20-17

Posted: September 2, 2012 at 1:15 pm

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Redshirt freshman Deandre Martin scored the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter on a 2-yard run as Wake Forest came from behind to defeat Liberty 20-17 Saturday.

On a rain-soaked evening, the Demon Deacons had all they could handle with Liberty, a Football Championship Subdivision foe with 65 scholarship players.

The Flames led 14-7 late in the third quarter when Wake Forest safety A.J. Marshall stepped in front of a Brian Hudson pass and returned it 39 yards for a touchdown to help turn the tide.

On Wake Forest's next possession, Martin capped a nine-play, 60-yard drive by racing around right end to give the Demon Deacons their first lead at 20-14 with 13:24 remaining. Martin ran for 74 yards after taking over in the first quarter when starting running back Josh Harris left with a concussion and did not return.

Hudson threw for 263 yards and two touchdowns for Liberty.

Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe had concerns over his offensive line after replacing four starters from last season - and that inexperience showed.

The Demon Deacons looked out of sync in the early going, failing to register a first down on their first three possessions. Even when they did finally move the chains late in the first quarter it looked ugly as quarterback Tanner Price had to scramble for a 4-yard gain on third-and-4 on a busted play.

Wake Forest had 42 total yards midway through the second quarter and trailed 7-0 until Price found his favorite target Michael Campanaro down the middle for a 31-yard touchdown pass to tie the game. Campanaro had 96 yards on nine catches.

Liberty outgained Wake Forest 178-145 in the first half and had a chance to take a 10-7 lead entering the locker room but John Lunsford's 49-yard field goal sailed wide right as time expired.

That miss would come back to haunt the Flames.

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Wake Forest holds on to beat Liberty 20-17

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Liberty send Mystics to fifth loss in a row

Posted: at 1:15 pm

NEWARK, N.J. Essence Carson scored 20 points and Cappie Pondexter added 14 to lead the New York Liberty past the last-place Washington Mystics 79-73 on Saturday.

Kara Braxton had 14 points, including eight in a decisive 11-0 run in the second quarter, to help New York (10-16) snap a three-game losing streak. Carson shot 8 for 13 from the field and also had six assists. The Liberty moved into a tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference with Chicago, which played at Indiana later Saturday night. Atlanta is 31/ 2 games ahead in third.

Every game is crucial at this point, said Carson, who got a rare start after usually being the Libertys first player off the bench. We have to think that we need every game. We had to win a game like this, especially with the situation were in.

Pondexter, bothered by sore Achilles on both feet, believes New York has to win seven of its final nine games to secure a postseason berth.

If we want to make the playoffs, thats what we need to do, she said. We also have to count on others to lose. Destiny is not in our own hands. We have a chance to make up the difference and get in.

Pondexter knew that she wasnt feeling well and tried to play through the pain, but shot just 6 for 18.

It was great that Essence stepped up, Pondexter said. Im happy we got the win. Its more important than me getting 20 points. I just wanted to give as much effort as I could.

Liberty head coach John Whisenant was pleased with the team effort.

We told them that it didnt matter who we were playing, that we had to play hard, Whisenant said. Essence came back and played well. She got more minutes. We shook the starting lineup around a little, not for any reason. It seemed to work.

Monique Currie scored 20 points, Crystal Langhorne had 19 points and eight rebounds, and Jasmine Thomas added 18 for Washington (5-21), which lost its fifth straight.

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‘North to Freedom’ statue in Brewer only official Maine memorial to Underground Railroad

Posted: at 1:11 am

BREWER, Maine Stories about how fugitive slaves in the 1800s made their way to freedom in Canada by way of Brewer are pieces of local lore that should never be forgotten, historian Richard Dick Campbell said Saturday.

Nothing was documented, he said, but there are lots of tidbits of history that link Brewer to the Underground Railroad.

Brewers Chamberlain Freedom Park is home to the only official Maine memorial to the Underground Railroad, a vast network of secret routes and people credited with helping thousands upon thousands of runaway slaves escape the tyranny of their southern owners.

The park sits at the location of the former Holyoke House, a brick house once occupied by wealthy abolitionist John Holyoke, where a slave-style shirt was found tucked in the eaves of the attic in 1995 and a stone-lined shaft was discovered the following year when the Department of Transportation tore down the house to improve the four-way intersection at State and North Main streets.

The handstitched white shirt is now on display at the Brewer Historical Society, which oversees the park that features a historic display, a bronze statue of Brewer native and Civil War hero, Col. Joshua Chamberlain, and the North to Freedom statue.

The statue depicts a runaway slave looking back toward the south and leaning to the north as he hoists himself out of an underground tunnel to freedom. It serves as a tribute to slaves who used the Underground Railroad, to the abolitionist movement and to the role the state played, Campbell said.

Houlton sculptors Glenn and Diane Hines created the historic figure that sits on a grate over the stone-lined shaft that Campbell, fellow historian Brian Higgins and others believe was used to hide slaves. The shaft is located where the root cellar of Holyokes summer kitchen once stood. The home also was known as the Christmas House.

Oral traditions are that it was the site of the Underground Railroad, Campbell said.

Even though every state in the north had legally abolished slavery in the first decades of the 1800s, thanks to abolitionists who believed slavery was against their Christian faith, the federal government continued to pass laws allowing the capture of runaway slaves, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Centers website states.

The federal government had passed Fugitive Slave Acts as early as 1793 that allowed slave catchers to come north and force runaways back into slavery, the site states. By the 1830s and 1840s, these laws were expanded in reaction to increased Underground Railroad activity. With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, assisting or helping hide fugitive slaves became a federal offense, making all Underground Railroad activity subject to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

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‘North to Freedom’ statue in Brewer only official Maine memorial to Underground Railroad

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Liberty 79, Mystics 73

Posted: at 1:11 am

UpdatedSep 1, 2012 8:17 PM ET

Essence Carson scored 20 points and Cappie Pondexter added 16 to lead the New York Liberty past the last-place Washington Mystics 79-73 on Saturday.

Kara Braxton had 14 points, including eight in a decisive 11-0 run in the second quarter, to help New York (10-16) snap a three-game losing streak. Carson shot 8 for 13 from the field and also had six assists. The Liberty moved into a tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference with Chicago, which played at Indiana later. Atlanta is 3 1/2 games ahead in third.

''Every game is crucial at this point,'' said Carson, who got a rare start after usually being the Liberty's first player off the bench. ''We have to think that we need every game. We had to win a game like this, especially with the situation we're in.''

Pondexter, bothered by sore Achilles on both feet, believes New York has to win seven of its final nine games to secure a postseason berth.

''If we want to make the playoffs, that's what we need to do,'' she said. ''We also have to count on others to lose. Destiny is not in our own hands. We have a chance to make up the difference and get in.''

Pondexter knew that she wasn't feeling well and tried to play through the pain, but shot just 6 for 18.

''It was great that Essence stepped up,'' Pondexter said. ''I'm happy we got the win. It's more important than me getting 20 points. I just wanted to give as much effort as I could.''

Liberty head coach John Whisenant was pleased with the team effort.

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Liberty 79, Mystics 73

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Liberty begin key stretch in push for playoff spot

Posted: at 1:11 am

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- The New York Liberty entered the weekend one-half game out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. With six of their last nine games at home, they know this is the time to make their big push.

The Liberty have struggled for consistency all season, winning three games in a row just once while losing at least three straight three times. However, this final stretch is their best chance for a run with six games against teams owning worse records, and one against Chicago - which is just ahead of them in the East.

''Washington might catch one of us but probably can't catch both of us,'' Liberty coach John Whisenant said. ''We've fought through a lot of our hard schedule.''

New York (9-16) has three games remaining with the Mystics, who are last in the East, starting Saturday at the Prudential Center. The Liberty also have two against Tulsa and one against Phoenix, and -along with the Mystics - those three teams are a combined 16-58.

''Sometimes we have as much trouble with Washington and Tulsa as we do with (first-place) Connecticut,'' Whisenant said. ''They're still hard to (beat). They have good players. They've had their own injury problems, their own karma problems, and if you catch them at the right time they'll get us. ... We've just got to keep plugging away.''

The Liberty came off a nine-day road trip in which they lost three of five, and opened a stretch of six straight at home with a 76-63 loss to second-place Indiana on Thursday night - giving them their latest three-game skid.

Cappie Pondexter pointed to fatigue from the travel in the recent road swing for the team's struggles against Indiana, in a game New York trailed by one early in the fourth quarter before being outscored 25-12 the rest of the way. New York's trip started in Connecticut on Aug. 18 and went through Chicago and Phoenix before finishing up with back-to-back games in Los Angeles and Seattle last weekend.

''Everybody looked a step slow,'' Pondexter said. ''It's hard coming off the road, from west to east, six games in nine days against great teams. ... We had one day to prepare for another great team.''

The star guard also knows this upcoming stretch is critical to the Liberty's postseason chances.

''We need all these games at home because playing at home is a different kind of energy because you're not travelling as much as the other team,'' she said. ''Next game against Washington, if we don't think they're going to come in and try to win and spoil our playoff hopes, we don't deserve to be there.''

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How to Prepare for IT Service Delivery of the Future

Posted: at 1:11 am

Most people fear automation. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the "A-word" has conjured up rebellion by those who are vulnerable to replacement by machines. When you automate a job, there is a high likelihood that the machinery will reduce dependence on human interaction and may even eliminate the need for humans altogether. In the future, some IT roles will diminish in numbers and possibly disappear altogether -- but service management and automation will always need innovators and leaders.

The majority of organizations have adopted IT service management practices (ITSM) to manage business and technological change. But gone are the days ruled by the technology Illuminati. The future will require customer-obsession, relentless focus on the portfolio of services, automation, and expansion far beyond the walls of the organization. To stay relevant and competitive, business leaders must drop the "IT" from ITSM and embrace industrialized automation as a way to deliver customer outcomes faster, cheaper and at higher quality.

True service management evolution will be impossible without drastic, fundamental changes in automation. In Forrester's Service Management and Automation Playbook, my colleagues and I maintain that it is critical for firms to embrace automation from an organizational perspective. If executed successfully, firms will gain significant economies of scale and increase the ability to focus on services, as enhanced visibility into broader technology domains provides invaluable clarity. Naturally, automation will be heavily influenced and, in many cases, driven by individuals with strong process backgrounds.

As part of this critical transformation, a company must: 1) optimize IT staffing resources for maximum business value, 2) transform employees into technology and process innovators, and 3) develop fundamental service brokering and integration skills.

Step 1: Optimize IT Staffing Resources For Maximum Business Value

When a firm has employees performing multiple tasks, it is essential to make optimum use of the right talents and identify areas where individual skills are not appropriately leveraged. Some examples include:

- A network engineer who holds multiple certifications with years of technical experience, but is responsible for routine troubleshooting and configuration changes.

- A database administrator who would rather be interacting with customers, but spends valuable time digging through complex databases.

- A service desk agent with an innate ability to solve complex problems, but is unable to transfer to a command center position where they can be more effective at solving bigger issues.

Too many infrastructure and operations professionals fulfill both an engineering and operational function -- two distinct roles that mandate different mental faculties and emotional competencies. Engineering is an inherently creative process that takes time to master and requires deep technical expertise, while operations professionals stress methodical process adherence and an ability to switch tasks frequently and adapt to continuously changing demands. Most individuals can perform one or the other well -- but not both.

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Dr M suggests closer look at ‘freedom’ in Third World nations

Posted: September 1, 2012 at 3:18 am

Posted on September 1, 2012, Saturday

KUALA LUMPUR: The word FREEDOM in the background of the spectacular 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony on Aug 12, prompted former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to suggest a closer look at the lack of freedom many independent countries of the world experienced due to Western hegemony.

He said that although there was no indication as to whom it was directed and what the purpose was, he felt sure that the millions of audience immediate thoughts were the need for freedom in many third world countries.

The former prime minister said some of these countries had lost men and suffered much before winning what they believed was the freedom that came with their independence.

But are they free? It was Soekarno of Indonesia (the first President of Indonesia), who quickly realised that the decolonised independent nations were not really free, he said in his latest post titled Freedom on his blog, http://www.chedet.cc.

He said they (decolonised independent nations) had to do what the ex-masters told them or face either economic or political pressures, or pressure from the international media controlled by them (ex-masters) which Soekarno described as a new form of colonialism called Neo Colonialism.

He went on to scrutinise the present state of the countries of the world in particular those which became independent after the last Great War.

We cannot help but conclude that the so-called independent countries are still having to obey the orders of the former colonial powers headed by the super superpower which won the Cold War, he said.

He said it was not a bad thing for the independent countries to be told that the only system they could have was the democratic system.

Regime changes to install candidates friendly to the West changes to laws of the countries to serve the interests of the West were another matter, he added.

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James Taranto: Liberal Opposition To Free Speech Solidified Me As A Conservative – Video

Posted: at 3:17 am

31-08-2012 09:38 James Taranto, author of the Wall Street Journal's 'Best of the Web Today' column, describes how being suspended from college for having written a column defending free speech led him to become a conservative. Get the rest of the story at NewsBusters:

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Court » Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

Posted: at 3:17 am

Court Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

A group attempting to get an employee-verification measure on Utahs Nov. 6 ballot lost its lawsuit Friday after a judge ruled that new state requirements for qualifying an initiative doesnt infringe upon free speech rights.

"The laws do not limit the ability of citizens to raise issues and initiate political discussions," 3rd District Court Judge Randall Skanchy wrote in his ruling.

The case centered around former Republican Congressman Merrill Cooks attempt to qualify a ballot measure for November that would require the state to adopt a tough E-Verify law in an attempt to halt the hiring of illegal immigrants for work in Utah.

Utah currently has an E-Verify law on the books, but it has no penalties. Cooks measure is similar to Arizonas E-Verify law, where business licenses could be revoked if employers are caught hiring people not authorized to work in the United States.

Cook argued in court that a law signed by Gov. Gary Herbert in 2011 restricts free speech because it significantly curbed the ability of volunteers to gather enough signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.

To get a measure on the ballot under the new law, signatures must be gathered within 316 days and their number must equal at least 10 percent of the votes cast for president. Before, it was 10 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election and the time frame to collect signatures could extend out to as long as three years.

Cook said the new law, SB165, was a "cynical ploy" by the Legislature to quash ballot initiatives especially E-Verify. The Legislature had a tough E-Verify bill introduced in the past session, but it died in committee.

In response to Skanchys ruling, Cook said the judge didnt understand the relationship between the petition process and free speech.

"Hes accepted a very narrow definition of free speech," said Cook, who contends that free speech on an issue means being able to sign a petition and vote on it, not just talk about it.

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Judge rules against foes of Utah’s initiative law

Posted: at 3:17 am

Court Ruling says requirements do not infringe on free speech.

A group attempting to get an employee-verification measure on Utahs Nov. 6 ballot lost its lawsuit Friday after a judge ruled that new state requirements for qualifying an initiative doesnt infringe upon free speech rights.

"The laws do not limit the ability of citizens to raise issues and initiate political discussions," 3rd District Court Judge Randall Skanchy wrote in his ruling.

The case centered around former Republican Congressman Merrill Cooks attempt to qualify a ballot measure for November that would require the state to adopt a tough E-Verify law in an attempt to halt the hiring of illegal immigrants for work in Utah.

Utah currently has an E-Verify law on the books, but it has no penalties. Cooks measure is similar to Arizonas E-Verify law, where business licenses could be revoked if employers are caught hiring people not authorized to work in the United States.

Cook argued in court that a law signed by Gov. Gary Herbert in 2011 restricts free speech because it significantly curbed the ability of volunteers to gather enough signatures to qualify initiatives for the ballot.

To get a measure on the ballot under the new law, signatures must be gathered within 316 days and their number must equal at least 10 percent of the votes cast for president. Before, it was 10 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election and the time frame to collect signatures could extend out to as long as three years.

Cook said the new law, SB165, was a "cynical ploy" by the Legislature to quash ballot initiatives especially E-Verify. The Legislature had a tough E-Verify bill introduced in the past session, but it died in committee.

In response to Skanchys ruling, Cook said the judge didnt understand the relationship between the petition process and free speech.

"Hes accepted a very narrow definition of free speech," said Cook, who contends that free speech on an issue means being able to sign a petition and vote on it, not just talk about it.

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Judge rules against foes of Utah’s initiative law

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