"It was kind of a leap of faith for both of us," coach Jim Grobe said Tuesday. "But we haven't been disappointed. He's got a big-time leg."

Kinal said he had to retrain his leg to kick in a more Americanized way.

A well-struck ball in Australia — where the game is called "footy" — rotates end-over-end and might not clear 10 feet in height. That's exactly what U.S. coaches don't want in a sport that prizes spiraling punts that hang in the air for several seconds at a time.

"We kick it end-over-end (in Australia) because it's sort of more precise — you know exactly where it's going," Kinal said. "If (Australians) get a ball kicked to us like we kick one of these balls here, it's called a hospital ball because you will go to the hospital if you stand underneath it. And that's not a lie. I've stood underneath plenty of them."

Kinal played roughly 10 years in Australia's junior footy leagues and became interested in American football after watching countrymen Sav Rocca and Ben Graham punting in the NFL.

Last fall, Kinal shot a video of himself punting and sent it to "a bunch of D-I schools." Some schools shied away because of his inexperience. He heard back from four, and says Wake Forest was the most promising.

Demon Deacons assistant coach Billy Mitchell watched the tape and summoned his boss to take a look. Grobe then had noted kicking guru Rick Sang check it out.

"He punted a couple balls that haven't come down yet," Grobe said. "It goes up and it goes up and it goes up and finally, way down the field, it drops on the ground, and you know, we're like, 'Wait a minute, something's wrong here.'"

Grobe said the video was authentic.

"It wasn't punting a Nerf ball. It wasn't filled with helium. It wasn't an Australian-rules ball or anything. It was a for-real football," Grobe said.

Kinal already has earned the Demon Deacons' respect for his toughness. Grobe says he sees a glimmer in Kinal's eye when he punts during scrimmages — then races downfield in an attempt to make the tackle.

"Playing the sport I used to play, I've had guys running at me my whole life. But it's more ... noticeable here," Kinal said. "You know exactly where they are. You know exactly where they're coming from. And that's what you've got to block out and just catch-to-kick, catch-to-kick."

Added teammate Cyhl Quarles with a smile, about Aussie players: "No pads. That means they're tough. They're real tough."

Still, Grobe doesn't want to rush his inexperienced punter into the mix. Kinal is listed as the backup to redshirt sophomore Alex Wulfeck for the opener.

"We'll bring Alex along and try to get him into situations, if we use him right away, to where he can be comfortable and maybe not just throw him right into the fire," Grobe said. "But I think he's got the potential to be really special."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

When players complete Batman's latest Rocksteady-developed adventure, they can look forward to replaying the game without being forced through the game's gadget progression system.

Rocksteady's Dax Ginn has revealed that Batman: Arkham City will feature a 'New Game Plus' mode, allowing players to begin the adventure again with everything they've collected, upgraded, and unlocked available to them.

According to Ginn, you'll "need" all the help you can get in the second playthrough because all enemy configurations will change in the second journey. Also changing? Enemy impact notifications, meaning no more icons to show players when an enemy is about to strike.

"You'll have to read their animations coming in," Ginn told GTTV.

Batman: Arkham City comes out for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on October 18th.

Leanne Italie, Associated Press, On Tuesday August 30, 2011, 12:50 pm EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gnaw on this: Can some of food and style TV's biggest stars, Mario Batali and Clinton Kelly among them, help ABC soap fans get over cancellation of their favorite stories? The network's counting on it for "The Chew."

Iron Chef or Martha Stewart this isn't. Nor will the five co-hosts take on top news of the day like their cousins over at "The View" once the show premieres live on Sept. 26 in place of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live."

What you'll see is simple, fun tips for cheap and easy living. During a recent practice run, the ever-adorable Iron Chef Michael Symon salted skirt steak as he shared about his Greek-Sicilian mother and made it clear: Vinaigrette is two parts fat to one part acid.

Kelly, co-host of TLC's "What Not to Wear," urged parents to bring their kids back to the dinner table by letting them draw on butcher block paper for placemats. Got some shriveled citrus? Don't let it go to waste. Slice it up and float it in a vase topped by a cheery hydrangea blossom.

If it sounds like stuff the more sophisticated Stewart might have thought up in kindergarten, you're right, but that's OK with Chew's executive producer, Gordon Elliott. He's going for "easily digestible, pardon the pun." Besides, the food porn's good with lots of delectable close-ups.

Elliott explains: "People don't have time to sit for an hour and watch a story. ABC came to me and said we've had great success with `The View' but we'd like to get into food. I thought `The View,' food, `The Chew.' We do more than just chop and chat. Our co-hosts are relatable."

True, they are. It's also true that people may not sit in the middle of the day. But that's why DVRs were invented, so folk like the soap faithful can relax after dinner with their decades-old shows.

Will they be firing them up for "The Chew," or tuning out altogether to chase down their soaps online?

"I really don't believe that disgruntled refugees from `All My Children' and `One Life to Live' will swallow `The Chew,'" said TV analyst Shari Anne Brill. "This is about how it's become more expensive to produce scripted content. The audience has shifted."

So, this shifting audience. Is it the same audience already wondering just who the heck Chew co-cost Daphne Oz and design expert Evette Rios even are?

Oz wrote the best-selling "The Dorm Room Diet" and is the daughter of TV doc Mehmet Oz, for the record. She opened up during the Chew run-through -- in front of a live audience -- about her upbringing as a vegetarian.

Rios was featured speeding through Oz's tiny New York City kitchen on a taped makeover that included, yes, a pegboard for extra hanging storage. Did you know there's something called stainless steel paint? In case you can't afford appliances in the real thing.

Rounding out the Chew crew is the extremely animated Carla Hall, a "Top Chef" finalist and perky fan favorite who brings on a never-say-die approach to catastrophe in the kitchen. If the top cracks on your cheesecake, for instance, don't get mad, discouraged, depressed. Cover it up with a world of whip cream and berries.

Promos for "The Chew" have begun airing, already annoying the soap faithful, some of whom took to the sidewalk at ABC Studios in April to protest when the network canceled their shows. They handed out leaflets that declared "The Chew" and other replacements "glorified infomercials appropriate for late-night basic cable channels, not for a major broadcast network."

Robin Blum, 61, has been watching "All My Children" since it went on the air 41 years ago. She has a small business making greeting cards that double as bookmarks. Hence, she's home.

"AMC got me through two childbirths, a brain tumor, a broken leg, several tropical storms when I lived in the Virgin Islands and 9/11 in New York City," she said.

"It is not an entertainment form that has outlived its usefulness. It's idiotic that the programmers are now substituting `The Chew.' How barbaric, for what has essentially become a part of so many people's lives and has created so many moments of high emotion, tears and laughter," Blum added.

Could "The Chew" stir up that kind of devotion from its audience? Unlikely, said Lisa Morris, the 35-year-old owner of a boutique travel agency in New York. "ABC keeps replacing good shows with this crappy, cheap, reality TV," she said. "Is paying writers really so much of a sacrifice to the networks?"

Brian Frons, ABC's daytime president, said the bulk of women viewers aren't watching soaps. They're watching chat, reality, entertainment and style.

"It was time to look at programming for the majority of women who were watching TV," he said when he popped in on "The Chew."

Soap fans aside, daytime viewers who already know more than a little something about cooking, raising kids or fixing up their homes may not stomach "The Chew." Or those looking for discourse on issues related to food, like the obesity epidemic, fracking and the food supply or the state of nutrition in schools.

Symon talked of fresh ingredients as healthy ones as he let fly with his endearing, high-pitched laugh and munched on mac `n cheese with buffalo chicken. The chat on Chew, Frons said, will remain on the frothy side.

Do, however, watch for pop-in guests from the Food Network and elsewhere in the TV chef world.

Brill said ABC's morning chatter on "The View" will offer Chew a nudge, at least for awhile.

"It'll help, but the new show will have to stand on its own," she said. "Audiences are very fickle. There's too many places to go."

ABC is a unit of The Walt Disney Co.

Many of us watched tropical cyclone Irene's approach with enough anxiety to last a lifetime. After all, a hurricane riding up the East Coast is maybe the nightmare scenario for forecasters, emergency managers, and residents alike. But Irene, thankfully, didn't quite live up to some of its expectations.

Now that we are a couple of days removed from its landfall, everything we learn from this experience need not be a retrospective analysis of how to deal with a potential disaster. It might prove equally rewarding to more closely examine how much of a disaster we were up against in the first place.

Water vapor image of Irene when it was centered near the mid-Atlantic coast Saturday night. (NOAA) Throughout its lifetime, even as a nascent rain-free swirl in the trade winds on the other side of the Atlantic, Irene had some of the media at its mercy. Why not, right? At that time, there were some hints that a landfall somewhere between Brownsville, Texas and Bar Harbor, Maine was possible.

Almost without recognition of, or respect for, the lack of certainty science could realistically offer about where the storm could go or how strong it could be, the threat of Irene captured our attention. And by the time she made it to the Bahamas, the frenzy had irreversibly begun.

But Irene presented symptoms of less-than-ideal health at almost every stage of its journey. For most of its life, the storm had been situated near, and at times surrounded by, a layer very dry air centered near 10,000 feet altitude that came from the African desert (called a Saharan Air Layer [SAL]). Ingestion of the SAL may have been at least partly responsible for its inability to undergo a period of rapid intensification.

As Irene approached the Bahamas, dry-air driven gust fronts –not on the scale of individual thunderstorms, but on the scale of the outer bands themselves- were clearly noted in the visible satellite imagery. The presence of outward-flowing gust fronts like these can be a sign that part of the circulation is trying to brake the inward and upward spin-up process. Rather than thriving atop the 85°F water that lay underneath the entire circulation, Irene may have instead been choking on the SAL.

NASA Earth Observatory animation of Hurricane Irene by Robert Simmon using imagery by the NASA GSFC GOES Project.

Irene also battled a high-altitude southwesterly shearing flow as it approached the United States. While not particularly strong, on the order of 10-20 knots, the shear was apparently influential enough to tilt the vortex in a way that at least forbid much deepening. As Irene moved northward off the Florida Coast, effects of the shear were ostensibly documented in the satellite imagery by the sharp cutoff in the outflow clouds on the storm's western periphery.

Hurricane Irene as seen from NOAA's newest satellite GOES-15, courtesy University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center

Even without regard to the appearance of a conflicted storm in an imperfect environment, evidence began to mount as Irene got closer that it was perhaps not the storm we feared (at least wind-wise). Reports from NOAA's buoy network and various other observation platforms suggested Irene's winds at low altitudes were surprisingly weak.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) duly and repeatedly noted that the maximum surface winds, as measured by the highly respected SFMR (Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer – a machine that directly measures surface foam motion and bypasses entirely the complexity of flight-level to surface reduction algorithms) instrumentation, were consistent with a weaker hurricane. Though flight-level winds were still strong, there apparently was a nearly impermeable boundary somewhere between the winds a couple of thousand feet up and those near the surface. Despite the remarkably low sea-level pressure associated with the storm at its North Carolina landfall (near 952 mb), winds near the surface were apparently well insulated from the faster flow aloft.

It should be noted that the minimum pressure in a tropical cyclone does not directly relate to its maximum wind. It's the change in pressure with distance (the pressure gradient) that drives air-flow accelerations. If the change in pressure is spread out over a large distance, the maximum wind speed attained by the acceleration is less than if that same pressure difference were much tighter. This partly explains why, with Irene, there really wasn't much of a wind speed difference between that observed at the coast and that several counties inland. Maximum sustained winds were not far from 40 mph everywhere between Ocean City, MD and Washington, D.C.

The meteorological data Irene presented us prior to landfall gave us clues in real-time that perhaps the storm was becoming less of a violent wind maker and more of a heavy rain maker. I'm not so sure how surprising this should have been. Not only have many of us seen this kind of devolution happen before with land-falling tropical cyclones, this behavior is generally understood with only a little technical background.

We know that when tropical cyclones encroach upon the U.S. mainland north of the Florida Peninsula, they often lose symmetry as frictional effects and the ingestion of continental air ruin their maritime tropical pedigree. At these latitudes, in close proximity to land, weather conditions on the inland sides of these systems are often more like windy nor'easters than true hurricanes or tropical storms. And though Irene's tropical storm radii, as measured for strictly marine conditions, technically extended well inland, tropical-storm winds didn't. I emphasized in previous posts in the days before landfall that the westward extension of "bad" weather (in terms of wind) would quickly shrink as the storm moved north.

It seemed prudent at the time to expect that the Outer Banks could (not would) receive hurricane force winds, and that the Atlantic Coast further north to New Jersey should receive tropical storm conditions. And as I wrote on the Friday morning before the storm:

…locations as far west as Washington, D.C. are likely to receive wind conditions near or less than tropical-storm strength.

With Irene's expectations, preparations, and actual impacts still fresh in our minds, I think an expansion of our science into questions regarding how tropical cyclones behave near landfall would prove hugely beneficial. And though my discussion here focused on the wind, further scientific study into rain patterns at landfall could also help us prepare more efficiently. Flooding was indeed a huge problem for many residents from the Carolinas through New York and New England, as spectacularly large amounts of rain filled gauges and watersheds throughout.

Irene's 10-day life in 15 seconds. Courtesy NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory.

But because one of the primary, and perhaps most fear-inspiring, measuring sticks we use to judge hurricane impacts is the wind-based Saffir-Simpson Scale, I'm concerned that a lasting impression with Irene is that many of our Atlantic Coast residents experienced a hurricane, as classically defined. Yet the only place where there's any preliminary evidence of that (as outlined by wind analyses from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory) is on the Outer Banks, and just barely so. In pursuit of the truth, I imagine our scientists from NHC and the Hurricane Research Division are still busy trying to determine exactly how strong Irene really was.

Related: When did Irene stop being a hurricane? (Cliff Mass Weather Blog)

Legendary rock group Styx will perform Nov. 3 at the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet.

JOLIET — Styx will perform at 8 p.m. Nov. 3 at the Rialto Square Theatre.

Tickets will go on sale at 9 a.m. Sept. 9 and are priced at $35 to $95.

Tickets may be purchased at the Rialto box office, 102 N. Chicago St., or ordered by calling 815-726-6600 between 9 a,m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Tickets also available at 800-982-2787, through all Ticketmaster outlets or online at www.ticketmaster.com or www.rialtosquare.com.

Tommy Shaw, James "JY" Young, Lawrence Gowan, Todd Sucherman and Ricky Phillips (along with the occasional surprise appearance by original bassist Chuck Panozzo), have performed more live since 1999 than all of the previous years of its career combined.

Two Super Bowl appearances, Pollstar Box Office chart-topping tours with Def Leppard, Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Bad Company (to name only a few), two more studio albums and no end in sight, Styx continues to conquer the planet, one venue at a time.

Spawned from a suburban Chicago basement in the early 1970s, Styx would eventually transform into the virtual arena rock prototype by the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to a fondness for big rockers and soaring power ballads.

By JORI FINKEL

Los Angeles Times

This much is well established: On Aug. 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, who had briefly worked on a project at the Louvre, walked out of the Paris museum with "Mona Lisa," the celebrated masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

The Italian house painter kept police and newspapers speculating about the crime for more than two years before sending a letter to a Florence art dealer signed "Leonard V." offering him the painting. Peruggia was soon caught and successfully tried. But in 100 years of fascination with the theft that has produced books, articles and even a documentary, a number of odd or puzzling facts have emerged — some more compelling than the question of who did it.

1. Because of their connection to Gery Pieret, a Belgian thief who had stolen two Iberian sculptures from the Louvre that Pablo Picasso bought, Picasso and a friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, were questioned by police about the crime. Apollinaire was brought in first and was detained for about a week. Picasso, brought in later, apparently denied knowing Apollinaire and was released.

2. It took 28 hours for museum officials to realize that the painting had been stolen, not just temporarily removed for photography or study. Once they did, the museum was closed for investigation and didn't reopen for a week.

3. While the "Mona Lisa" was celebrated as a painting before its theft, it was not yet a household image, so the French police printed its reproduction on 6,500 fliers to blanket the city with "missing pet" type signage.

4. After the painting's theft, the Louvre left its spot on the wall blank, and crowds flocked to pay respects. A year later, a portrait of Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael took its place.

5. A French clairvoyant, Madame Albane de Siva, told the Paris-Journal newspaper that, according to the planets, the thief was a "young man with thick hair" and that the famous painting had not left the grounds of the museum.

6. Given the rise of such rich American mega-collectors as J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick and H.E. Huntington, many suspected that a wealthy American had had the painting stolen for his private pleasure. According to "The Crimes of Paris" by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, Morgan was mobbed at a Florence train station by Italians who believed he had the painting. In the United States, where the Secret Service was rumored to be on the case, Huntington told the Los Angeles Times, "I have not seen the picture and have not been tempted."

7. The French police had one good fingerprint on the glass that had protected the painting and a good database of criminal prints to search for a match. But it wasn't good enough, even though Peruggia had been briefly imprisoned before the theft. As it turns out, police had Peruggia's left thumbprint; their database was organized by right-hand prints.

8. Peruggia built a white wood trunk with a false bottom to house the "Mona Lisa."

9. In court, Peruggia admitted meeting in London with Henry Duveen, patriarch of a legendary antiques dealing family. But he denied trying to sell Duveen the painting, claiming rather that he had stolen it for patriotic reasons and was soliciting Duveen's advice about returning it to Italy.

10. According to a 1932 article in the Saturday Evening Post by Karl Decker, the real mastermind behind Peruggia's theft was a mysterious Argentine con artist named Eduardo de Valfierno, who staged the theft in order to sell not one but six American millionaires convincing forgeries of the painting. Those alleged forgeries have never surfaced, and in his upcoming documentary "The Missing Piece," Joe Medeiros ably puts the Valfierno myth to rest, ultimately declaring: "I think Karl Decker simply made him up."

After a tumultuous four months without a fulltime leader, BART's board is expected to name a new general manager today.

Grace Crunican, former chief of the Seattle Department of Transportation and a deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration under President Bill Clinton, is expected to be named general manager in a special board meeting.

Although few board members have publicly discussed Crunican, Director Joel Keller recently identified her as the likely choice.

BART President Bob Franklin, who called today's meeting, said there was no guarantee a new chief will be named today.

However, Director Tom Radulovich said, "I think we'll vote for the person everyone expects it to be."

BART has lacked a full-time manager since April 22, when Dorothy Dugger was ousted by a sharply divided board. During the intervening months, the agency has been led by interim General Manager Sherwood Wakeman, a former BART general counsel.

Since Dugger's ouster, the transit agency has weathered a storm of controversy stemming from the fatal July 3 BART police shooting of a 45-year-old homeless man who was allegedly wielding a knife and bottle.

Civil-rights activists condemned the shooting, and BART garnered further criticism when it decided to shut off cellphone service in its downtown stations to prevent a planned protest. The agency has since caught flak from commuters for closing down transit stations during commute times as a way to deal with the protest events.

Crunican, now a transportation consultant, stepped down from her Seattle post in 2008 after drawing heat for the department's response to a two-week snowstorm that crippled the city.

However, during her tenure under Clinton, Crunican worked at the Federal Transit Administration, which awards federal transportation funding — experience is seen as useful for BART in an era of diminishing government funding.

wreisman@sfexaminer.com

Staff Writer Amy Crawford contribute to this report.

Seattle Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration

Cupertino, CA (PRWEB) August 30, 2011

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The night tour of Alcatraz Island makes the hair on the back of your neck prickle long after the three-hour trip has ended. But the eerie thrill is worth it, if not only for the million-dollar view of the San Francisco skyline -- a spectacular light-show dancing in the distance.

Our boat leaves Pier 33 at 7:05 p.m., while the sun is about to set over the Golden Gate Bridge, painting a ghostly silhouette of the infamous structure.

Located in the San Francisco Bay just two kilometres from shore, the steep cliffs of Alcatraz appear almost instantly. As the 10-hectare island draws near, a foreboding begins to build.

The facility, now a national park, eventually emerges as the towering presence it is, engulfing almost every inch of the island.

Visitors get many extras during the evening tour of the infamous prison.

These include a live narrator for the short ferry ride who regales us with the history of the facility, first built as a U.S. military fortress in the late 19th century. A guided tour follows, from the dock to the cellhouse up the hill.

Themed-talks are given throughout the evening, presented by knowledgeable guides, and often conducted outdoors, on the grounds.

Day and night tourists explore the cellhouse at their own pace, using an audio tour of former prisoners, sharing their memories.

Stepping off the boat is like leaping back in time, to a place where only the meanest, most dangerous of society's dregs once lived. But unlike the convicts who would have also docked in this same spot, we're greeted by a cheery voice saying: "Welcome to the Rock." We begin the trek to the cellhouse, walking the very path of prisoners on their way to what many have called Hell-catraz. They saw what we see, heard the birds we hear, and smelled the sweet floral scent we smell. Except their's was the final moments of freedom, headed for life within the walls of the inescapable and the country's toughest prison.

Alcatraz was renowned for its strict discipline and unpleasant solitary confinement in dingy, dark isolation cells we would soon visit.

First stop is the warden's majestic house on the cliff, next to the lighthouse. We walk through a tunnel dating back to when Alcatraz served as a fort in 1859. As we make our way up to the cellblock, there's an overwhelming and unexpected scent of fresh flowers, revealing the beautiful plant-life nurtured for nearly 150 years on the island.

The switch-back trail meanders through a protected bird sanctuary and hundreds of floral species, which provide the wildlife with a natural nesting cover. Many of the flowers were brought here over the years by the wives of soldiers and prisoners. In fact, being a gardener was among the most coveted prison jobs on the island.

Alcatraz means pelican in Spanish, a reference to the island's first inhabitants that still fly about today.

Once we reach the jailhouse, I look up and notice a lone pelican staring back, perched in the window like a prisoner who can never leave, long after the last inmates escaped when the facility closed in 1963.

It operated for 29 years as a maximum-security federal penitentiary, during which time famous prisoners incarcerated here included gangster Al (Scarface( Capone, George (Machine-gun) Kelly and Robert Franklin Stroud, also known as the Birdman of Alcatraz.

I take a turn sitting in the "hole" -- the solitary confinement cell located in D Block. Even with the heat and lights on, and the comforting buzz of tourists, squatting inside the tiny room, it's easy to conjure the stench and isolation of the prisoners -- so close to the city that inmates reported they could hear the voices of women laughing on festive nights such as New Year's Eve.

Alcatraz has captured the imagination of filmmakers, and one of the most famous was Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood, which dramatizes possibly the only escape, after inmates used spoons to tunnel their way through their cells. Seeing those rooms -- with the holes intact behind the vents -- sent chills through my body.

Prison officials never bothered to repair this piece of history because they knew Alcatraz was closing, and no one would ever be sent to these particular cells again.

The creepiest part of the evening is the outdoor tour and talk on the

famous escape attempts. It's dark now and most of us are plenty spooked following our visit to the prison. Our imaginations run wild, especially as the guide points out significant landmarks scaled by various prisoners willing to risk their lives for freedom. We see where they might have jumped into the freezing, rough waters of the Bay, to make a near-impossible swim to shore. Or drown.

It's so vivid, you can almost hear the ghosts of prisoners whispering in the night. I'm sure it's just the wind blowing through the trees.

Or is it?

- - -

If You Go

- Getting there: All access to the island is through Alcatraz Cruises LLC -- a private ferry company under contract by the U.S. National Park Service. Departs from Pier 33 at Fisherman's Wharf.

- Book early: Tickets are limited, so it's a good idea to buy in advance, especially during summer and holidays. They can be sold out up to a week in advance.

- Cost: Adult night tours costs $33; day tour $26

- How to book: Go to alcatrazcruises.com

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

The government agency released a lengthy list of possible closures on Friday, including 62 offices in Michigan, 10 in Detroit and three others in the metropolitan area.

But spokesman Ed Moore says the USPS has not made any final decisions and residents still have a chance to make the case for saving their local branch.

"We're going to be holding public meetings in those communities to get customer comments and their feedback to add to this and help make a final determination," he said this morning on WJR-AM 760.

USPS hasn't received tax money in decades -- long before email became a primary source of communication for many Americans -- but it is legally obligated to balance its budget. In the past five years, Brown said, the postal service has handled 43 million fewer peices of mail and served 200 million fewer customers, which equates to roughly $2 billion in lost revenue.

Listen: Ed Moore

Local office closures may include Pontiac, Ferndale, Highland Park and the following Detroit locations: The Renaissance Center, Kensington, Livernois, Springwells, Brightmoor, Fenkell, Joyfield, Northwestern, Seven Oaks and Strathmoor.

To compile the study list, Brown said the agency considered how much money it would save by closing each branch, transaction volumes, worker hours and resident access to other branches or third-party retailers that offer postal services.

Community meetings are expected to take place in September. "Nothing's been confirmed," Brown reiterated. "We're just in the study phase for those offices."

PHILADELPHIA — The movie year is 1983.

The Oscar contenders include "The Big Chill," "Yentl," "Silkwood."

The winner is "Terms of Endearment."

Across the country, all the good little boys and girls line up to see "Return of the Jedi," with its furry Ewoks.

Hollywood's idea of an action movie is "Octopussy," starring tea-sipping Roger Moore.

Then, in December, like a 20-ton hunk of crack plopped in the placid millpond of American movies, comes "Scarface."

Chain saw slaughter. Giant mounds of cocaine. Former pin-striped "Godfather" Al Pacino dropping f-bombs in a Cuban accent, spraying Miami with gunfire, getting high on his own supply, going out in a blaze of gory.

A typical review: "Wallows in excess and unpleasantness for nearly three hours."

Maybe so, but nearly 30 years later, nobody's rereleasing "Terms of Endearment" in hundreds of theaters nationwide, and nobody is looking for "Yentl" sneakers online, or wearing "Big Chill" denim and rhinestone jackets, or preordering another special edition of "Octopussy."

"Scarface," on the other hand, is more popular than ever. There's a theatrical reissue Wednesday (one day only), yet another special edition Blu-ray coming next Tuesday, and a wealth of merchandise still selling online.

"Scarface" lives, and if it happens to live in infamy, that would please Tony Montana, played fearlessly to the hilt by Pacino.

Young actor Steven Bauer (Manny in the movie) remembers being mesmerized by Pacino's full-tilt interpretation of Tony.

"When we were on the set, even when we were reading the script, we thought this could be momentous. But when we were shooting it, there was also a feeling of dread, and it came from the way that Al attacked that character," said Bauer, who hung out with Pacino in his RV, first in Miami, then in Los Angeles, where the production moved after the crew received death threats.

"I asked him, 'Al, how do you think people are going to respond to that? Right away, or in years to come?'" Bauer recalled, mindful that moviegoers so closely identified Pacino with his self-controlled Michael Corleone in "The Godfather."

"He said, 'People are either going to hate it or love it, but it's not going to be dismissable,'" Bauer remembered. "At the time, nobody really knew. There were some people, even people on the set, who thought this might go down in history as the worst movie ever made by really talented artists. And for like the first year, that's what most critics thought, that it was a piece of [crap]."

Bauer's personal investment in the movie was immense. He was an untested actor with a few TV spots who'd passed on a starring role ("Running Brave," later made with Robby Benson) for an outside shot to play Manny.

Bauer (given name Esteban Echevarria) was the only main "Scarface" actor who was actually born in Cuba, and was brought to the States at age 3 — and he believed that his cultural input was essential.

Looking back, he thinks it's the reason producer Martin Bregman essentially reserved the part for him, when the studio faced pressure to hire John Travolta or Eric Roberts.

Bauer was a walking, talking reference source for the cast. He could, and did, school actors (particularly Pacino) on the history and mindset of Cuban emigres.

"I talked about my life, my dad's life, our culture, our self-deprecating sense of humor, our view of ourselves of having been a people who lost our country," he said.

Pacino modeled his accent on Bauer's father.

"I put Al on the phone with my dad so he could hear Dad's voice. Listen to him tell jokes, tell stories, really get a sense of that so he could use it when we started shooting in Miami."

Bauer said the cast and crew weathered the bad reviews, and took much satisfaction from the fact that "Scarface" did well at the box office (16th among movies released that year).

Still, it was many years before Bauer realized that "Scarface" had carved a special niche for itself in American culture, adopted by hip-hop artists, their fans, and eventually spreading further.

"I was watching TV one night and I heard Chris Berman announcing a home run, and he uses Tony's line, 'Say hello to my little friend.' And I say, 'Holy s — he's seen 'Scarface.'"

In the months and years to come, he learned that just about everybody had seen "Scarface" — the movie was to VHS and DVD what "Dark Side of the Moon" was to record albums.

"People start telling me about all the hip-hop guys who use the dialogue in their lyrics, all the rappers on 'MTV Cribs' who've turned their homes into 'Scarface' shrines."

Bauer laughs at the movie's outrageous change in fortune.

"For a long time, it was like the movie had leprosy. Now it's a classic. So this is a really beautiful time."

& Paper hearts touching the real kind is the idea behind a project spearheaded by a Lower Makefield woman who lost her first husband in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. &

Tara Bane-DellaCorte is organizing the effort, which involves students making 2,973 paper hearts, each one with the name of one victim of the attacks. The 8-by-12 inch hearts are sealed in plastic to protect them from the rain.

They are being strung together by Bane-DellaCorte and a group of volunteers and will then be strung on trees at the Garden of Reflection Sept. 11 Memorial in Lower Makefield prior to the remembrance ceremony there on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Michael Bane, Tara's first husband, worked in New York's World Trade Center and died there along with thousands of others when terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the towers. She married Andrew DellaCorte in 2006; the couple have a son, Cole, 2.

"Clara Chirchirillo and I came up with the idea when we were talking about what we could do for the 10th anniversary," said Bane-DellaCorte, 39. "We wanted it to be a community project to get people involved, particularly young kids who might not remember that day very well."

Chirchirillo lost her husband, Peter, who also worked at the WTC, in the attacks. Chirchirillo, a former Middletown and Lower Makefield resident, has moved out of the area and could not be reached for comment.

"We were originally going to stake them in the ground at the garden," Bane-DellaCorte continued. "But that wasn't going to work out, and I'm glad, because this way will send a much more hopeful message rather than looking like graves in the ground. The concept is kind of like Tibetan prayer flags, which blow prayers across to everyone with messages of hope, strength and peace."

The names of all 2,973 Sept. 11 victims are inscribed on glass plates at the Garden of Reflection. However, Bane-Dellacorte said she thinks the hearts will have a more dramatic effect on people, both visually and emotionally.

Each of the hearts has been decorated by the students in whatever way they wanted, she said. In addition to the name of a victim, many have drawings of flags or other images and messages such as "God Bless America," "We will always remember" and "Rest in Peace."

"It's the idea of a heart and its symbolism of love and compassion," said Bane-DellaCorte. "These hearts aren't even on the trees yet, but just in working on stringing them together, I'm overwhelmed by how much surface they are going to cover. If they were people standing there, you can get an idea of how long a line that would be and how many people died on that day."

Bane-DellaCorte started in March by contacting officials at Charles Boehm, William Penn and Pennwood middle schools in the Pennsbury school district to see if students there were interested in making the hearts. She also contacted Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley.

Bane-DellaCorte made more contacts, and the word also spread via email and the Internet about the project. Paper hearts soon started coming in, and Bane-DellaCorte and friends and volunteers have been stringing them together at her house.

The project has been really labor intensive, she said. In addition to helping sort and string the hearts, Bane-DellaCorte has been checking them against her master list of victims to make sure all are included and all names are spelled correctly.

Most of the hearts were made by the Pennsbury middle school students, she said, but some have come from students in New Jersey and New York and other states on the East Coast. Some high school and college students also have contributed, Bane-DellaCorte added.

Among her helpers on the project is Lower Makefield resident and former township Supervisor Grace Godshalk, who lost her son William in the WTC attacks.

"I'm looking at these hearts as I'm stringing them together and I'm so impressed with the beauty of the artwork and the words," said Godshalk. "I came across the heart for my son and it had a picture drawn of the sun and someone flying a kite, and it reminded me so much of him because he liked to draw pictures like that."

Bane-DellaCorte said she was also especially moved when she saw the heart for her first husband, Michael.

"It was a simple design, with just his name and some nice colors blended together," she said. "That was fitting because Michael was a guy without all the bells and whistles, who liked to stay in the background."

Another volunteer on the project, Bane-DellaCorte's next door neighbor, Maureen Christian-Petrosky, said she has been deeply touched by the experience.

"I look at these hearts and it reminds me that this isn't just a day on the calendar when a horrific event happened, but something that we all carry in our hearts because we're all Americans," said Christian-Petrosky. "While we're working on this, everyone has stories to tell about where they were that day and their own personal remembrances, so it's been very therapeutic for the entire neighborhood."

Bane-DellaCorte said she and her volunteers plan to string the hearts on trees at the garden on Sept. 6 and 7. They will be strung low enough so that everyone can read them, she added. The hearts will probably be left up until about two weeks after the Sept. 11 ceremony, Bane-DellaCorte said.

From Dan MericaCNN

POSTED: 1:46 pm MDT August 26, 2011

UPDATED: 1:56 pm MDT August 26, 2011

A painting that has claims to be the only full-length portrait of the famous Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh is causing a stir at a Grimsby gallery.

Abbey Walk Gallery has had a surge in visitors since it put the pastel painting on display three weeks ago.

The gallery's average footfall of 200 a week has climbed to about 1,000 visitors all flocking to catch a glimpse of the supposed artist.

Gillian Gibbons, co-owner of Abbey Walk Gallery, said: "The response has been quite staggering.

"It has caused tremendous excitement in Grimsby and has brought a lot of people in from all over the region to view it.

"We've had people open the door to the gallery and just say 'we've come to see Vincent'. One lady stood in front of the painting and just burst into tears.

"They can't believe they're viewing such a wonderful painting but the fact that they're actually standing in front of it in Grimsby."

The portrait belongs to a couple in Louth who bought it at auction in France 18 months ago.

When housewife Mandy, 45, and painter and decorator Michael Cruickshank, 41, paid 1,700 euros for the painting they had their suspicions about the subject.

Mrs Cruickshank said: "My husband said to me 'who do you think this is?' and I instantly said Vincent Van Gogh.

"We don't even think they [auctioneers] knew who it was. So we decided to take a chance on it.

"When we got it back here, the first thing we did was to hang it on the wall in the dining room and we just stood and looked at it.

"It was incredible and mesmerising. It was so tingly to look at it for real in front of us. We were just like ''wow'."

For the past year, the couple have been investigating the painting contacting various experts in the art world to confirm the sitter's identity.

The people they have spoken to include the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands and facial reconstruction specialists at Dundee University.

Caroline Erolin, a lecturer in medical and forensic art at the university, conducted a facial analysis by comparing the painting with other known portraits of the Dutch artist and "felt it was likely to be Van Gogh".

She said: "My initial concern was how accurate are the portraits that we're going to compare and how would that impact the job that we're doing.

"But I was very excited and intrigued because it's such a famous character.

"We don't know for sure that it actually is him but we compared it with three other images: one being a self-portrait of Van Gogh, one a John Peter Russell portrait of him and another - a photograph, which is widely accepted to be a Van Gogh.

"We looked at it feature by feature, comparing the shape of the eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth etc to see if you can see any inconsistencies.

"We couldn't find any inconsistencies. But because it's a pastel drawing it's not highly detailed as an oil painting can be. "

Mrs Erolin said it was impossible to say whether the figure was 100% Van Gogh but there were other factors that pointed to its likelihood such as the detail of the surroundings portrayed in the painting as well as the painter's background.

On the back of the painting are the words 'L'Incompris' (translated as 'The Misunderstood') and a signature of a French female artist called Jeanne Donnadieu.

Little is known about the artist but the couple discovered she lived four doors away from Van Gogh.

While research into the painting is still continuing, public demand has forced the gallery to extend the length of the exhibition for a further two weeks until 17 September.

Mrs Gibbons said: "To actually have him [Van Gogh] sitting on our wall in the gallery is indescribable. It's beyond words really - it's wonderful."

With the Cruickshanks receiving various estimated valuations from £10,000 to £3m for the painting, they say they have no desire to sell anytime soon.

Though, if they did, Mrs Cruickshank said they would prevent it from falling into the hands of a private investor or collector and make sure the portrait would be accessible to the public.

She said: "When you've got the only top to toe portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, you know the world wants to see it, so you've got to get it out there and it just seems like the most important thing to get it into the eye of the public."

Q:  I am just expressing my concern over VA Dept. of Health not releasing the names of the bodies of water to which the amoeba victim in Henrico county was exposed. 

The explanation that the public should not be lead astray by thinking these possible known bodies of water are the only ones to be aware of is not a comfortable one nor a safe one for citizens, in my estimation.  The explanation of the amoeba's habitat has been included in many articles concerning this tragic incident and should continue to be made public.  

However, advancing the public's awareness and safety by releasing the bodies of water visited by the victim is also necessary in my estimation.  The name of the river in which the Florida victim swam has been released.  As a citizen, a parent, and a grandparent I feel that the public must be made aware of the possible water bodies visited by the young Henrico county boy.

Thank you for any assistance in this concern.

Lorell Jefferson

A:  Thanks for contacting WSLS 10.  I contacted the Virginia Department of Health to get a more in depth explanation but it appears the articles you have read have similar responses.

Dr. Laurie Forlano, Virginia Department of Health sends the below response, 

Dear Ms. Jefferson 

This is in reply to your recent email to VDH concerning  reports about a child dying from an amoeba infection after swimming.  In your email, you questioned Virginia Department of Health's (VDH) decision to not reveal the locations of the bodies of the water where the child had been swimming.  Thank you for contacting us for assistance.

The organism that caused this child's meningitis is Naegleria fowleri.  Naegleria is an amoeba that is commonly found in warm freshwater, and is essentially found in all freshwater bodies such as lakes and rivers, particularly during very hot weather.  Infections with Naegleria fowleri are very rare.  During the 10 years from 2001-2010, 32 infections were reported in the United States and prior to last week, the last case in Virginia was in 1969.

VDH has not named the bodies of water because releasing that information has the potential to be misleading, as it could imply that bodies of water not mentioned pose a lesser risk to the public, which is not necessarily the case.  This organism and others are found everywhere in bodies of fresh water; and it is, therefore, best to always assume a low level of risk when entering all warm freshwater. 

There are practical measures one can take to help prevent these types of water-related illnesses.  For example, during water-related activities, be mindful of naturally-occurring organisms that live in fresh bodies of water, like lakes, ponds and rivers, which in rare situations may lead to meningitis when water enters through the nose.  These organisms naturally exist everywhere in these environments and are active during hot summer months.  Holding the nose or wearing a nose clip while underwater is one good measure that may reduce risk.

Please contact Rebecca LePrell, Director of Environmental Epidemiology, by telephone at 804-864-8111 or by email at Rebecca.LePrell@vdh.virginia.gov, if you have additional questions.

Sincerely,

Dr. Laurie Forlano

Linkto VDH's Safely Enjoy Virginia's Natural Waters pamphlet.

Link to more healthy swimming tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Imagine if, in 1963, two years after JFK's famous speech to Congress, the New York Times had run a story, "Space program fails to live up to promise."  That will give you some idea of how bad a recent NYT story on the clean energy economy was, "Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live Up to Promises."

The story is triply terrible:  It's incorrect and premature and misleading.  So of course it has been quoted endlessly by the right-wing media.  It's sad when the U.S. press isn't any better than the UK press (see "Over Half the Coverage of Renewable Energy in Mainstream British Press is Negative").

First, the core inaccuracy:

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.

Talk about a bait and switch.  The NYT cites the Brookings study, but then pulls out one tiny piece of it to make the exact opposite argument of the study.  As Climate Progress wrote, Brookings actually found nationwide:

From 2003 to 2010, the clean [energy] economy grew by 8.3% — almost double what the overall economy grew during those years….

"The pace of growth really is torrid in that sector," says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metropolitan Program and a co-author of the report. "This confirms the intuition that these exciting industries really are growing as fast as we think they are."

(Note: We incorrectly reported earlier that the entire sector saw 8.3% growth from 2003 to 2010. We have since corrected that error to reflect the real time frame for the growth of the whole sector— 2008-2009. Only one third of the sector — the clean energy part — saw 8.3% growth between 2003 and 2010.)

On top of that, median salaries for cleantech-related jobs are $46,343, or about $7,727 more than the median wages across the broader economy.  But you'd never know that from the NYT hit job.

Then we have this wildly premature B.S. from the Times:

In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

Again, that is just factually wrong, as we've seen.  It's also premature.  We're 2 years in to Obama's 10-year pledge.  Worse, Obama's pledge was based in large part on passage of a climate and clean energy jobs bill.  So this isn't just like the NY Times writing a story "Space program fails to live up to promise" in 1963.  Imagine if  Congress refused to fund the moonshot, and then the NY Times attacked the failed effort.

Here is all the Times has to say on the subject:

Advocates and entrepreneurs also blame Washington for the slow growth. [Van] Jones cited the failure of so-called cap and trade legislation, which would have cut carbon pollution and increased the cost of using fossil fuel, making alternative energy more competitive. Congressional Republicans have staunchly opposed cap-and-trade.

The climate and clean energy jobs bill would have led to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in clean energy –  and that would have created the millions of clean energy jobs.  It would also be nice if the Times could have correctly reported that "The bill passed the House with bipartisan support.  Most Congressional Republicans opposed cap-and-trade, many of them reversing their earlier support for the policy."  As written, the piece implies that all Congressional Republicans always opposed cap-and-trade, implying the possibility it ever could have passed was non-existent, which is not true.

The piece has so many errors and  misleading statements in it, that I will finish by excerpting an NRDC post by Cal Steger, Energy Policy Analyst at NRDC's new Center for Market Innovation, "Pushing back on a bad Green Jobs story":

I recently drove through parts of Michigan and Ohio, stopping in at various companies connected to the new clean energy economy….  I toured factories that are manufacturing wind components, energy efficient roofing products and light fixtures and even a refrigerator recycling facility. In some of the areas hit hardest by both the recession and long-term outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing, the new clean economy is bringing jobs back. More importantly, these aren't jobs that involve sitting at a desk all day pushing paperwork around (like, say, my job), but good-paying factory jobs for working class Americans, where things get built or made, and then sold.Astraeus is in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, a town of about 5,000, and has developed innovative ways of manufacturing wind components quicker and cheaper.  They've been able to hire back nearly all of the 100 workers that lost their jobs during the recession (and expect to create hundreds more jobs as their high-tech wind components are used by wind companies).  In a community that size, that has real impact.  Full Spectrum Solutions is based in Jackson, Michigan, another small town, and makes efficient lighting products.  They've doubled in size during a tough recession.

There are literally dozens of stories just like this in the Midwest….

Which is what makes this article so frustrating.  First, I've read the Brookings report multiple times (and its great technical appendix) – and it's not the depressing story the author makes it out to be….  First – it was measuring the entire "clean economy", not just clean technology (so analyzing 40 industry segments, including everything from public transit and types of farming, to pollution reduction and recycling).  But if you just want to look at the "clean technology" segment of this clean economy, then you'll see "explosive growth" per the report – wind and solar jobs grew anywhere from 10%-18% annually the past 8 years (see page 22).  Overall, the clean economy accounts for 2.7 million jobs, making it a larger employer of Americans than the fossil fuel energy sectors.

Second – the point of this study was to analyze job growth across the U.S.  So for example, while the South Bay (San Jose, Sunnvale, Santa Clara) lost 492 jobs from 2003-2010 (as referenced in the article), the region of San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont area increased total clean economy jobs from 2003-2010 by more than 44% in that time, adding 15,700 new jobs. (from the data downloads in their interactive map here).  Nationally, similarly impressive stories are everywhere.  During that same period, Knoxville, Tennessee added nearly 10,000 green jobs, as did Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina – tripling the size of jobs in their clean economies, while Little Rock Arkansas more than doubled the number of jobs in its clean economy….

So yes, looking at one community with 10.5% unemployment, you can write a story that the clean economy has not produced significant growth in the past 7 years.  And looking at small sub-segments within the broader clean economy that are heavily exposed to construction and home building also probably won't paint a great picture.  But looking across the nation, in areas and industries hit hardest by a tough economy, the story is much, much more optimistic.

The clean economy is real.  It's going to be the biggest job creating sector in the coming decades because of peak oil and climate change.  Of course, it's possible that most of the jobs will be created overseas if the GOP and the fossil-fuel-funded denier industrial complex continues to succeed in its effort to strangle it — and if the media keeps misreporting the story.

 

It is unfortunate that the narrow definitions used by the Times failed to capture the real growth in this sector. I am the new president of Unity College, and I have asked our faculty to turn our attention to building programs for the sustainability professions and the clean economy. Several lines of scholarship show that this is a good bet for our future and the employability of our students. Perhaps equally important, it is our ethical imperative to service this growing sector of the economy.

4 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 1:14pm

Seth Masia · Deputy editor, Solar Today at American Solar Energy Society

Write to the NY Times public editor (their ombudsman): public@nytimes.com.

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 2:54pm

Ted Gleichman · Portland, Oregon

This is imperative. It's vital that the Times hear from us how distorted this piece was.

Like · Reply · 6 hours ago

Peter S. Mizla · Top Commenter · Vernon, Connecticut

JFK was a futurist.

the GOP of today is living in the year 1200.

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 3:15pm

Christopher Winter · University of Iowa

This is dated, and mostly about Gina Kolata, whose beat at the NYT is health and fitness. But it's still relevant to the integrity of NYT reporting.

Gina Kolata: What's Wrong With the New York Times's Science Reporting? MARK DOWIE / The Nation 6jul98.

http://telecomadvisors.biz/www.mindfully.org/Reform/Gina-Kolata-Dowie6jul98.htm

Like · Reply · Subscribe · 4 hours ago

Ted Gleichman · Portland, Oregon

It feels like we could use some framing terminology for this growing phenomenon of attacking the clean energy transition, comparable to "green washing." Couple of ideas:
Reverse Green-Washing.
Denier-Washing.
Denier Justification.
Please help me out with creativity here, amigos.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · 6 hours ago

Nichol Brummer

Make it doom & glooming of the green business opportunities. The so called conservatives like optimistic sentiment combined with business opportunities. If you like you can do some flag-waving and say that these business opportunities should not be left to the Chinese and the Germans, after Americans did all the creative research (even if they didn't .. just lie: gives the conservatives a fuzzy warm feeling).

Like · Reply · 4 minutes ago

Robert Fanney · Top Commenter · Flagler College

Sorry to hear the NYT dropped the ball on this one. We need more support for clean energy legislation, not less. If we don't act soon, China will beat us to the punch.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 1:04pm

Jeffrey Davis · Top Commenter

The NYT didn't "drop" the ball. They pulled a knife from their belt and stabbed it.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 2:02pm

Ted Gleichman · Portland, Oregon

Yes, it's clear that this story was "placed," as they say in journalism.

If we are successful in getting the Public Editor to do an investigation, just as the Methane (natural gas) Hydro-fracking industry was recently successful in getting a Pub-Ed investigation, we may learn some details about how this story was structured into the paper.

Like · Reply · 6 hours ago

Rob Honeycutt · Top Commenter

I highly suggest everyone write a (polite please) email to Mr Glantz pointing out how backward he got this article.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 1:21pm

Jeffrey Davis · Top Commenter

Why be polite? If the writer cherry picked information, he knows it.

1 · Like · Reply · Yesterday at 2:03pm

Rob Honeycutt · Top Commenter

Because people are far more likely to listen.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 2:32pm

Jeffrey Davis · Top Commenter

To be blunt, I don't see any point in responding directly to these people at all. A person capable of being convinced wouldn't have cherry picked info to begin with.

I think, frankly, that journalism is dead. The WWW killed it. Now, the zombie journalists simply do PR for the owners' corporate interests. A "polite" response strikes me as bitterly comic. Like the basement scene in "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" where the bad guy mocks the hero's courtesy.

2 · Like · Reply · Yesterday at 2:54pm

sasparillafizz (signed in using Yahoo)

I'm sure the Time's advertisers, like Exxon or the Coal Industry etc., were very happy with this article.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 4:53pm

Leif Erik Knutsen · Top Commenter · Friends with Joseph Romm

The Green Awakening Economy not what is reported in the NY Times. AND That is a good thing.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 1:44pm

Peter S. Mizla · Top Commenter · Vernon, Connecticut

The NYT is living in 1990.

perhaps a compliment.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Yesterday at 1:13pm

Barry Saxifrage · Top Commenter

Another great debunking of fossil fuel spin. Thanks Joe.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · 15 hours ago

Sven Almgren · Stockholm University

Interesting

Like · Reply · Subscribe · 22 hours ago