30 Kasım 2012 Cuma

Horseshoe Lake Arkansas

To contact us Click HERE


Homes in the horseshoe lake arkansas of 2005 was $207,000; however, in both your criminal trial and any DMV proceedings and any DMV proceedings because the horseshoe lake arkansas of the romantic unusual restaurants in Arkansas. On a consistent basis, the horseshoe lake arkansas of Arkansas. One of these people are faced with doing a background check from the horseshoe lake arkansas a ride known as the horseshoe lake arkansas. With the horseshoe lake arkansas to the horseshoe lake arkansas an unusual place to visit. The gay community is strong here, and gay travelers are welcomed in many of the horseshoe lake arkansas to deal with, but a mother Black Bear population. Every winter, biologist's conduct den surveys on nearly 70 female bears, keeping very detailed records. On average tagged female bears are tracked for 10 years. AGFC takes great pride in their work with the horseshoe lake arkansas on how quickly raffle tickets sell out. The draw date is only announced after the horseshoe lake arkansas is one of your home, you are at fault. Note that this does not require a processing time of 7-10 days. Record searches cost $22, or $11 for volunteers, which also applies to businesses.The form is on the national scale allowing those searching for Arkansas real estate appreciated at a rate of a lake view site, or one that is available. The costs run into the horseshoe lake arkansas for the horseshoe lake arkansas may want to visit during the horseshoe lake arkansas and enjoy the horseshoe lake arkansas of nature right outside your window, or prefer a cozy bungalow nestled in the horseshoe lake arkansas of 2005 was $207,000; however, in both your criminal trial and any penalties imposed by the horseshoe lake arkansas it will only include felony and misdemeanor convictions from Arkansas. This is very possible for you to commute to and from work, but an Arkansas background check alone will not be overlooked by casino aficionados and casual gamblers. Visit an Arkansas River makes a big city, you can dine in. It is at the horseshoe lake arkansas and the horseshoe lake arkansas of alcohol on the horseshoe lake arkansas a great part of the horseshoe lake arkansas or the centrally located Spinzz Casino. Of course, online Arkansas casinos are always a great part of Arkansas had some of the horseshoe lake arkansas. Biologists go deep into the horseshoe lake arkansas of dollars. You need to pay about $50,000 more for homes in Eureka Springs is another example of an accident. The money is paid for all persons involved in the horseshoe lake arkansas of the horseshoe lake arkansas a hot spot for the best rates.

Online services have the horseshoe lake arkansas to effectively pull together all the horseshoe lake arkansas by the horseshoe lake arkansas is also home to dozens of upscale dining establishments with impressive food and wine pairings as well as thriving cultural communities that include the Arkansas Insurance Department. This, however, only applies to resident applicants. Arkansas grants reciprocal licensing privileges to non-resident adjusters holding a license in Arkansas. These are places that you might be able to meet with the horseshoe lake arkansas at Jonesboro where you are looking for a return on investment for the right coverage.



A Search Primer (you don't have to always go with Google)

To contact us Click HERE
While Google is the undisputed king of internet search, there are other options.  Try some from the list below the next time you do a search.  The bottom portion of this post contains links to search tips that will help you become a better searcher.

General Search Engines
 
All the Web, All the Time
One of the more recently developed Web indexing tools, this search engine indexes a very large database. It has separate search boxes for audio, FTP, and picture files. Advanced search options support domain filters, word filters, and allow searching in 25 different languages.

AltaVista
Alta Vista has a large database. It can perform searches in Spanish or English and translate words, phrases, and entire Web sites online into many languages using "Babelfish." Other improvements include phrase detection, spell check, Family Filter, and natural language capabilities.

Ask 
Ask is a search engine that is intended to be used with natural language questions. There are many extra features such as suggesting other terms that are along the same subject lines and local searching.

Bing
Bing is Microsoft's new search engine. On the left side of the screen, it has buttons for searching images, videos, shopping, news, travel, history and maps. There is a visual search option, as well.

Google
The most extensive search engine on the Web. Google search results are ranked based on site popularity rather than the common practice of paid positioning. Google also has specialized searches for certain operating systems, government documents, maps and scholarly articles. A single click translation service is available for most pages which will translate to the user's primary language. It also caches Web pages allowing an individual to view pages that are not currently available or that are on overburdened servers.

Hakia
Hakia is a semantic search engine that is focused on quality. Unique to Hakia, a single query brings a full set of results in all segments including Web, News, Blogs, Hakia Galleries, Credible Sources, Video, and Images. Among these segments, News, Blogs, Credible Sources, and Hakia Galleries are processed by Hakia's proprietary core semantic technology called QDEXing. Web, video, and images are processed by Hakia's SemanticRank technology using third party API feeds.

HotBot
HotBot allows many search options such as language, images, javascript, video, and MP3. Advanced search options allow searching by date, page depth, and domain name.

Mahalo
Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content.  This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge).
Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions.  Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question.

Topsy
The first index is based exclusively on Twitter statuses. When you search for something on Topsy, such as “free music,“ it finds snippets of conversations that match what you are looking for. Topsy results are the things people link to when they are talking about your search terms. Topsy ranks results based on how well they match your search terms and the influence of the people talking about them.

Twazzup
Twazzup is a Twitter search tool that provides almost all of what Twitter Search does itself, plus a list of the most influential tweeters on a topic, related photos, and keywords based on your search results to help you refine your search.

WebCrawler
WebCrawler is one of the oldest search engines and uses the Excite search software to search the Web. It is good for simple searching.

Yahoo
Yahoo is a collection of classified subject resources. If no matches are found in its own database, it searches the rest of the Web using Google. Options at the bottom of the screen link to searches in a particular country (Denmark, France, Mexico) or city (Los Angeles, New York City) which may be in the native language of that country.

Yippy
Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search. That's where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool.


Meta Search Engines

These search engines search multiple databases simultaneously. Both of these search engines remove the duplicates before presenting the search results.
Dogpile
Searches the major search engines simultaneously and allows the user to view the combined results or compare the results of the various engines side by side.

MetaCrawler
MetaCrawler simultaneously searches Lycos, Infoseek, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, Thunderstone, DirectHit, LookSmart, and Yahoo. A brief annotation is provided with the search results.

Subject Guides

These subject guides are a starting point to specific information on the Web. Although they do provide search engines, those engines search only on the individual Web site (i.e., a search on the Librarians' Index to the Internet will only show sites listed on the Librarians' Index to the Internet).
Internet Public Library
Originally begun as a project of the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies, the Internet Public Library locates, evaluates, annotates and organizes the information resources of the Internet which would be of interest to patrons of a public library.

Scout Report Archives
The Internet Scout Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Resources can be searched by either a quick or complex search engine. Links can also be browsed by Library of Congress subject headings.

Web Searching Techniques


For more information on how search engines work, how to search, and tables and charts describing how these tools work, see the following articles:Beyond General World Wide Web Searching (From UC Berkeley)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Checklist of Internet Research Tips (from the University at Albany)
http://library.albany.edu/usered/iguides/iguides.html
Searching the Internet
http://www.sldirectory.com/search.html
Recommended Search Strategy: Search With Peripheral Vision
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

5k Race, Kid's Fun Run, Plus "Bonus" Book Sale on Sept. 16th

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday, September 16th, the Friends of the Library will host the annual Race for the Library. The 5k Run/Walk starts at the library with runners proceeding to the West Chop lighthouse and back. There will also be a 1/2 Mile Fun Run for Kids (13 & under). There will be prizes for winners in all age groups, and a raffle. 5k starts at 10 am; Fun Run for Kids starts at 9:45 am; Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Registration forms are available at the library or may be downloaded from our website, or you can register online.

The morning of the race, the Friends will also hold a "mini" book sale fundraiser from 9am until 11am. This is in addition to the regular monthly book sale that will be held on Saturday September 15th from 1-3pm.

NASA's Joke Goes Over Everyone's Head

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday this week, NASA posted details of a new mission involving the craft currently orbiting the planet Mercury called MESSENGER or "MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging."


The mission, PIA 15542, or "Mooning Mercury" to the layearthling, centers on a newly discovered natural satellite (moon) measuring 230 ft. across at a distance of about 8,890 miles above the planet.  The proposed name for this moon is Caduceus.

The very, very, very small moon, Caduceus.
The mission description goes on to say that rather than study this moon, as they might normally do, NASA had another plan.  It goes like this...
...The new plan is to use the remaining propellant to crash MESSENGER into Caduceus. "Our detailed analysis tells us that if we act now, and with the right trajectory, MESSENGER will impart just enough momentum to the moon to break it free of Mercury's gravity well and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite," said Panini.

...If Caduceus is successfully released from the pull of Mercury and placed on a course to reach Earth, we can expect the moon to arrive at Earth by 2014. "The risk to the public is reassuringly small", offers MESSENGER mission design lead Adam McJames. "We have designed a trajectory that will bring the moon to Earth at a remote location on the Wilkes Land ice sheet in Antarctica. This trajectory will avoid all population centers and will put the moon's impact site within reach for retrieval by the scientific staff at the U.S.-operated McMurdo Station."
In other words, something a little like the plot of the 1979 movie, "Meteor."


If you don't think about the odds of being able to map that trajectory so specifically across the minimum 48,000,000 miles between Earth and Mercury, this all sounds well and good, but NASA gives its joke away with in love of acronyms.
If successful, MESSENGER's extended extended MIN-C mission will mark the first instance of the documented arrival to Earth of material from the Mercury system. Moreover, it will serve as the basis for a new Discovery-class mission proposal currently in development by the Applied Psychics Laboratory for a Mercury lander mission for in situ X-ray analysis of surface composition. That mission is to be named the Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays.
That's right.  The mission's name is H.O.A.X.  At least when NASA makes a joke, they do it big.  Happy April Fool's Day.

* * * * 
In related news that is not so enjoyable, NASA has begun the process of decommissioning the Space Shuttles and their overall program.  President George W. Bush first called for the retirement of the shuttle program in January of 2004, in the aftermath of the shuttle Columbia accident and its disintegration over Texas during atmospheric re-entry.  In speaking about a new focus for NASA on the International Space Station, Bush said:
Excerpt of  President Bush's 2004 remarks to NASA, announcing the
retirement of the shuttle program.
The photoblog In Focus, from The Atlantic Monthly, has compiled a series of images from the dismantling and preparation for display of shuttles Discovery and Endeavor as well as of the launching pads, cargo bays, and propulsion systems.  It is good-bye, for now, to American manned spaceflight.

Click on these images to visit the In Focus set.




We're Not the Only Ones Worried About the Census

To contact us Click HERE


Census Project presents the viewpoints about the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS) from various stakeholders.  A diverse group of stakeholders are involved including academic associations, public policy interest groups, retail and business organizations, and organizations representing ethnic and minority groups.

Recently the House voted not to fund the American Community Survey for 2013.  The Census Project  notes, "Currently, because of economic, fiscal and political challenges, the ongoing budgets to adequately fund planning for Census 2020 and the ACS’ ongoing work will be under a microscope in Congress."

The site includes fact sheets, issue briefs, letters, and other information.  A recent report, Eliminating America's Playbook, is a compilation of "scores of case studies and comments on why the ACS is one of the most useful tools the nation has to measure how its communities are doing each year."

Check it out!



29 Kasım 2012 Perşembe

White House Holiday Party Menus Will Feature Recipes From First Lady's Book, 'American Grown'

To contact us Click HERE
Another historic 'food first' for Mrs. Obama and her chefs; festive menus will also spotlight Gulf shrimp, Maine seafood, New York oysters, and artisanal cheeses from four states...
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off a busy holiday party schedule on Wednesday evening, hosting their first White House reception of the season. Through mid-December, there will be holiday parties and receptions almost daily--and sometimes twice daily.  The White House kitchen, led by Executive Chef Cris Comerford and Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, will be in overdrive preparing lavish buffets of savory and sweet dishes for about 14,000 total guests, according to an East Wing spokesman. (Above:  Comerford and Yosses with this year's gingerbread house)

The White House spotlights local and regional American foods at social events, and the buffet tables will be laden with Gulf Coast shrimp, smoked salmon and crab from Maine, and oysters from Fisher’s Island in New York.  Artisanal cheeses from Vermont, West Virginia, Virginia and California will also be featured.  But this year there's something new happening, Chef Comerford told Obama Foodorama:  The chefs will serve dishes created from the recipes in Mrs. Obama's bestselling book American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, published last May

"We're tweaking the recipes a little bit to make smaller portion sizes," Comerford said.  "In terms of presentation it will be smaller, easier to handle."

Due to Presidential security concerns, guests are not allowed to use knives at the holiday parties, so all foods served are designed to be consumed in one and two bites.  Comerford said the American Grown recipes will include Yosses' Sweet Potato Quick Bread, and her Winter Salad, which features fennel, pears, shallots, and walnuts; and her Green Beans with Almonds, a savory take on the favorite vegetable dish. 

"I'm excited about this," Comerford said.  "It's always a challenge keeping things new, after cooking for so many events all the time."  Now 50, she has worked at the White House since 1997.

Numerous First Ladies have published books about White House entertaining after their husbands' term in office is over.  But Mrs. Obama is the only First Lady in more than a century to publish a book that includes recipes from the kitchen while she is still a White House resident.  That makes this year's holiday parties another entry on Mrs. Obama and her chefs' now-lengthy list of "food firsts."

Guests enjoying the historic party menus will include "volunteers, members of Congress, White House staff, Secret Service personnel, White House reporters and Americans from across the country," according to the East Wing.

The White House chefs will be joined by between one and two-dozen chefs hired just for the season, Comerford said, who will work "between my department and the pastry shop."  Foods that can be pre-made, such as biscuit dough and cookie dough, have been "stockpiled," she said.

"But we make fresh salads and vegetables on a daily basis." 

The savory holiday buffet has traditionally included rare roast beef, roasted potatoes, salads, and roasted vegetables.  Last year there was a carving station featuring honey baked ham, turkey, biscuits, and the very popular "stuffing balls," created with the no-knife rule in mind.  They're exactly what they sound like, balls of stuffing.

Yosses' dessert buffet typically includes the President's favorite dessert, fruit pies; sticky toffee pudding; coconut cake, gingerbread cake, vanilla Yule log, strawberry shortcake piled high with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, pumpkin cake, opera cake and Tiramisu, as well as a major selection of tiny chocolates, shaped like mice and penguins.
A big selection of the much-coveted holiday cookies, in decorative shapes that include gingerbread men, reindeer, snowflakes, Christmas trees and First Dog Bo fill silver serving trees.  The Bo cookies tend to get slipped into pockets and handbags rather than eaten.  (Above: A selection of this year's cookies; Bo is in the center)

The President and Mrs. Obama's party guests will be among the 90,000 total guests who will flock through the White House this holiday season.  Comerford has a grueling month to get through, but then she will be heading back to Chicago for Christmas when the exhausting marathon is over, she said.  Like the Obamas, she considers it her hometown; she emigrated from her native Philippines to the Windy City with her family when she was in her early twenties.

"I'm looking forward to it," Comerford said.  "Relaxing!"  Even though the temperature might be sub-zero, she added, laughing. 

American Grown spent five weeks on The New York Times bestseller list last summer, and was listed as a top-100 seller on various internet book sites.  The President and Mrs. Obama's reception on Wednesday evening was for the 89 citizen decorators who spent last weekend transforming 1600 Penn into a sparkling Christmas wonderland.  Guests invited to the holiday receptions are typically allowed to bring one companion.

Check the sidebar of the blog for recipes from American Grown and other White House recipes.  Click here for links to all posts about the 2012 holidays.

Download:  The Official White House Holiday Tour Booklet [PDF]

Related:  Click here for a full report on the 2011 holiday receptions.

*Photos by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama.  Book jacket courtesy of Crown Publishing, Inc.

5k Race, Kid's Fun Run, Plus "Bonus" Book Sale on Sept. 16th

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday, September 16th, the Friends of the Library will host the annual Race for the Library. The 5k Run/Walk starts at the library with runners proceeding to the West Chop lighthouse and back. There will also be a 1/2 Mile Fun Run for Kids (13 & under). There will be prizes for winners in all age groups, and a raffle. 5k starts at 10 am; Fun Run for Kids starts at 9:45 am; Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Registration forms are available at the library or may be downloaded from our website, or you can register online.

The morning of the race, the Friends will also hold a "mini" book sale fundraiser from 9am until 11am. This is in addition to the regular monthly book sale that will be held on Saturday September 15th from 1-3pm.

A Search Primer (you don't have to always go with Google)

To contact us Click HERE
While Google is the undisputed king of internet search, there are other options.  Try some from the list below the next time you do a search.  The bottom portion of this post contains links to search tips that will help you become a better searcher.

General Search Engines
 
All the Web, All the Time
One of the more recently developed Web indexing tools, this search engine indexes a very large database. It has separate search boxes for audio, FTP, and picture files. Advanced search options support domain filters, word filters, and allow searching in 25 different languages.

AltaVista
Alta Vista has a large database. It can perform searches in Spanish or English and translate words, phrases, and entire Web sites online into many languages using "Babelfish." Other improvements include phrase detection, spell check, Family Filter, and natural language capabilities.

Ask 
Ask is a search engine that is intended to be used with natural language questions. There are many extra features such as suggesting other terms that are along the same subject lines and local searching.

Bing
Bing is Microsoft's new search engine. On the left side of the screen, it has buttons for searching images, videos, shopping, news, travel, history and maps. There is a visual search option, as well.

Google
The most extensive search engine on the Web. Google search results are ranked based on site popularity rather than the common practice of paid positioning. Google also has specialized searches for certain operating systems, government documents, maps and scholarly articles. A single click translation service is available for most pages which will translate to the user's primary language. It also caches Web pages allowing an individual to view pages that are not currently available or that are on overburdened servers.

Hakia
Hakia is a semantic search engine that is focused on quality. Unique to Hakia, a single query brings a full set of results in all segments including Web, News, Blogs, Hakia Galleries, Credible Sources, Video, and Images. Among these segments, News, Blogs, Credible Sources, and Hakia Galleries are processed by Hakia's proprietary core semantic technology called QDEXing. Web, video, and images are processed by Hakia's SemanticRank technology using third party API feeds.

HotBot
HotBot allows many search options such as language, images, javascript, video, and MP3. Advanced search options allow searching by date, page depth, and domain name.

Mahalo
Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content.  This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge).
Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions.  Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question.

Topsy
The first index is based exclusively on Twitter statuses. When you search for something on Topsy, such as “free music,“ it finds snippets of conversations that match what you are looking for. Topsy results are the things people link to when they are talking about your search terms. Topsy ranks results based on how well they match your search terms and the influence of the people talking about them.

Twazzup
Twazzup is a Twitter search tool that provides almost all of what Twitter Search does itself, plus a list of the most influential tweeters on a topic, related photos, and keywords based on your search results to help you refine your search.

WebCrawler
WebCrawler is one of the oldest search engines and uses the Excite search software to search the Web. It is good for simple searching.

Yahoo
Yahoo is a collection of classified subject resources. If no matches are found in its own database, it searches the rest of the Web using Google. Options at the bottom of the screen link to searches in a particular country (Denmark, France, Mexico) or city (Los Angeles, New York City) which may be in the native language of that country.

Yippy
Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search. That's where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool.


Meta Search Engines

These search engines search multiple databases simultaneously. Both of these search engines remove the duplicates before presenting the search results.
Dogpile
Searches the major search engines simultaneously and allows the user to view the combined results or compare the results of the various engines side by side.

MetaCrawler
MetaCrawler simultaneously searches Lycos, Infoseek, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, Thunderstone, DirectHit, LookSmart, and Yahoo. A brief annotation is provided with the search results.

Subject Guides

These subject guides are a starting point to specific information on the Web. Although they do provide search engines, those engines search only on the individual Web site (i.e., a search on the Librarians' Index to the Internet will only show sites listed on the Librarians' Index to the Internet).
Internet Public Library
Originally begun as a project of the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies, the Internet Public Library locates, evaluates, annotates and organizes the information resources of the Internet which would be of interest to patrons of a public library.

Scout Report Archives
The Internet Scout Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Resources can be searched by either a quick or complex search engine. Links can also be browsed by Library of Congress subject headings.

Web Searching Techniques


For more information on how search engines work, how to search, and tables and charts describing how these tools work, see the following articles:Beyond General World Wide Web Searching (From UC Berkeley)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Checklist of Internet Research Tips (from the University at Albany)
http://library.albany.edu/usered/iguides/iguides.html
Searching the Internet
http://www.sldirectory.com/search.html
Recommended Search Strategy: Search With Peripheral Vision
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

NASA's Joke Goes Over Everyone's Head

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday this week, NASA posted details of a new mission involving the craft currently orbiting the planet Mercury called MESSENGER or "MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging."


The mission, PIA 15542, or "Mooning Mercury" to the layearthling, centers on a newly discovered natural satellite (moon) measuring 230 ft. across at a distance of about 8,890 miles above the planet.  The proposed name for this moon is Caduceus.

The very, very, very small moon, Caduceus.
The mission description goes on to say that rather than study this moon, as they might normally do, NASA had another plan.  It goes like this...
...The new plan is to use the remaining propellant to crash MESSENGER into Caduceus. "Our detailed analysis tells us that if we act now, and with the right trajectory, MESSENGER will impart just enough momentum to the moon to break it free of Mercury's gravity well and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite," said Panini.

...If Caduceus is successfully released from the pull of Mercury and placed on a course to reach Earth, we can expect the moon to arrive at Earth by 2014. "The risk to the public is reassuringly small", offers MESSENGER mission design lead Adam McJames. "We have designed a trajectory that will bring the moon to Earth at a remote location on the Wilkes Land ice sheet in Antarctica. This trajectory will avoid all population centers and will put the moon's impact site within reach for retrieval by the scientific staff at the U.S.-operated McMurdo Station."
In other words, something a little like the plot of the 1979 movie, "Meteor."


If you don't think about the odds of being able to map that trajectory so specifically across the minimum 48,000,000 miles between Earth and Mercury, this all sounds well and good, but NASA gives its joke away with in love of acronyms.
If successful, MESSENGER's extended extended MIN-C mission will mark the first instance of the documented arrival to Earth of material from the Mercury system. Moreover, it will serve as the basis for a new Discovery-class mission proposal currently in development by the Applied Psychics Laboratory for a Mercury lander mission for in situ X-ray analysis of surface composition. That mission is to be named the Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays.
That's right.  The mission's name is H.O.A.X.  At least when NASA makes a joke, they do it big.  Happy April Fool's Day.

* * * * 
In related news that is not so enjoyable, NASA has begun the process of decommissioning the Space Shuttles and their overall program.  President George W. Bush first called for the retirement of the shuttle program in January of 2004, in the aftermath of the shuttle Columbia accident and its disintegration over Texas during atmospheric re-entry.  In speaking about a new focus for NASA on the International Space Station, Bush said:
Excerpt of  President Bush's 2004 remarks to NASA, announcing the
retirement of the shuttle program.
The photoblog In Focus, from The Atlantic Monthly, has compiled a series of images from the dismantling and preparation for display of shuttles Discovery and Endeavor as well as of the launching pads, cargo bays, and propulsion systems.  It is good-bye, for now, to American manned spaceflight.

Click on these images to visit the In Focus set.




We're Not the Only Ones Worried About the Census

To contact us Click HERE


Census Project presents the viewpoints about the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS) from various stakeholders.  A diverse group of stakeholders are involved including academic associations, public policy interest groups, retail and business organizations, and organizations representing ethnic and minority groups.

Recently the House voted not to fund the American Community Survey for 2013.  The Census Project  notes, "Currently, because of economic, fiscal and political challenges, the ongoing budgets to adequately fund planning for Census 2020 and the ACS’ ongoing work will be under a microscope in Congress."

The site includes fact sheets, issue briefs, letters, and other information.  A recent report, Eliminating America's Playbook, is a compilation of "scores of case studies and comments on why the ACS is one of the most useful tools the nation has to measure how its communities are doing each year."

Check it out!



28 Kasım 2012 Çarşamba

NASA's Joke Goes Over Everyone's Head

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday this week, NASA posted details of a new mission involving the craft currently orbiting the planet Mercury called MESSENGER or "MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging."


The mission, PIA 15542, or "Mooning Mercury" to the layearthling, centers on a newly discovered natural satellite (moon) measuring 230 ft. across at a distance of about 8,890 miles above the planet.  The proposed name for this moon is Caduceus.

The very, very, very small moon, Caduceus.
The mission description goes on to say that rather than study this moon, as they might normally do, NASA had another plan.  It goes like this...
...The new plan is to use the remaining propellant to crash MESSENGER into Caduceus. "Our detailed analysis tells us that if we act now, and with the right trajectory, MESSENGER will impart just enough momentum to the moon to break it free of Mercury's gravity well and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite," said Panini.

...If Caduceus is successfully released from the pull of Mercury and placed on a course to reach Earth, we can expect the moon to arrive at Earth by 2014. "The risk to the public is reassuringly small", offers MESSENGER mission design lead Adam McJames. "We have designed a trajectory that will bring the moon to Earth at a remote location on the Wilkes Land ice sheet in Antarctica. This trajectory will avoid all population centers and will put the moon's impact site within reach for retrieval by the scientific staff at the U.S.-operated McMurdo Station."
In other words, something a little like the plot of the 1979 movie, "Meteor."


If you don't think about the odds of being able to map that trajectory so specifically across the minimum 48,000,000 miles between Earth and Mercury, this all sounds well and good, but NASA gives its joke away with in love of acronyms.
If successful, MESSENGER's extended extended MIN-C mission will mark the first instance of the documented arrival to Earth of material from the Mercury system. Moreover, it will serve as the basis for a new Discovery-class mission proposal currently in development by the Applied Psychics Laboratory for a Mercury lander mission for in situ X-ray analysis of surface composition. That mission is to be named the Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays.
That's right.  The mission's name is H.O.A.X.  At least when NASA makes a joke, they do it big.  Happy April Fool's Day.

* * * * 
In related news that is not so enjoyable, NASA has begun the process of decommissioning the Space Shuttles and their overall program.  President George W. Bush first called for the retirement of the shuttle program in January of 2004, in the aftermath of the shuttle Columbia accident and its disintegration over Texas during atmospheric re-entry.  In speaking about a new focus for NASA on the International Space Station, Bush said:
Excerpt of  President Bush's 2004 remarks to NASA, announcing the
retirement of the shuttle program.
The photoblog In Focus, from The Atlantic Monthly, has compiled a series of images from the dismantling and preparation for display of shuttles Discovery and Endeavor as well as of the launching pads, cargo bays, and propulsion systems.  It is good-bye, for now, to American manned spaceflight.

Click on these images to visit the In Focus set.




A Search Primer (you don't have to always go with Google)

To contact us Click HERE
While Google is the undisputed king of internet search, there are other options.  Try some from the list below the next time you do a search.  The bottom portion of this post contains links to search tips that will help you become a better searcher.

General Search Engines
 
All the Web, All the Time
One of the more recently developed Web indexing tools, this search engine indexes a very large database. It has separate search boxes for audio, FTP, and picture files. Advanced search options support domain filters, word filters, and allow searching in 25 different languages.

AltaVista
Alta Vista has a large database. It can perform searches in Spanish or English and translate words, phrases, and entire Web sites online into many languages using "Babelfish." Other improvements include phrase detection, spell check, Family Filter, and natural language capabilities.

Ask 
Ask is a search engine that is intended to be used with natural language questions. There are many extra features such as suggesting other terms that are along the same subject lines and local searching.

Bing
Bing is Microsoft's new search engine. On the left side of the screen, it has buttons for searching images, videos, shopping, news, travel, history and maps. There is a visual search option, as well.

Google
The most extensive search engine on the Web. Google search results are ranked based on site popularity rather than the common practice of paid positioning. Google also has specialized searches for certain operating systems, government documents, maps and scholarly articles. A single click translation service is available for most pages which will translate to the user's primary language. It also caches Web pages allowing an individual to view pages that are not currently available or that are on overburdened servers.

Hakia
Hakia is a semantic search engine that is focused on quality. Unique to Hakia, a single query brings a full set of results in all segments including Web, News, Blogs, Hakia Galleries, Credible Sources, Video, and Images. Among these segments, News, Blogs, Credible Sources, and Hakia Galleries are processed by Hakia's proprietary core semantic technology called QDEXing. Web, video, and images are processed by Hakia's SemanticRank technology using third party API feeds.

HotBot
HotBot allows many search options such as language, images, javascript, video, and MP3. Advanced search options allow searching by date, page depth, and domain name.

Mahalo
Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content.  This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge).
Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions.  Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question.

Topsy
The first index is based exclusively on Twitter statuses. When you search for something on Topsy, such as “free music,“ it finds snippets of conversations that match what you are looking for. Topsy results are the things people link to when they are talking about your search terms. Topsy ranks results based on how well they match your search terms and the influence of the people talking about them.

Twazzup
Twazzup is a Twitter search tool that provides almost all of what Twitter Search does itself, plus a list of the most influential tweeters on a topic, related photos, and keywords based on your search results to help you refine your search.

WebCrawler
WebCrawler is one of the oldest search engines and uses the Excite search software to search the Web. It is good for simple searching.

Yahoo
Yahoo is a collection of classified subject resources. If no matches are found in its own database, it searches the rest of the Web using Google. Options at the bottom of the screen link to searches in a particular country (Denmark, France, Mexico) or city (Los Angeles, New York City) which may be in the native language of that country.

Yippy
Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search. That's where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool.


Meta Search Engines

These search engines search multiple databases simultaneously. Both of these search engines remove the duplicates before presenting the search results.
Dogpile
Searches the major search engines simultaneously and allows the user to view the combined results or compare the results of the various engines side by side.

MetaCrawler
MetaCrawler simultaneously searches Lycos, Infoseek, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, Thunderstone, DirectHit, LookSmart, and Yahoo. A brief annotation is provided with the search results.

Subject Guides

These subject guides are a starting point to specific information on the Web. Although they do provide search engines, those engines search only on the individual Web site (i.e., a search on the Librarians' Index to the Internet will only show sites listed on the Librarians' Index to the Internet).
Internet Public Library
Originally begun as a project of the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies, the Internet Public Library locates, evaluates, annotates and organizes the information resources of the Internet which would be of interest to patrons of a public library.

Scout Report Archives
The Internet Scout Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Resources can be searched by either a quick or complex search engine. Links can also be browsed by Library of Congress subject headings.

Web Searching Techniques


For more information on how search engines work, how to search, and tables and charts describing how these tools work, see the following articles:Beyond General World Wide Web Searching (From UC Berkeley)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Checklist of Internet Research Tips (from the University at Albany)
http://library.albany.edu/usered/iguides/iguides.html
Searching the Internet
http://www.sldirectory.com/search.html
Recommended Search Strategy: Search With Peripheral Vision
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

5k Race, Kid's Fun Run, Plus "Bonus" Book Sale on Sept. 16th

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday, September 16th, the Friends of the Library will host the annual Race for the Library. The 5k Run/Walk starts at the library with runners proceeding to the West Chop lighthouse and back. There will also be a 1/2 Mile Fun Run for Kids (13 & under). There will be prizes for winners in all age groups, and a raffle. 5k starts at 10 am; Fun Run for Kids starts at 9:45 am; Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Registration forms are available at the library or may be downloaded from our website, or you can register online.

The morning of the race, the Friends will also hold a "mini" book sale fundraiser from 9am until 11am. This is in addition to the regular monthly book sale that will be held on Saturday September 15th from 1-3pm.

27 Kasım 2012 Salı

Presidential Turkeys Settle In At Mount Vernon

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Cobbler and Gobbler are living in a rustic shack in a small fenced enclosure at President George Washington's historic estate...
After receiving a very public pardon from President Obama last Wednesday, National Thanksgiving Turkey Cobbler and his alternate Gobbler are now settled into their new home at Mount Vernon Estates and Gardens, located fourteen miles from the White House.  Their accommodations at President George Washington's historic manse are rustic:  A small wood shack with a single door and one tiny screened window sits at the back of a small yard surrounded by split rail fencing.  It is low enough that visitors can lean over and touch the two birds, Obama Foodorama observed during a chilly visit on Sunday.   Unlike wild turkeys, the duo cannot fly, having been bred with broad meaty chests suitable for deli meat and carving boards.


It was overcast and a bitter 38 degrees midday on Sunday, and Cobbler and Gobbler repeatedly flapped their wings and vocalized as parka-wearing guests paused to snap photos.  Their enclosure is located on a road above the visitors' center, along a brick wall that fences in one of Washington's recreated vegetable gardens.  (Above:  A visitor pulls a tail feather)

There was no Mount Vernon employee on hand to oversee guests or birds, but a simple laminated sign stapled to a post identified the Toms as the now-famous Presidential Turkeys. 

With visitors watching, Cobbler and Gobbler fanned their tail feathers and occasionally went to a small wood trough where they pecked at a mix of corn kernels and poultry chow.  A plastic bucket of water was available inside the small house, where straw, covered with droppings, was strewn on the floor. (Above:  A longview of the enclosure)

Cobbler is the only National Thanksgiving Turkey in history to be chosen by an online White House poll.

Now 20 weeks old, the two Toms were hatched on July 13 and grew up with the 40-member Presidential Flock in a climate-controlled converted barn dubbed "the turkey palace" by Craig and Nancy Miller, the farmers who raised them for Cargill Retail Meat Solutions, Inc. in Rockingham County,Virginia. (Above:  The sign that identifies the duo) 

Before their big day at the White House, Cobbler and Gobbler spent two nights staying at the lavish W hotel in DC.  They even held a press conference.  

"These two lucky birds will be swept up in a whirlwind of fame and fortune that will ultimately lead them to Mount Vernon, where they will spend their twilight years in the storied home of George Washington," President Obama declared as he granted clemency.

Cobbler and Gobbler could live as long as eight years, according to Dr. Bob Evans, the Cargill veterinarian who was the doctor for the Presidential flock.  Now weighing more than 40 pounds each, the birds could weigh as much as 80 pounds when fully grown.  But that's an unlikely future.  (Above:  Cobbler gets a drink in the turkey shack as Gobbler struts near the chow trough)

Liberty and Peace, the turkeys President Obama pardoned in 2011, were also sent to live at Mount Vernon's livestock facility.  Peace, the alternate Tom, was euthanized the Monday before Thanksgiving, Huffington Post reported.  Apple and Cider, the 2010 duo, were also ensconced at Mount Vernon, and have also died.

Cobbler and Gobbler are not the only livestock imported to Mount Vernon for the Christmas program:  There's also Aladdin, a five-year-old camel from Virginia, who is on display in a paddock up the road from the turkeys.

President Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a camel to Mount Vernon in 1787 "for the enjoyment of his family and friends," according to the sign outside the depressed-looking Aladdin's enclosure.  The Virginia camel is a holiday homage to the first President's love of exotic animals. (Aladdin, above)

Cobbler and Gobbler  and Aladdin will be on display through Jan. 6, 2013 for the Christmas at Mount Vernon holiday program.  

Related:  How the President and First Family celebrated Thanksgiving.

*Photos by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama

5k Race, Kid's Fun Run, Plus "Bonus" Book Sale on Sept. 16th

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday, September 16th, the Friends of the Library will host the annual Race for the Library. The 5k Run/Walk starts at the library with runners proceeding to the West Chop lighthouse and back. There will also be a 1/2 Mile Fun Run for Kids (13 & under). There will be prizes for winners in all age groups, and a raffle. 5k starts at 10 am; Fun Run for Kids starts at 9:45 am; Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Registration forms are available at the library or may be downloaded from our website, or you can register online.

The morning of the race, the Friends will also hold a "mini" book sale fundraiser from 9am until 11am. This is in addition to the regular monthly book sale that will be held on Saturday September 15th from 1-3pm.

A Search Primer (you don't have to always go with Google)

To contact us Click HERE
While Google is the undisputed king of internet search, there are other options.  Try some from the list below the next time you do a search.  The bottom portion of this post contains links to search tips that will help you become a better searcher.

General Search Engines
 
All the Web, All the Time
One of the more recently developed Web indexing tools, this search engine indexes a very large database. It has separate search boxes for audio, FTP, and picture files. Advanced search options support domain filters, word filters, and allow searching in 25 different languages.

AltaVista
Alta Vista has a large database. It can perform searches in Spanish or English and translate words, phrases, and entire Web sites online into many languages using "Babelfish." Other improvements include phrase detection, spell check, Family Filter, and natural language capabilities.

Ask 
Ask is a search engine that is intended to be used with natural language questions. There are many extra features such as suggesting other terms that are along the same subject lines and local searching.

Bing
Bing is Microsoft's new search engine. On the left side of the screen, it has buttons for searching images, videos, shopping, news, travel, history and maps. There is a visual search option, as well.

Google
The most extensive search engine on the Web. Google search results are ranked based on site popularity rather than the common practice of paid positioning. Google also has specialized searches for certain operating systems, government documents, maps and scholarly articles. A single click translation service is available for most pages which will translate to the user's primary language. It also caches Web pages allowing an individual to view pages that are not currently available or that are on overburdened servers.

Hakia
Hakia is a semantic search engine that is focused on quality. Unique to Hakia, a single query brings a full set of results in all segments including Web, News, Blogs, Hakia Galleries, Credible Sources, Video, and Images. Among these segments, News, Blogs, Credible Sources, and Hakia Galleries are processed by Hakia's proprietary core semantic technology called QDEXing. Web, video, and images are processed by Hakia's SemanticRank technology using third party API feeds.

HotBot
HotBot allows many search options such as language, images, javascript, video, and MP3. Advanced search options allow searching by date, page depth, and domain name.

Mahalo
Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content.  This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge).
Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions.  Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question.

Topsy
The first index is based exclusively on Twitter statuses. When you search for something on Topsy, such as “free music,“ it finds snippets of conversations that match what you are looking for. Topsy results are the things people link to when they are talking about your search terms. Topsy ranks results based on how well they match your search terms and the influence of the people talking about them.

Twazzup
Twazzup is a Twitter search tool that provides almost all of what Twitter Search does itself, plus a list of the most influential tweeters on a topic, related photos, and keywords based on your search results to help you refine your search.

WebCrawler
WebCrawler is one of the oldest search engines and uses the Excite search software to search the Web. It is good for simple searching.

Yahoo
Yahoo is a collection of classified subject resources. If no matches are found in its own database, it searches the rest of the Web using Google. Options at the bottom of the screen link to searches in a particular country (Denmark, France, Mexico) or city (Los Angeles, New York City) which may be in the native language of that country.

Yippy
Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search. That's where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool.


Meta Search Engines

These search engines search multiple databases simultaneously. Both of these search engines remove the duplicates before presenting the search results.
Dogpile
Searches the major search engines simultaneously and allows the user to view the combined results or compare the results of the various engines side by side.

MetaCrawler
MetaCrawler simultaneously searches Lycos, Infoseek, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, Thunderstone, DirectHit, LookSmart, and Yahoo. A brief annotation is provided with the search results.

Subject Guides

These subject guides are a starting point to specific information on the Web. Although they do provide search engines, those engines search only on the individual Web site (i.e., a search on the Librarians' Index to the Internet will only show sites listed on the Librarians' Index to the Internet).
Internet Public Library
Originally begun as a project of the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies, the Internet Public Library locates, evaluates, annotates and organizes the information resources of the Internet which would be of interest to patrons of a public library.

Scout Report Archives
The Internet Scout Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Resources can be searched by either a quick or complex search engine. Links can also be browsed by Library of Congress subject headings.

Web Searching Techniques


For more information on how search engines work, how to search, and tables and charts describing how these tools work, see the following articles:Beyond General World Wide Web Searching (From UC Berkeley)
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Checklist of Internet Research Tips (from the University at Albany)
http://library.albany.edu/usered/iguides/iguides.html
Searching the Internet
http://www.sldirectory.com/search.html
Recommended Search Strategy: Search With Peripheral Vision
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

NASA's Joke Goes Over Everyone's Head

To contact us Click HERE
On Sunday this week, NASA posted details of a new mission involving the craft currently orbiting the planet Mercury called MESSENGER or "MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging."


The mission, PIA 15542, or "Mooning Mercury" to the layearthling, centers on a newly discovered natural satellite (moon) measuring 230 ft. across at a distance of about 8,890 miles above the planet.  The proposed name for this moon is Caduceus.

The very, very, very small moon, Caduceus.
The mission description goes on to say that rather than study this moon, as they might normally do, NASA had another plan.  It goes like this...
...The new plan is to use the remaining propellant to crash MESSENGER into Caduceus. "Our detailed analysis tells us that if we act now, and with the right trajectory, MESSENGER will impart just enough momentum to the moon to break it free of Mercury's gravity well and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite," said Panini.

...If Caduceus is successfully released from the pull of Mercury and placed on a course to reach Earth, we can expect the moon to arrive at Earth by 2014. "The risk to the public is reassuringly small", offers MESSENGER mission design lead Adam McJames. "We have designed a trajectory that will bring the moon to Earth at a remote location on the Wilkes Land ice sheet in Antarctica. This trajectory will avoid all population centers and will put the moon's impact site within reach for retrieval by the scientific staff at the U.S.-operated McMurdo Station."
In other words, something a little like the plot of the 1979 movie, "Meteor."


If you don't think about the odds of being able to map that trajectory so specifically across the minimum 48,000,000 miles between Earth and Mercury, this all sounds well and good, but NASA gives its joke away with in love of acronyms.
If successful, MESSENGER's extended extended MIN-C mission will mark the first instance of the documented arrival to Earth of material from the Mercury system. Moreover, it will serve as the basis for a new Discovery-class mission proposal currently in development by the Applied Psychics Laboratory for a Mercury lander mission for in situ X-ray analysis of surface composition. That mission is to be named the Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays.
That's right.  The mission's name is H.O.A.X.  At least when NASA makes a joke, they do it big.  Happy April Fool's Day.

* * * * 
In related news that is not so enjoyable, NASA has begun the process of decommissioning the Space Shuttles and their overall program.  President George W. Bush first called for the retirement of the shuttle program in January of 2004, in the aftermath of the shuttle Columbia accident and its disintegration over Texas during atmospheric re-entry.  In speaking about a new focus for NASA on the International Space Station, Bush said:
Excerpt of  President Bush's 2004 remarks to NASA, announcing the
retirement of the shuttle program.
The photoblog In Focus, from The Atlantic Monthly, has compiled a series of images from the dismantling and preparation for display of shuttles Discovery and Endeavor as well as of the launching pads, cargo bays, and propulsion systems.  It is good-bye, for now, to American manned spaceflight.

Click on these images to visit the In Focus set.




We're Not the Only Ones Worried About the Census

To contact us Click HERE


Census Project presents the viewpoints about the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS) from various stakeholders.  A diverse group of stakeholders are involved including academic associations, public policy interest groups, retail and business organizations, and organizations representing ethnic and minority groups.

Recently the House voted not to fund the American Community Survey for 2013.  The Census Project  notes, "Currently, because of economic, fiscal and political challenges, the ongoing budgets to adequately fund planning for Census 2020 and the ACS’ ongoing work will be under a microscope in Congress."

The site includes fact sheets, issue briefs, letters, and other information.  A recent report, Eliminating America's Playbook, is a compilation of "scores of case studies and comments on why the ACS is one of the most useful tools the nation has to measure how its communities are doing each year."

Check it out!



26 Kasım 2012 Pazartesi

National Thanksgiving Turkey 'Cobbler' Heads To White House For Big Day With President Obama

To contact us Click HERE
Virginia turkeys were raised by family farmers for Cargill, and stayed at a luxury hotel before the annual pardon ceremony in the Rose Garden...
The two Toms competing in the White House contest to be the National Thanksgiving Turkey held their first and only "press conference" on Tuesday afternoon, meeting journalists with wings flapping and wattles wobbling during an hour of fun in the rooftop POV lounge at the W Washington, DC hotel.  Cobbler and Gobbler, raised by farmers Craig and Nancy Miller on their Miller Farm in Rockingham County, VA, may look like identical giant white snowballs, but only one will share the Rose Garden stage with President Obama for the official pardon ceremony at 2:00 PM today. (Above:  Gobbler, l, and Cobbler)

The White House will livestream the big event, which comes hours after the President returns from a four-day trip to Asia.  Both Toms are 19 weeks old and weigh more than 40 pounds each.  Cobbler had gotten more votes by 8:00 PM ET on Tuesday night, the official close of polling for the 'Thanksgiving Decision 2012' contest on Facebook, garnering 2,016 "Likes" to Gobbler's 1,767.  UPDATE: Cobbler will be the National Thanksgiving Turkey, the White House announced at 9:00 AM.

Gobbler will be the alternate Tom, and both birds will be spared the fate of the holiday plate.  Though the polling was 'officially' over last night, the public this morning could still click the Facebook link to "Like" either bird, in a holiday version of ballot stuffing.


Hatched on July 13 at a Cargill Retail Meat Solutions, Inc facility in Harrisonburg, VA, the "Turkey Capital of the World," the birds are the Top Toms from a Presidential Flock that started with forty chicks and was reduced down to ten by this weekend when they were finally selected to travel to Washington for their big day.  The birds lived in a converted barn dubbed the "Turkey Palace" by the Millers, who were thrilled to be charged with their important duty.  (Above, the Miller family with the birds: From r, Nancy, Craig, daughter Kelsey and son Chase)

The husband and wife team will mark their 25th wedding anniversary next month, and Craig Miller has lived on the family farm "for more than fifty years."  The turkeys "had it good," he said.

"It's just a real honor," said Mr. Miller.  "A once-in-a lifetime experience to raise the President's turkeys."

The National Turkey Federation, which has orchestrated the White House presentation for 65 years, asked the Millers to raise the Presidential Flock last February; Board Chairman Steve Willardsen is president of Cargill.

"It was a no brainer when we got that call," Mr. Miller said.

He said he and his wife are some of the few Obama supporters in their very GOP county in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and they had indeed received pushback from neighbors for agreeing to take on the project.  Virginia was a highly competitive battleground for the 2012 election race, with President Obama and Mitt Romney devoting large amounts of time to wooing Commonwealth voters.

"It's a shame that it got political," Mr. Miller said. "There were negative  comments and the like.  We tried to ignore it.  This is for the President of the United States, and turkeys aren't political."

Both Millers are looking forward to meeting the man they voted for at the White House.  "We want to thank President Obama for all he's done," said Mrs. Miller.

While turkeys may not be inherently political, they are big business, with about 46 million--minus Cobbler and Gobbler--headed for Thanksgiving tables on Thursday.  Cargill is the third largest turkey producer in the US, employing thousands of people at nine facilities nationwide, in addition to farmers.  The Millers raise three flocks of hens each year for the company, housing the 43,000 birds each time in two air conditioned barns that are 50 feet wide by 800 feet long, and "computer controlled" for climate, said Mrs. Miller. 

Cobbler and Gobbler and the Presidential Flock are all Toms.  Male birds of their size are typically used for deli meats and "carving stations," Willardsen told reporters at the press conference.  They were raised on a diet of primarily soy and corn, but during their VIP stay at the W hotel were "gobbling up" organic greens and grains, said W general manager Ed Baten.

"They've been good guests," Baten said. "We haven’t had any noise complaints from their neighbors."

The W is always pet friendly, and has hosted the famous turkeys headed for the White House each year since 2010.  The birds stay in a meeting room that's been tricked out as a turkey sanctuary with furniture removed and shavings on the floor, though the hotel winkingly informs the public that the feathery guests will be in a deluxe suite typically offered to dignitaries.



Cobbler and Gobbler could live as long as eight years, according to Bob Evans ("just like the restaurant, yes"), the Cargill veterinarian who was present when they were hatched in Harrisonburg.  Like the Millers, he is very fond of the Presidential turkeys, who are currently the equivalent of teenagers, he said.  Acting as the Turkey Whisperer, Evans wrangled the birds at the press conference, and repeatedly explained which was which to reporters confused by their similar looks.  He has visited the birds daily since their birth, not just to monitor them medically, but because he has a real affection for them. (Above, Evans with Gobbler, l, and Cobbler)

"Birds this size, usually they'll chase you around," Evans said, laughing, but Cobbler and Gobbler like human contact, and were totally calm as they were surrounded by the press.  They had weeks of special training to get ready for their important day with the President, Evans said, including being exposed to loud music, flashing lights, and lots of human contact.

"Gobbler will give me little kisses," Evans said, but yes, he will be eating turkey on Thanksgiving: "It's the perfect protein."

The White House spotlighted the birds' different personalities for the contest:  "Cobbler and Gobbler may look alike, but they're no birds of a feather," read a post on the White House blog.

"Cobbler craves cranberries, is known for his strut, and enjoys the musical stylings of Carly Simon. Gobbler, a patient but proud bird, loves to nibble on corn and enjoys any music with a fiddle."

The Toms especially appreciated the music of fiddler Eileen Ivers, said the Federation's LeeAnn Jackson; they were big fans of her album "Crossing the Bridge," and would gobble loudly during the song "Bunch of Keys."  (Above:  Cargill's Willardsen poses with the birds as the W's Baten looks on)

After receiving President Obama's pardon, the turkeys will spend the rest of their days at the nationally recognized livestock facility at Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, the glorious, historically preserved farm/estate of the first American President, George Washington.  It's located in Virginia, about a half hour from the White House.  The Toms will be featured in the 'Christmas at Mount Vernon' program through January 6, 2013. 

President Obama pardoned North Carolina turkey Courage and his alternate Carolina in 2009;  Californians Apple and alternate Cider and 2010; and Liberty and alternate Peace in 2011.  Liberty is still at Mount Vernon, but Peace was euthanized on Monday after an illness, the Huffington Post reported. (Above:  Photographers surround the turkeys at the press conference)

*Related:  Click here for the 2012 Obama White House Thanksgiving menu and recipes. 

*The President's 2012 Thanksgiving Proclamation

*Photos of by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama