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It's time to restore the respected and noteworthy legacy of Joe Paterno and the image of Pennsylvania State University.

I don't believe opinions of cynics, detractors and rival fans deserve any merit. While these naysayers sit back, point their fingers and gloat, Penn State continues to pursue high standards. Penn State graduates proudly sit atop the list of the 25 schools rated highest by job recruiters, and the football players who stayed the course despite many obstacles have become outstanding role models.

And who was held in higher esteem or respected more in college sports and higher level academics than Joe Paterno during his 60-plus years as a coach at Penn State? His football program was one of only three not to be cited for any major NCAA infractions during the 46 years he was head coach.

Paterno began his "Grand Experiment" in 1966. His goal was to build a program that excelled both in the classroom and on the field. It worked! The coach's football players repeatedly exhibited above-average academic success compared to other NCAA football programs.

Education is first at Penn State. Paterno's players had an 85 percent graduation rate, and these high academic accomplishments continue across all the PSU athletic teams. The latest graduation success rate statistics for Penn State student-athletes is 89 percent, seven percentage points above the national rate. Eight athletic teams posted rates of 100 percent.

Paterno and his wife, Sue, devoted much of their time and financial efforts to Penn State and the State College area. Their 1993 fundraising campaign amassed $13.75 million dollars for a new library. The university honored the Paternos by naming the library expansion, the Paterno Library. The Paternos donated an estimated $7.5 million to the library, for scholarships and to charitable functions. (The university received a $100,000 donation from the Paternos in December 2011, after the coach was fired.)

Unfortunately, as the tragic events of the Sandusky scandal unraveled, university trustees caved in to the media frenzy. Paterno was fired (imagine being terminated over the telephone after devoting 60-plus years to one profession, business or institution), unreasonable NCAA sanctions were accepted, and the coach's statue was removed from the front of Beaver Stadium.

Why did the NCAA become involved in a criminal situation? Yes, it was a criminal act not a football one. The NCAA's threat of the "death penalty," a complete shutdown of the football program, forced the university into accepting unprecedented sanctions.

The NCAA based the majority of its decisions on information in the Freeh Report. Three of the historic NCAA sanctions directly affected the players: nullification of all football wins between 1998 and 2011 (112 wins), four years of reduced football scholarships and a four-year bowl ban. Players were also allowed to transfer to another school and play immediately. Only seven players transferred during the lengthy period, a prime example of the players' faith in the football program and Penn State.

It's still difficult for me to understand how the appalling and tragic behavior of one former coach, no longer employed by the university had anything to do with football games played between 1998 and 2011. What was the NCAA thinking? Former players, despite having no association with the criminal behavior saw their wins erased as if the games were not played. They suffered the collateral damage from the criminal acts.

Excerpt from:
Second Mile Sandusky Scandal

City high school graduation rates are a cruel charade

The headline on Colin Campbell's recent report on Baltimore City high school graduation rates was misleading ("Graduation rates at city schools below average, but rising," Dec. 16).

In his letter to the editor, Mark Wilson ("Who cares what the CIA does to terrorists?" Dec. 21) asks whether he is living in the "Twilight Zone" because he sees nothing wrong with torturing people to get so-called information from them. Perhaps he is. He fails to grasp that the people in...

Sony Pictures Entertainment has canceled the release of its satiric film, "The Interview," as a result of major U.S. movie chains' refusal to screen it because of terrorist threats from North Korea.

The spending bill recently approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama includes provisions important to Marylanders ("For better or worse, spending bill passes," Dec. 15). Thanks to the hard work of Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, federal...

Christmas came early this year for the Hippodrome's "loyal subscribers." But it wasn't the nice side of Christmas, it was the Grinch that came to visit ("Hippodrome feels the heat from reseating process," Dec. 19).

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Opinion - Baltimore Sun

Netflix ( NFLX )reported its third quarter numbers on October 15, 2014 and the stock has fallen approximately 25% since then. Even though Netflix delivered on the revenue guidance, the selloff has largely been due to the disappointing numbers it posted with respect to streaming subscriber additions. Our price estimate for Netflix stands at $299 , implying a discount of about 12% to the market.While we believe that Netflix has a lot going on in its favor, there are some risks that warrant a conservative valuation of the stock.

See our complete analysis for Netflix

What's Going Well For Netflix?

On the whole, Netflix is a relatively strong growth story and has a lot of things working for it. Netflix's revenue grew at 21% in the year 2013 and is expected to grow at 25% in 2014, which means it will cross the $5 billion mark for the first time and come in at around $5.46 billion. Its subscribers have been increasing at a good pace. The overall subscriber base crossed 50 million mark for the first time in the second quarter of 2014, and the company added another 3 million in the third quarter. The subscriber growth, in essence, is being fueled by media consumption shifting to internet. The presence of wide variety of devices available to play Netflix's movies via internet significantly enhances customer experience. This will continue to be a catalyst for streaming subscribers in the US. Its growing focus towards original content has been paying off and shows such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black have been immensely popular. It is considered a pioneer in online streaming and is well placed with respect to total domestic subscribers and the overall quality of content in comparison to its competitors like Hulu and Amazon Prime Instant Video. Netflix has been aggressively expanding its international streaming operations and recently launched in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg, gaining access to a potential market of about 66 million broadband households. It also officially announced that it plans to launch in Australia and New Zealand in March 2015.

However, These Risks Can Not Be Ignored:

- Subscriber Growth In The U.S. May Be Slowing Down

There are still concerns surrounding the future growth drivers of the company and the biggest concern is the underperformance in the domestic streaming subscriber additions. Netflix added a little less than 1 million subscribers domestically in the third quarter of 2014, as opposed to its earlier expectation of 1.33 million. The company increased the price of its online streaming plan from $7.99 to $8.99 and cites this as the primary reason for the decline in demand. While this may be the case, there are genuine concerns that Netflix's US business could be entering its maturity phase and that the market could become saturated in the coming years. Incremental customer additions will become difficult for the company in such a scenario.

- International Streaming Is Still In Losses

The international streaming segment is growing at a rapid pace. The number of international subscribers stood at 15.84 million at the end of third quarter of 2014, an increase of 72% over the same period a year ago. As stated earlier, Netflix entered 6 new markets in Europe this year and has no intention of slowing down as evident from its announcement to launch in Australia and New Zealand next year. However, this aggressive expansion is coming at a cost. The international segment continues to operate at a loss. Even though the contribution margin for the first nine months of 2014 came in at -9% compared to -44% for the year ago period, the expansion into new countries will put severe stress on this number in the coming quarters. This is primarily due to the lack of operating leverage that Netflix will face in these new markets as the subscriber count will be low in the initial period and many new subscribers will be in the trial phase. Large marketing expenditure in the countries where the service has been recently launched is also unavoidable. All these factors will contribute to a period where the top-line growth will not result in profitability for the international segment of the company. Currently, we are projecting that Netflix's international segment will just about break even in 2015 and will start having positive contribution margin from 2016 onward. It will then stabilize at current domestic levels by the end of our forecast period.

Original Content Is Expensive

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Why We Believe That Netflix Is Still Overvalued

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) - The cohesion was instant at Colorado State, even with all the transfers and junior college additions.

Thats because of video game sessions in the locker room after practice. And bowling nights. And movie matinees. And watching fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr.s last bout at the home of guard Gian Clavell, who whipped up his famed Puerto Rican chicken-and-rice dish his mom taught him to make.

The 24th-ranked Rams are a tight-knit group of overlooked vagabonds arriving from the University of Arizona, Navy, North Carolina Central, Northwest Kansas Technical College, Southern Illinois and places in between.

Colorado State possesses an attitude - picked fifth in the Mountain West preseason poll - and a savvy coach in Larry Eustachy who melds the pieces seamlessly together, helping the Rams (12-0) to their best start in school history. Theyre one of eight remaining unbeaten teams heading into a game at New Mexico State on Saturday, but will be without starting center Tiel Daniels (calf) and key reserve Clavell (shoulder) as they stay behind for treatment.

The whole team is filled with chips on their shoulders, said Stanton Kidd, a forward from Baltimore who transferred in from North Carolina Central. Colorado State never gets the respect we deserve. But we dont really care. We just want to win.

Its easy to see why the Rams didnt receive a whole lot of preseason love: They had a largely unknown group.

Sure, senior sharp-shooter Daniel Bejarano was back, along with senior post player J.J. Avila, who played at Navy before his arrival at Colorado State last season. After that, no one really knew much about the Rams ensemble.

But they had three players in Daniels (Southern Illinois), John Gillon (Arkansas-Little Rock) and Stanton who practiced all last year even as they sat out under the NCAA transfer rule. So, they had a built-in familiarity.

Clavell, a junior college arrival from Caguas, Puerto Rico, fit right in as well, holding dinner parties for the team off the court as the team cooked on it.

We dont care who scores the most points or who got the most rebounds, Bejarano said. We have that feel of a brotherhood, of a family. We just find ways to win.

See the article here:
No. 24 Colorado State off to program's best start

Discount Home Window Replacement Telephone Number
Call 844-895-8752 to have a discount replacement window installation specialist arrive directly at your door. Discount home window replacement is available i...

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Sabahans son was locked in car and windows had to be broken to save him.

KOTA KINABALU: A mother whose sleeping son was locked inside her running vehicle, refused to break the car window until she was given RM200, according to the Star Online today. Apparently, the money was to make good a replacement for the broken window.

According to a witness, the woman left her son, believed to be seven or eight years old, inside the car while she and her daughter, about five, went down to a restaurant at Bandaran Berjaya in the city at noon today.

I was eating inside the restaurant and saw her go down. After a while, I saw the woman trying to open the car door by picking the lock but she failed, said the witness, who only wanted to be known as Hiew.

A crowd gathered and advised the woman to break the window to get her son out but she refused to do so.

It was only after two men reportedly gave her RM100 each that she allowed them to break the window.

The boy, who woke up from the noise, was unhurt in the incident.

A medical officer who was off duty at the time gave the boy a brief check-up while waiting for help to arrive.

The views expressed in the contents are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of FMT.

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Mum demands RM200 before allowing son to be saved

We'll always need buildings, so long as the wind blows and the temperature drops, but the virtual reality of contemporary life has changed our relationship to physical space. Buildings, particularly in the public realm, aren't as essential as they used to be.

How important is a convention center in the age of webinars? Schools, libraries and workplaces when information is so easy to share digitally? Airports and hotels when friends connect via Facebook and FaceTime?

Architects have felt the pressure and sweated the possibility that their once-enviable profession is headed toward irrelevancy. We'll always need them, too, but how much depends on what they can bring to the table beyond four sturdy walls and a roof.

The good news is that the profession is changing. Slowly, and with some good ideas leading the way, architects, planners and designers have begun moving from defense to offense, creating spaces that do more than protect us from the elements. The best new buildings actually make us healthier by encouraging exercise and better diet. They improve our energy levels and attitudes by balancing our exposure to light and sound. Well-designed public places strengthen communities by drawing users from across social and economic divides to shared experiences.

Architecture's next step is to build on the green movement that has made structures more energy-efficient and earth-friendly and to develop spaces that work as doctors, coaches and counselors for 21st-century life.

At Canal Park in Washington, D.C., an interactive water fountain becomes an ice rink in the winter. The park's storm-water management system recycles runoff from neighboring buildings, saving 1.5 million gallons of potable water each year. (Photo provided by Land Collective)

Mariposa, a Denver Housing Authority development that has been opening in phases, combines several of these ideas into one residential mini-city. Planners are designing the block apartment buildings with ample community garden spaces where residents can grow their own food, and integrating colorful playgrounds into the front yards. The units go for varying rents from highly subsidized to market rate so every building and floor has a mix of occupants. Located near an affordable commuter rail line in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, the development makes walking a few blocks to the train each morning more attractive than walking a few steps to the car.

Mariposa's biggest contribution to the movement may be the Mariposa Stair, a brilliant multimedia art installation that inspires residents in one new building to skip the elevators altogether. As the stair rises four floors, a Mayan folktale called "The Chocolate Tree" unfolds in chapters. Climbers can read about the plants and animals in the story's jungle setting and push buttons to hear bird calls and thunderstorms. A chandelier it's not lavish, just plastic panels and LED lights strung together with cables hangs down the center, illuminating the space in gentle red, blue and green hues.

The stair, designed by Rezan Prananta and a team from the Denver architecture firm Shears Adkins Rockmore, has a pleasant vibe and, so far, people are using it.

This holistic attitude is architecture's greatest promise and seems to be steering trends. More and more, landscape architects a subset of the profession that used to enter building ventures late in the planning to finish parking lots and lawns are emerging as project leaders, devising how sites will be organized, used and maintained. These days, they might be the ones to hire building architects to complete their vision.

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Architecture future: How buildings will begin to make our lives better

Latest Kitchen Remodeling Projects by Greyhound
Check out the latest two kitchen remodeling projects for San Diego #39;s Greyhound General: http://www.greyhound-general.com/services-portfolio/kitchen-remodels/:

By: Dave Jovin

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Latest Kitchen Remodeling Projects by Greyhound - Video

J.united kitchen remodeling

By: j.united Construction Corp.

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J.united kitchen remodeling - Video

Good kitchen remodeling ideas
Good kitchen remodeling ideas.

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Good kitchen remodeling ideas - Video