From resident, to voter, to volunteer, to activist grass-roots energy surged in 2014, changing the local political landscape for a long time to come.

Rumbles began early in 2014 as the Denton Drilling Advisory Group launched a petition drive that would eventually bring about the first ban on hydraulic fracturing in the state.

People registered to vote in large numbers, showed up at the polls to cast their ballots and weighed in other city matters, large and small. Thousands signed another petition, and thousands more voted, to end the citys prohibition on liquor sales. A big public-private partnership unraveled as community support for a new convention center and hotel plummeted. Public opinion pushed both an obscure property maintenance rule for flag displays and the citys once-perfunctory legislative agenda back to the drawing board to better reflect local priorities.

Denton became the first Texas city to ban hydraulic fracturing after a citizen-driven proposition cruised to a landslide victory at the polls in November.

Although voter turnout statewide was thought to be the lowest in the nation, local turnout was higher than average for a gubernatorial election. Thousands of people registered to vote in Denton. Although not all those newbies cast ballots, the city saw more voters make their choice in the fracking ban than in any other municipal issue in recent history.

Dozens of cities in New York and elsewhere have banned fracking, but Texas is oil and gas country. So Dentons proposition over the rights of a Texas city to police what happens within its borders pushed the local battle into the national spotlight.

The campaign was the most expensive in the citys history, by far. Denton Taxpayers for a Strong Economy, which opposed the ban, far outraised and outspent Pass the Ban in its Frack-Free Denton campaign.

Denton Taxpayers pulled in close to $700,000 through Oct. 25, the latest campaign finance reporting date, a figure nearly 10 times the $75,000 raised by Pass the Ban. Chevron and Occidental Petroleum contributed $95,000 to defeat the ban even though neither operates any gas wells in Denton. EnerVest, XTO Energy and Devon Energy, which do have wells in Denton, all made six-figure donations that totaled more than $540,000.

Final campaign finance reports are due in the city secretarys office next month.

Denton Taxpayers sent out several mailers and had ads running in print, broadcast and social media, many of them with an image of a pink piggy bank being smashed by a gavel, in the final days before the election. The group also secured testimonials from former Texas Womans University chancellor Ann Stuart and former mayor Perry McNeill as well as support from the North Texas State Fair Association, the Denton Chamber of Commerce and the Denton County Republican Party, which bought its own ads opposing the ban.

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Year in review: Spurred to action

Weeks after his team took Super Bowl 43, head coach Mike Tomlin was laying the groundwork for the next great generation of Pittsburgh Steelers.

As the league's landscape continued to evolve, so was the need for Tomlin's Steelers to follow suit.

The NFL was different game in 2009 than it was when former head coach Bill Cowher's Steelers won Super Bowl 40 in early 2006. Still, today, the NFL is contrasting to the year Tomlin's squad achieved a Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl 43 in early 2009.

Today's NFL is about creating matchup disasters with subpackages. For better or worse, it's become a weekly shootout.

A rebuild for Pittsburgh seemed imminent and necessary during that 2009 offseason. Even as the team would go to the Super Bowl the following season (2010), aging veterans on both sides of the ball like Hines Ward, Aaron Smith and Casey Hampton to name a few, the core of the Steelers for three Super Bowl appearances in six years, would eventually have to be replaced.

Mike Tomlin led his team to a Super Bowl 43 win in just his second season as head coach.

So, what did Tomlin desire for his offense? Caught in the "Tomlinisms" and coach talk often associated with a typical press conference during the 2009 season, he laid a few key quotes that were buried as the years went by.

"You study a team like New England, and they walk into a stadium offensively, and week to week they can be whatever they choose to be,"Tomlin told Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a Sept. 23, 2009 article. "They can beat you in three wides, four wides, three tight ends, and it makes them very difficult to prepare for and ultimately beat."

Flash to today, the team is earning high praise on the offensive side of the ball, where it seems like the long turnover of a championship-caliber team may finally be bearing fruit. That after two, long torturous seasons of...8-8 football. Oh, Pittsburgh fans, why must we bear such pain?

Offensively, the Steelers are well on their way to becoming that ideal image, that Patriots image Tomlin swooned over in 2009. The 2014 version is executing with the ball in a variety of ways, able to attack teams with a devastating power counter run game or with a record-breaking aerial assault. Or, in many cases, both at the same time.

The rest is here:
Mike Tomlin's Pittsburgh Steelers Offense Takes New England Patriots' Mentality

Colby Sue Weathers: her mother had asked a local gunshop not to sell her the weapon she used to kill her father.

Lets say your mental landscape is similar to that of Colby Sue Weathers back in 2012: suicidal, homicidal, paranoid, schizophrenic. Oh, and with a drug and alcohol problem. You are too disabled by mental illness - schizophrenia was diagnosed in 2011 - and recurring hospitalisations to work. You are not great about maintaining your psychotropic drug regimen, which you administer inconsistently and sometimes to woozy excess. And you have an occasional hankering, occasionally satisfied, to consume a bottle of spirits. In other words, your life is utterly out of control.

One trouble you probably dont have - provided you live in the United States - is gaining access to a lethal firearm. Thanks in part to the advocacy of the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups, and in part to the commitment of politicians, you can buy a gun and kill someone, yourself included, almost entirely free of obstacles. In many cases, you can do so completely legally. Because in practice, the US gun market generally does not discriminate against a wide array of pre-existing conditions, including madness.

There are no thorough background checks to determine whether you are mentally unhinged and a danger to yourself or others. No waiting periods to give the evil voices echoing inside your head time to decamp. No opportunities for family or friends or public safety officials to intervene in the firearm transaction. No meaningful commercial distinctions made between a skilled hunter eager for the approach of deer season and a dangerous psychotic with visions of blood.

Last week, Janet Delana filed a negligence suit against Odessa Gun & Pawn shop in Odessa, Missouri. In May 2012, Odessa sold Delanas daughter - Colby Sue Weathers - a Hi-Point .40 calibre semi-automatic pistol. According to the suit, Weathers, who was 38 at the time, had intended to shoot herself. She sat with the gun for an hour or so before abandoning her goal and informing her parents, who promptly got rid of the gun.

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A few weeks later, in late June, the voices in Weatherss head told her to buy another gun and kill herself. Having observed her daughters agitation, Delana said she called Odessa Gun & Pawn on June 25, and alerted an employee to her daughters chronic mental illness and current suicidal state. She asked that the shop refrain from selling Weathers a gun. Two days later, Weathers turned up at Odessa and bought another Hi-Point pistol. Weathers drove home, loaded two bullets and shot her father. Dad is dead, she texted her mother. He was.

The lawsuit, which was filed by lawyers for the Brady Centre to Prevent Gun Violence, is an uphill challenge'', said UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of the excellent book, Gun Fight, via email. Under the nations gun laws, the dealer was allowed to sell to someone without a criminal or mental illness record. Its usually hard to pin responsibility for someones bad acts on a commercial establishment that merely supplied the equipment.

Supplying the equipment is what the nations 140,000 federally licensed firearms dealers do for a living. And there is absolutely nothing in federal law requiring them to sell their wares in a manner that is socially responsible, discerning or protective of human life. Kevin Jamison, the lawyer for Odessa, told me, The store went through all the proper legal procedures.

And there you have the nub of the problem. The lawsuit doesnt even claim that Odessa violated the law. Presumably, Weathers passed an instant background check before killing her father. A 2011 report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg, revealed that almost half the states had submitted fewer than 100 mental health records to the federal background check database. Cases of substance abuse were also hugely underreported. And merely being crazy isnt sufficient for inclusion in the database, anyway. You have to be certified crazy. As the Los Angeles Times reported in September after a mass shooting at Washingtons Naval Yard, Most mentally ill people - including Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter who apparently showed signs of psychosis - never get treatment or arent recognized as being in crisis.

Continued here:
Colby Sue Weathers: homicidal, psychotic and legally sold a gun

In the world of business journalism, you are often asked whether the number of good news stories is increasing. It is not surprising to hear this question, with the issue of whether good or bad news stories are in the ascendancy being viewed, understandably, in a similar way to the needle on a barometer.

The fact of the matter is that, even in the depths of the 2008/09 downturn, there were plenty of good news stories from within the Scottish business community.

Often, these success stories were all the more impressive because the achievements were made against the odds, with the economy in dire shape.

And, even in the better times, there are bad news stories.

Unfortunately, for example, announcements of job losses by companies seem ever more like permanent features of the business landscape. There appears to be ever-less relief these days from such bad news even when the economy is supposedly faring a bit better.

In this regard, the question of whether the management consultants are just having too much of an impact often comes to mind.

When they are called into companies, it frequently seems that they are unlikely to resist the opportunity to advise taking out, say, a certain further percentage of the workforce. It is easy to make such a suggestion if you are not particularly familiar with the operations of a business and its requirements.

Such approaches, of top-down management seeking to squeeze efficiencies out of businesses, sadly often appear to figure more prominently than moves by companies to invest for future growth.

The highlight of the year, in terms of the good news stories, was Scottish engineering entrepreneur Jim McColl's rescue of the Ferguson shipbuilding yard at Port Glasgow.

When Ferguson, the last commercial shipbuilder on the Clyde, fell into administration, it was easy to fear the worst.

Originally posted here:
McColl rescue of Ferguson shipyard a high point in year of ups and downs

For now at least, ESA has lost contact with Philae after it bounced, rolled and ended up in a location where its solar panels could not be re-charged by the suns rays.

But the Rosetta is still orbiting Comet 67P from just a few miles away, allowing scientists unprecedented views of the celestial object.

Data already sent back to the ESA mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, indicates that ice in Comet 67P has a significantly different composition to the water in Earth's oceans. This may mean that comets were not, as some have previously thought, the origin of life on this planet.

By February, ESA hopes that the Rosetta will be able to reach just four miles from the surface. The spacecraft is scheduled to continue to accompany the comet as it makes its closest approach to the Sun in 2015 August before the probe burns up.

Scientists hope that the dishwasher-sized Philae may come back to life in when the sunlight intensifies as the comet nears the Sun.

It is now believed that after the Philaes landing equipment did not function as planned on its initial touchdown, the lander may have bounced up hundreds of yard because of the comets low gravitational field. It then came to rest again after two hours back in space.

The Rosetta travelled three billion miles over 10 years to reach the comet, which is moving at 34,000mph.

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Rosetta images show soaring 1km comet cliff

Leaves clean up
leaf clean ups, mowing, landscape, yard work, blowing, raking leaves.

By: Rene Romero

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Leaves clean up - Video

KUCHING: The potential entrance of South Korean Hyundai Heavy Industries (Hyundai) could spell a permanent change in the local fabrication landscape, analysts observed.

This could also mean pressure margins and reduce the appeal to pure domestic fabricators with single business focus such as Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings Bhd (MMHE).

The research arm of Affin Hwang Investment Bank Bhd (Affin Research) in a report saidHyundai is close to securing a US$1 billion engineering, procurement and fabrication contract for the central processing platform for the Baram Delta Gas Gathering Project 2 (Bardegg 2) and Baronia enhanced oil recovery project off Malaysia.

This contract, if awarded to Hyundai, will mark the South Koreans second major Malaysia contract wins this year. The group had in June 2014 secured a turnkey contract from Hess to build a large central processing platform under the North Malay basin gas and condensate development, it added.

We opine that the potential entrance of South Korean yard would permanently change the local fabrication landscape, pressure margins and reduce the appeal of MMHE, Affin Research commented.

Furthermore, Affin Research highlighted, as a domestic oil & gas company with single business focus, MMHE is more vulnerable to lower domestic upstream capital expenditure (capex).

It explained, Our economist has recently lowered our 2015 estimate Brent crude price forecast to US$75 per bbl, from US$85 per bbl on large global oil production surplus and OPECs decision to not intervene in the oil market. The lower oil price has pressured Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) to cut its 2015 capex by 15 to 20 per cent.

As of now, Affin Research noted, MMHE has secured a mere RM323 million contracts year to date (YTD), significantly lower than its RM1.7 billion to RM2.9 billion contract wins in 2011 to 2013. It noted the contract awards to the South Korean yards signalled that Petronas is now highly focused on cost control.

On its outlook, Affin Research said while it expects MMHE to secure some RM1.2 billion to RM1.5 billion worth of contracts per annum in 2015-16E, it believed that its bids would need to be highly competitive and hence, its profit margins might come under pressure.

It noted, MMHE is now undergoing a rightsizing exercise with its project partner Technip Malaysia. It said, in the first half of 2014 (1H14), MMHE had undertaken mutual separation scheme involving 100 employees.

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BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WJBK) - A massive ice storm brought down power lines across the state last winter, knocking out power to 600,000 DTE Energy customers.

The utility company said that trees were to blame and now it is aggressively chopping them down.

In Bloomfield Township, some residents say it is ruining the landscape and that the utility is taking extreme measures, doing it without notice.

Resident Inge Gray called DTE and told them to stop cutting down her trees before the buzzsaws ceased.

"(They) make no apologies for any of the cutting and would actually have preferred to do more cutting than what was done," she said.

DTE says this work is done all the time for good reason.

"This program is something we do every single day because it's the right thing to do to assure reliable electric power for our customers," said Trevor Lauer, senior vice president, DTE Energy.

After last year's ice storm, the state's public service commission wants DTE to be more aggressive in removing trees near power lines.

"About half of the outages that we have on the electrical system come from trees," Lauer said. "And the number one goal of removing trees is to reduce the number of outages."

Living in a wooded area, Gray has dealt with this before and expects some clearing to keep the lights on.

Excerpt from:
Aggressive DTE tree removal ruining landscape says Bloomfield Twp resident

UK's most senior officer says new budget cuts require 'radical action' He claims police needs to catch-up with the changing nature of crime Others claim scale of cuts to come could decimate neighbourhood policing

By Rebecca Camber for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:44 EST, 14 December 2014 | Updated: 05:56 EST, 15 December 2014

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Warning: Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says forthcoming cuts in police budgets will endanger the public unless radical action is taken

The public will be put at risk unless police forces merge to save costs, Britains most senior officer warned last night.

Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe called for the traditional landscape of policing to be ripped up, replacing 43 forces across England and Wales with nine regional super forces.

He has warned that forthcoming cuts in police budgets will endanger the public unless radical action is taken.

Read the rest here:
Get rid of 34 police forces to save cash, Scotland Yard's Bernard Hogan-Howe says

Each year, thousands of Arizona residents email or call Rosie Romeros radio show with questions about everything from preventing fires in their chimneys to getting rid of tree roots invading their sewer system. His goal is to provide answers that suit the specific lifestyle wherever someone lives in Arizona. Here are questions about home maintenance and improvement from the Southern Arizona area.

Q: A few years ago, we had a very hard freeze and the palo verde in our front yard was severely damaged. Then it got the mistletoe, and it has finally bit the dust. So now Im trying to find out what to plant next. I only have about 15 to 20 feet of space for the root zone, and our property is located at 2,100 feet in elevation. So it has to be a hardy choice. One year the temperature actually dropped down to 15 degrees. Would a palo blanco tree, the one with bark like a birch tree, work?

A: The palo blanco is native to the Sonora, Mexico area so it might be too frost sensitive for your yard. It can only handle temperatures of about 25 degrees. Think about a mastic tree or an acacia or eucalyptus though some of those trees might have fairly large canopies. A desert willow could work well, and it would let in some sun in the winter when it sheds its foliage. To see more choices, look online at Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert, published by the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association.

Q: I could open my garage door successfully yesterday, but when I came home from the store, I couldnt shut it any more. When I hit the remote or the button inside the garage, it will only go down a foot or so and then it retracts. Whats going on? Would lubricating it help?

A: Lubricating may not help. Probably the beams at the bottom of the garage door opening are out of alignment. You can reset the electric eye sensors pretty easily and get the door to work again smoothly. There are indicator lights on each sensor that indicate the right alignment. It may be as simple as checking to see if something has been moved into the beam of light that shines between the sensors. If there is no obstruction, move one of the sensors until a green or amber light is visible to show that everything is aligning properly. Then check the closing operation for the door again.

Q: I have an electric stove with a big back burner for cooking large pots of food. Every time my wife turns that burner on, the pot of beans really starts rocking and rolling even when she sets it at a lower temperature. Do I have to get a brand new stove?

A: It sounds as if you have an appliance problem that can be fixed by a repair company. If you like the stove, its worthwhile trying to fix it before you go shopping for a new stove. Most likely your problem is just a faulty control switch.

Q: I have several blackberry bushes that produce lots of fruit. But every year I wonder, when should I prune them?

A: Prune those bushes in the winter time. You can be very severe with them. Dont be afraid to prune them way back. Theyll come back in the spring and produce more fruit than ever.

For more do-it-yourself tips, go to rosieonthehouse.com. An Arizona home building and remodeling industry expert for 25 years, Rosie Romero is the host of the syndicated Saturday morning Rosie on the House radio program, heard locally from 8-11 a.m. on KNST-AM (790) and -FM (97.1) in Tucson and KGVY-AM (1080) and -FM (100.7) in Green Valley. Call 888-767-4348.

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What kind of tree does well in a yard at a higher elevation?