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Dean Of NC State Graduate School To Retire
Retirement of Robert S. SowellChild Porn Investigation at NC State
Dr. Douglas Reeves, N.C. State's computer sciences departmentSome western NC growers feeling cheated by tobacco buyout
Ted FeitshansHorse center in final stretch
Real estate, Chinqua-Penn Plantation
Here's
a 12-month plan to help you get a great lawn
Cooperative Extension
Jan. 12, 2006
Eden Daily News, The Reidsville Review
By J. Brian Ewing
© Copyright 2006
County Commissioner Keith Duncan revealed Wednesday that the county is attempting to purchase land just south of Reidsville for the much-anticipated equestrian center.
Duncan said the area is off N.C. Highway 29 and Barnes Street. Duncan said the location is "no big secret."
County Manager Tom Robinson declined to comment, however, on the exact location of the property nor would he confirm Duncan's comments.
Robinson did say the county is in the final stages of contract negotiations with a landowner for property where the equestrian center will be built.
Robinson said he anticipates closing the deal early next week.
Commissioners tabled a vote to adopt a capital project ordinance to develop the equestrian center Monday night because of time constraints.
They'll take the issue up Tuesday during a recessed session.
That ordinance will no doubt include plans for funding a 2 to 1 matching grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation worth $1.5 million.
The county received the grant in December to help fund construction of the facility.
The North Carolina Legislature established the Golden Leaf Foundation in 1999 to distribute money awarded to the state in a major settlement agreement with several cigarette manufacturers.
The foundation awarded the county a $35,000 grant in 2005 to perform a feasibility study for the equestrian center project.
The study found that a 400-stall center would have $15 million in direct impact to the local economy each year. Robinson said that number could double or better for the indirect market.
The study also determined the facility would need at least 50 acres of land for development with as much as 200 additional acres adjoining for possible expansion.
The feasibility study also concluded the center would operate on a deficit. Robinson has proposed Eden and Reidsville could contribute a portion of their tax revenue from a recently created occupancy tax in the cities to offset the deficit. That proposal could meet with a cold shoulder in Eden.
Neither Eden Councilman C.H. Gover nor Councilman Bruce Nooe were surprised by Duncan's revelation.
"We guessed that much," Gover said disappointedly.
Nooe said he'd hoped the center would be centrally located. He said the location Duncan described could benefit Guildford County more than Eden.
"It would take you 15 minutes to get to Greensboro from there, if it's where I'm thinking. It would take 30 minutes to get to Eden from there," Nooe said.
Two motels are already located in the area.
Finding a site for the center has proven to be one of the project's biggest hurdles so far.
Originally the project's coordinators wanted to locate the equestrian center within eyesight of the Chinqua-Penn Plantation outside of Reidsville. That plan fell through because North Carolina State University owns the coveted site and operates a research station on the property. Negotiations were held with the school, but it declined to give up the property.
The breakdown in talks resulted in a group of California investors packing their bags and looking elsewhere.
County commissioners have since approved a resolution requesting that the sale of the mansion, priced at $3 million, go toward the equestrian center. Currently the money is earmarked for NCSU.
jewing@edendailynews.com or 623-2155
Jan. 12, 2006
NBC 17.com, News 14 Carolina, abc11tv.com, Raleigh Triangle Business Journal, WWAY NewsChannel 3, News 14 Charlotte, WCNC, WVEC.com (VA), Winston-Salem Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dateline Alabama (AL), Myrtle Beach Sun News (SC), Lexington Dispatch
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The dean of the graduate school at North Carolina State University will retire in July, after 36 years of service, the school said.
During his tenure in the graduate school, Robert S. Sowell led the development and implementation of a program that provides about $20 million in tuition and health insurance aid for qualified graduate students on teaching and research assistantships and fellowships.
Sowell started his N.C. State career in 1970 when he became an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering. He was named senior associate dean of the graduate school in 1991 and has been dean of the graduate school since July 2000.
John Gilligan, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, praised Sowell as a "strong advocate for private and public financial support and improved quality of academic programs for graduate students."
Child Porn Investigation at NC State
Jan. 12, 2006
abc11tv.com
By Ed Crump
© Copyright 2006
Eyewitness News has learned that State Bureau of Investigation agents have searched an N.C. State Unversity computer for child pornography.
The SBI says it was tipped off late last month by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about child porn posted on a computer with an IP address registered to N.C. State. University officials tracked the suspect computer at Pullen Hall in the Department of Greek Life.
A search warrant obtained by Eyewitness News states the tip from the National Center fro Missing and Exploited Children indicated that someone with a Yahoo e-mail address posted 269 digital images on a Web site. The images allegedly included three "pre-adolescent females" the center identified as "victims" engaged in sex acts.
The computer was confiscated from N.C. State on December 30 so the SBI could search the hard drive. Twelve days later, the warrant was returned, but officials are not saying if they found anything on the computer.
A representative with the N.C. Attorney General's Office, which oversees the SBI, told Eyewitness News late Wednesday:
"The investigation does not
currently involve suspects at N.C.
State University or the Department of Greek Life."
The representative said the investigation is continuing.
One computer engineering expert says it is possible investigators found nothing. Dr. Douglas Reeves at N.C. State's computer sciences department says hackers have been known to post on the Internet using fake IP addresses.
Some western NC growers feeling cheated by tobacco buyout
Jan. 12, 2006
Winston-Salem Journal, Lexington Dispatch, Winston-Salem Journal, WCNC, WVEC.com (VA), The Ledger (FL), News & Observer, Charlotte Observer, Myrtle Beach Sun News (SC), Centre Daily Times (PA)
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Some North Carolina tobacco farmers claim they have been cheated out of thousands of dollars from the federal government's $10 billion tobacco buyout.
"Burley and flue-cured growers got shorted," said Don Smart, a Haywood County farmer who started growing tobacco after graduating from college in 1974. "When all was said and done, we lost about 50 cents a pound."
Growers expected to get $3 a pound for their leaf based on how much they grew in 2002, Smart said. Instead, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took an average of 2002, 2003 and 2004, with some allowances for short crops or disasters, he said.
Smart estimates he has been shorted about $60,000, and he's considering whether to file a lawsuit against the USDA, which administered the buyout through its Farm Service Agency. Smart's attorney, Dan Caldwell, has already filed a suit on behalf of two Virginia growers.
Steve Wescott, a Farm Service Agency spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the USDA does not comment on pending litigation.
Undoubtedly, any buyout litigation will be extremely complicated.
"The nutshell version (of the lawsuit) is the statute provides that tobacco farmers will be paid $3 per pound, based on their 2002 quota," Caldwell said.
But Ted Feitshans, an agricultural attorney at N.C. State University, said the tobacco buyout legislation appears to limit any federal liability.
"I've read the (lawsuit) pleadings, and while everybody has a constitutional right to dispute government determinations, those kind of lawsuits are an uphill battle," he said.
Tobacco is a huge business in the western North Carolina's mountains. Before the 2004 buyout, about 4,000 farmers would sell their crop in two Asheville auction warehouses, typically generating $8 million to $10 million in sales. Tobacco from the 2005 growing season is still being bought and sold this year.
About 380,000 quota holders and 181,000 producers participated in the buyout, which will pay out $951 million a year for 10 years. Tobacco companies and importers are footing the bill for the buyout, which eliminates price supports in place since the 1930s and allows companies to buy tobacco at a cheaper price.
Warren Anders, who grows tobacco in Madison County and runs the Planters Tobacco Warehouse auction house in Asheville, said he also is exploring a lawsuit.
"I know we got shorted," he said. "I think it cost me about $10,000. It's about fairness, and the money, too."
Here's a 12-month plan to help you get a great lawn
Jan. 12, 2006
Charlotte Observer
By DAVID GOFORTH
© Copyright 2006
Q. Can you help me with my New Year's resolution to have the best lawn ever? ANSWER NO. 1: Find something worthwhile to do. Grow the best herb garden ever. Learn to grow roses. Learn to grow camellias. Plant a vegetable garden. Plant a cutting garden. Grow some flowering perennials. Become a strawberry expert. Become a dwarf conifer expert. With 249,999 other plants in the world, exactly how excited can you get about tall fescue grass?
ANSWER NO. 2: If the soil is washing away, or you are throwing a Frisbee, wrestling the dog and sunbathing in a mud hole where a lawn should be, the best lawn ever is simply a matter of getting the soil right, successfully planting some fescue seed and mowing at the proper height.
ANSWER NO. 3: If you define the best lawn as a weed-free, mono-cultured, tall fescue grass stand with dark green color, here is a month-by-month breakdown to help you focus.
• January. Lime the soil until the pH is 6.5. To determine the soil pH, you can pick up a soil box at the extension office in Concord and mail a sample to Raleigh.
• February is for fertilizer. Adjust the nutrients based on the soil test. Phosphorus is often low in our soils. A low phosphorus level keeps grass from thriving. Also put your last nitrogen application on. No more nitrogen goes on until September. Late applications of nitrogen will often increase the amount of disease.
• March is for weeds. Crabgrass preventer needs to go on early in the month, but non some sites during some years, it may need to go on in late February. If the forsythia is blooming, it's time to apply crabgrass preventer.
This may be one of the most precise windows in our management. There is no need to put crabgrass preventer on before the crabgrass comes up, and there is no value in putting it on after the crabgrass comes up.
Additionally, in the winter annual broadleaf weeds are up and can be killed. These can be killed any time between January and March, but it is better to try them on a day warmer than 50 degrees. It is better to kill them when they are smaller, and by late March they can get fairly big.
• April is for mowing correctly. Tall fescue needs to be mowed at least 3 inches high. It responds well to mowing at 4 or 5 inches. At less than 3 inches, the grass gets less food and can easily get sick or die as the summer progresses.
• May is for summer weeds. Things like plantains, carpetweeds, knotweed and spurge come up in the spring and grow during the summer. Generally, summer annuals require full sun to come up, so you may not have a problem if you have a thick stand of grass. A pesticide application to control broadleaf weeds should go on when the weeds are small.
• June. White grub control has changed since imicloprid has been labeled. With the older chemistry, and even with Dylox, Mach 2 or Grubex, the best time to kill grubs was during September or October. Imicloprid, sold under brand names such as Season Long Grub control, works differently and has to go on at a different time of the year.
An application in early June will get this chemical to the grubs and control them when they first hatch out and during the first couple of molts. It is unfortunate that an application has to go on before you know whether you are going to have a problem. But by the time you know you are having a problem, it is too late for the imicloprid.
• July. Mow. Always leave the clippings on the lawn so they will break down and provide organic matter for the grass. Tall fescue grass will not create thatch. If the pH is very low, the clippings may hang around, but pickles is a better description than thatch.
• August. Mow. Early this month is a good time to take a soil test. Once you get the pH and phosphorus levels built up, you won't need to take a soil test every year.
• September is the best time for seeding or overseeding. In bare areas, use around six pounds of tall fescue seed per 1,000 square feet. If you have a partial stand, use only three pounds of seed per 1,000 square feet.
September is also a time to fertilize tall fescue. You can soil test again, or you can just use a turf-grade fertilizer. Apply about 0.7 pound of actual nitrogen per 1,000 square feet.
This is also the time to aerate, if necessary. Aeration should be necessary only on areas of heavy clay in young lawns or where there is heavy traffic.
• October. Fall armyworms will show up during drought years. Most years there are not enough of them to worry about, but if you notice the lawn disappearing, you have only one or two days to apply pesticides.
• November. Another application of fertilizer will provide nitrogen for root growth.
• December. This is a great month to celebrate and find something more productive to worry about next year.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Extension's Successful Gardener is a semi-monthly feature of Cabarrus Neighbors, contributed by the extension service. For more information call (704) 920-3310 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays; or send email to Goforth at David_Goforth@ncsu.edu. News articles, problem-solving tools and links are available at http://cabarrus.ces.state.nc.us/staff/stafflist/dgoforth.html.
David Goforth
Jan. 12, 2006
Kentucky.com (KY), Lexington-Herald Leader KY)
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
By Anthony R. WoodKNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICEABOARD THE NANCY FOSTER - The waters are velvet-smooth, clear and clean, alternately deep-blue and aqua, as warm as a gentle bath. They lure a family of dolphins that romp in front of the bow, diving beneath it, playing in the ship's turbulence.
As the full moon rises, backlighting the horizon, the water transforms the moonlight into a golden mosaic. The surface responds to a gentle breeze, generating ripples that scatter the light, reunite it, scatter it again.
It is another hauntingly magnificent twilight off the North Carolina coast,
a scene Paul Kocin hopes never to witness in person.
The setting is the western edge of the Gulf Stream, and Kocin, who has spent
his career studying storms, knows that this region is an atmospheric minefield.
This is where the mighty stream and its ever-flowing warm current conspire
with the atmosphere to set off some of the most dramatic fireworks on Earth.
" It's an extremely dangerous, mystifying area that has a profound effect on weather," says Kocin, who deconstructed the Gulf Stream-incited "white hurricane" of 1888, among the most famous winter storms in history. "I try to stay away from it as much as possible."
The stream is a celebrated storm maker, for much the same reason that it has become a focal point of global-warming research: It is a prodigious mover of heat. Only in the last generation have scientists come to appreciate its power, and it continues to surprise them.
They now know that the Gulf Stream has been an agent provocateur in almost every important winter storm to hit what is today the I-95 corridor. Among them, the historic blizzard of 1888, the 1962 Ash Wednesday storm that cut Long Beach Island into five pieces, and the record 30.7-inch snowfall in January 1996.
Even in this enchanting setting off the North Carolina coast, the Gulf Stream leaves a trail of evidence that hints at its dangerous side. The languid air borne on the current is distinctly tropical and swollen with water vapor. The vapor condenses on the cool, white deck railings of the research ship Nancy Foster. The Gulf Stream is a prodigious supplier of water vapor, the combustible ingredient that has helped fuel the monster storms.
Ordinarily, the mighty stream acts something like the fluid in an immense heating system. Its constantly flowing waters export warmth from the sun-saturated tropics toward the solar-deprived Arctic to steady the planet's temperature.
Impatient, changeable
But occasionally, the stream turns impatient and fast-forwards the process.
At least a few times every winter, it mutates into a power source for coastal
storms. Those are the great air mixers that rearrange the atmosphere, yanking
polar air dramatically southward and shooting tropical air northward.
When the Gulf Stream is overrun with cold air sliding off the continent, it throws its water vapor skyward, where the vapor condenses and returns as rain and snow. The condensation releases massive amounts of heat to further incite the wildly spinning winds that rip sand off beaches and pile snow into head-high drifts. The stream can turn weak storms into strong ones, strong ones into monsters.
The Nancy Foster is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's navy that ferries scientists on research cruises. But it has another important mission: to send back live data from the stream.
Early evidence suggests that the Gulf Stream could be a major player this winter. Its waters have been extraordinarily warm and close to the coast. In the view of Len Pietrafesa, a storm specialist at North Carolina State University, it is primed for mischief. During the fall, water temperatures were in the 80s, readings "we have not seen in the historic record," he said. Last week, they were still in the upper 70s off Cape Hatteras. "I expect it to be a wet winter in the Northeast," he said.
Just when scientists think they have found answers, however, the stream comes back at them like a rogue wave flipping a boat.
Checking aloft
Dorothy Hurd Chambers worked for the old U.S. Weather Bureau and was stationed
in the Rockies during World War II. Her job was to send up weather balloons
to see what was going on in the upper atmosphere.
Chambers made a startling discovery. The readings the balloons were sending
back from 30,000 feet were astounding -- wind speeds of 80 to 120 mph.
They had encountered the jet stream, the same powerful west-to-east wind that resisted U.S. war planes flying to Japan, and that gushes across the continent to make mischief with the Gulf Stream.
Jet-stream winds are powerful currents so named because the winds move swiftly and pulse mightily, like jets of water through a fire hose. As they pass over storms, they lift the air radically, the way cold winds lift smoke from a chimney. Winter-storm expert Kocin, who published a seminal study of the 1888 storm 100 years later, suspects this was a particularly potent jet, with embedded streaks of wind that were even stronger.
That blizzard became the "white hurricane," with wild winds blowing counterclockwise around a center that was off the coast and moving north. To the east, the winds drew up warm, moist air from the Gulf Stream, fueling the cyclone with more water vapor. To the north, the east-to-west winds off the ocean threw back rain and snow. To the west, northerly winds hauled down ever more frigid air from the Great Lakes region. The stronger the storm became, the more moisture it consumed.
The white hurricane was a gigantic system, a prototypical nor'easter, so named for the powerful winds from the northeast that they generate, penetrating deep into the high atmosphere.
" People just think of this 'L' on the map as some sort of object," said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. But a low is much more than that. "It's absolutely engaging all the surrounding air around it in a systematic way."
The discovery of the jet stream and how it worked was a giant step for
storm research.
During the next generation, scientists would make tremendous progress in
understanding the physics of storms.
The ultimate forecast
Today, scientists are hoping that deeper understanding and computer models
will lead to the ultimate forecast: What will happen to Earth's climate?
How will the Gulf Stream behave in the future? Will it keep moving heat?
If not,
what does that mean for the future of arctic ice and sea levels all over
the world?
While they know that computer models have wrought remarkable advances in weather
forecasting, climate prediction is a wholly different pursuit. And they know
they have their limitations. The Gulf Stream is poorly represented in those
climate models.
In early 2000, the NOAA introduced a new supercomputer and boldly announced
that the era of the "no-surprise" Weather Service was at hand.
At dawn exactly one week later, the Gulf Stream waylaid the Weather Service
and just about the entire meteorological community.
On Jan. 24, 2000, a storm edged off the North Carolina coast. The computer
models insisted it would be a non-event from Washington north. Millions of
people in the Northeast corridor went to bed undisturbed, at least from weather
anxiety.
When they woke up in the morning, blinding snows blocked the views from
their windows. Up to two feet buried parts of North Carolina.
Before the storm hit, bitingly cold air had surged toward the Gulf Stream.
In 24 hours, the temperature plummeted 30 degrees in a zone from Wilmington,
N.C., to Morehead City.
The frigid mass and the ultra-warm Gulf waters created a perfect environment
for the storm to blow up into a bomb.
It did, in the very area that the Nancy Foster was monitoring a few months
ago, that "dangerous, mystifying" place.