UTEP basketball: NCAA says Isaac Hamilton's case to void letter of intent could take 6-8 weeks

Click photo to enlarge

Isaac Hamilton

August has tiptoed in, registration is roughly four weeks away, portions of the basketball schedule are out ... and UTEP still waits on its star recruit.

Isaac Hamilton, a McDonald's All-American and a national top 20 recruit, has requested permission to get out of his National Letter of Intent, citing an ill grandmother. UTEP has refused the request and now the matter must go to Indianapolis.

The National Letter of Intent Office, located in Indianapolis, will decide on the appeal. And it can be a lengthy process.

"Obviously, the first step is for the student-athlete to ask for his release from the university," said Susan Peal, director of the Letter of Intent Office. "If there is no release granted, then they would appeal to the National Letter of Intent Committee. They must submit documentation as to why they are asking for their release. The committee will hear from both sides and rule.

"Should there be no release granted, the athlete can appeal," Peal said. "At that time, we would arrange a conference call with the committee. As you can see, it can be a drawn out process. We usually tell both parties to allow six to eight weeks. We would try to speed that up. In a case this late, we would try to expedite it but we have to get the committee together and there is only so much we can do."

Peal said she

is not at liberty to say whether or not the office has received a request from Hamilton. But Hamilton's father, Greg, said they would go through the appeal process because "Isaac wants to play where his grandmother can see him play."

Meanwhile, parts of the schedule are being released.

UTEP officials announced this week the Miners will play Tennessee on Thanksgiving evening in the Battle 4 Atlantis, an eight-team tournament Nov. 28-30

at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. All games will be televised on the NBC Sports Network.

USC will play Villanova at 11 a.m. MST, Kansas will play Wake Forest at 1:30 p.m. MST, Iowa will face Xavier at 5 p.m. MST and the Miners will meet Tennessee at 7:30 p.m. MST.

"The Battle 4 Atlantis features one of the top two or three fields in the country year in and year out," UTEP coach Tim Floyd said.

The tournament has had 191 teams make NCAA Tournament appearances, 25 Final Four appearances and five national champions.

The Miners should have a strong team -- with or without Hamilton but obviously stronger with him. UTEP has five of its top seven scorers returning, plenty of size and still four strong recruits.

"We have two freshmen who could play for anybody in the country," Floyd said. "Vince Hunter and Matt Willms. Our other two -- Josh Brown (5-foot-10 guard) and Jake Flaggert (6-6 forward) have an incredible opportunity."

And UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said, "Everybody is gloom and doom and that's just not the case. We've got five of our top seven players back and we have four guys over 6-9."

UTEP will have senior John Bohannon, 6-10, junior Cedrick Lang, 6-9, sophomore Hooper Vint, 6-11, and redshirt freshman Matt Willms, 7-1.

And there is still an element of hope that the Miners can have the outstanding 6-5 Hamilton.

But, for now, everyone simply must wait.

Bill Knight may be reached at 546-6171.

Source: http://www.elpasotimes.com/sports/ci_23772974/el-paso-times?source=rss_viewed

Allan Arbus Jaguars new uniforms jenelle evans jenelle evans glenn beck AJ Clemente Thor 2 Trailer

AP PHOTOS: Israeli Jew is devout gay drag queen

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Just shy of midnight, Shahar Hadar trades his knitted white yarmulke for a wavy blond wig and a pink velvet dress.

Cheers greet him in a packed gay bar as he starts to swivel to a Hebrew pop song, his shiny red lips mouthing lyrics that mean more to him than the audience knows: "With God's help you'll have the strength / To overcome and give your all."

It has been a long and agonizing metamorphosis for Hadar, 34, from being a conflicted Orthodox Jew to a proud religious gay man ? and drag queen. Most Orthodox Jewish gay men, like those in other conservative religious communities around the world, are compelled to make a devil's bargain: marry a woman to remain in their tight-knit religious community, or abandon their family, community and religion to live openly gay lives.

But while Orthodox Judaism generally condemns homosexuality, there is a growing group of devout gay Jews in Israel unwilling to abandon their faith and demanding a place in the religious community.

"As much as I fled it, the heavens made it clear to me that that's who I am," Hadar said. He is marching Thursday ? out of costume ? in Jerusalem's annual gay pride parade.

Hadar, a telemarketer by day, has taken the gay Orthodox struggle from the synagogue to the stage, beginning to perform as one of Israel's few religious drag queens. His drag persona is that of a rebbetzin, a female rabbinic advisor ? a wholesome guise that stands out among the sarcastic and raunchy cast of characters on Israel's drag queen circuit.

"She blesses, she loves everyone," said Hadar of his alter-ego, Rebbetzin Malka Falsche. The stage name is a playful take on a Hebrew word meaning "queen" and Hebrew slang for "fake." Her philosophy, and Hadar's, draws from the teachings of the Breslov Hasidic stream of ultra-Orthodox Judaism: embrace life's vicissitudes with joy.

"Usually drag queens are gruff. I decided that I wanted to be happy, entertain people, perform mitzvoth," or religious deeds, he said.

An encounter with a popular Israeli rebbetzin is what launched Hadar's inner journey at age 19.

He began by wearing a yarmulke, a religious skullcap, and reciting morning prayers in his bedroom. He left home to enroll in a Jerusalem yeshiva, or religious seminary, hoping that daily Torah study would make him stop thinking about men.

It didn't.

After a brief nighttime encounter with his roommate at the yeshiva, Hadar said, he was booted from the seminary. He transferred to another religious studies center, where a student matched him up with his wife's ultra-Orthodox friend. They quickly married.

"I wanted to take the path that (God) commanded of us. I didn't see any other option," Hadar said. "I thought the marriage would make me straight and I would be cured."

He felt distressed while intimate with his wife, and wouldn't tell her why. She demanded a divorce. She later gave birth to their daughter, who is 11 years old today. His ex-wife still refuses to let them meet.

After Hadar's own sister met a similar fate ? she divorced her husband because he was gay ? homophobic conversation erupted around the Hadar family dinner table. Hadar's brother reprimanded the family, who had also become religious, by simply asking, "Are gays not human beings?"

His brother had stood up for Hadar without even knowing it.

A few months later, in 2010, Hadar mustered up the nerve to march in Tel Aviv's gay pride parade. When he returned home that Sabbath eve, he finally told his mother he was gay. "I thought it would be the blackest day in my life," Hadar said, but she accepted him.

As a practicing Orthodox Jew, it hasn't been easy for Hadar to integrate into mainstream gay life. He used to tuck his shoulder-length religious side locks under a cap to fit in at bars. Eventually, he sheared his side locks and trimmed his beard to thin stubble to increase his luck on the dating scene.

He's still looking for love. But this year, Hadar found acceptance ? and self-expression ? at Drag Yourself, a Tel Aviv school offering 10-month courses for budding drag performers. Students learn how to teeter on high heels, apply false eyelashes and fashion their own drag personas. Hadar, still a beginner, graduates next month.

The drag school, much like Israel's gay community itself, offers a rare opportunity for Israelis to interact with others from disparate and sometimes warring sectors of society. The school may be the only place where a Jewish settler, a lapsed ultra-Orthodox Jew, an Arab-Israeli and Israeli soldiers have stuffed their bras together.

Of all the students in his class, Hadar was the only one to show up wearing a yarmulke.

"I think it's fabulous," said Gil Naveh, a veteran Israeli drag queen and director of the school, as he painted Hadar's lips apple-red before his midnight debut at a Jerusalem gay bar. "He stays true to who he is."

Here's a gallery of Associated Press images featuring the Israeli gay Orthodox Jewish drag queen Shahar Hadar.

___

Online:

Rebbetzin Malka Falsche, Hadar's drag queen persona: www.facebook.com/rabanitmf

___

Follow Daniel Estrin at www.twitter.com/danielestrin . Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-israeli-jew-devout-gay-drag-queen-091325174.html

Watertown Ma Krystle Campbell Pressure Cooker MIT Shooting NFL schedule 2013 Boston Explosion West Texas

New Android apps worth downloading: Transit App, Team Stream update, Riptide GP2

Find your way to wherever you?re going without a car ? at least in some cities ? with today?s first app worth downloading, Transit App. It brings you all kinds of information about public transportation in various places, including itineraries, routes and more. We?ve also got an update to Team Stream, a sports app that brings you all the latest information about your favorite teams. Finally, there?s Riptide GP2, a jet ski-racing title in which players blast across the waves on a number of great-looking 3-D tracks.

What?s it about? Transit is a handy app for figuring out how you can get where you?re going in 43 different cities by using public transit.

What?s cool? A popular app on Apple?s iOS platform, Transit helps you get to wherever you?re going by using buses, trains and other public transit options. The app includes schedules and itineraries for all kinds of different public transport possibilities in 43 different cities, allowing users to figure out how to get from point A to point B by factoring in the real travel time required to get there. You?re also able to save your favorite routes to pull them up later, and track four different routes against one another to make sure you?re taking the fastest public transit route to get where you?re going.

Who?s it for? If you use public transportation in the 43 cities covered by Transit App, you?re going to want to grab this one to help you keep up to date on all the best routes.

What?s it like? Google Maps also provides a ton of useful public transit information to its users, as does HopStop Transit Directions Map.

What?s it about? Get the latest skinny on all your favorite teams with sports news app Team Stream.

What?s cool? There?s a lot of sports news out there on any given day, but what you really want to know about is what?s going on with your favorite teams. Team Stream brings you all the information you need to know about the teams you care about most, allowing you to create streams for your favorite teams that bring you all the latest information about them whenever you want. You can open up Team Stream and fire up streams for scores and other information whenever you want, and you can also stream video, read news stories, and even see Twitter and blog updates from various sources. Team Stream?s latest update adds new streams for UK sport and eliminates a bunch of bugs, as well.

Who?s it for? If you?re a sports fan looking for the latest information on your favorite teams, you?re going to want Team Stream.

What?s it like? Get other options for tons of sports information from ESPN?s ScoreCenter and Yahoo! Sports.

What?s it about? Jump on a jetski and race against other people, controlled either by artificial intelligence or other players, in Riptide GP2.

What?s cool? Most racers focus on roads, even those that put players in hovering vehicles set in the future. Riptide GP2, however, puts players on a jet ski and puts them on water-based tracks filled with hazards and other jet skiiers. The game features high-speed gameplay and great graphics, with an in-depth single-player racing campaign for players to work through. There?s also an online multiplayer mode, allowing players to take on other players from around the world in four-player multiplayer matches. There?s also an all new stunt system to allow players to flex their point-grabbing skills, nine new vehicles for you to unlock to play through, and achievements and leaderboards through Google Play Games.

Who?s it for? If you like racers with the added challenge of dealing with waves and tides, check out Riptide GP2.

What?s it like? You might also want to check out the game to which Riptide GP2 is a sequel, Riptide GP.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13619-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-transit-app-team-stream-update-riptide-gp2

memorial day royal caribbean liberace liberace Robbie Rogers indy 500 adam levine

South Texas company investigated as Ponzi scheme

McALLEN, Texas (AP) ? Federal authorities are investigating whether a government-sanctioned business in South Texas that recruits foreign investors for a U.S. visa program is actually a Ponzi scheme.

Search warrants filed in federal court in McAllen indicate the FBI has been investigating USA Now Regional Center since at least early last year on suspicion of wire fraud, money laundering and transportation of stolen property. Federal agents searched the company's office and the owners' home earlier this month. The investigation was first reported by The Monitor in McAllen.

So-called "regional centers" are private businesses designated to recruit foreign investors to the EB-5 investor visa program. The centers pool investors' money for projects that create jobs. No charges have been filed. A lawyer representing the company did not immediately return a call for comment.

Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/texas/article/South-Texas-company-investigated-as-Ponzi-scheme-4698225.php

K Michelle roger clemens multiple sclerosis rodney king Webb Simpson Fathers Day Quotes Stevie J

Google will now host Starbucks' WiFi; is this a move to expand Google Fiber?

Less than a year ago, Google launched its first 1 Gbps Internet service in the Kansas City, Kansas-Missouri area. Since then, Google has announced it will be bringing the same service to Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah. Today, Google revealed yet another Internet connection project, but this time it will offer service all over the US.

In a post on Google's blog site, it announced that it will be serving the many customers that go to Starbucks for coffee in the US with free WiFi. Over the next 18 months, the over 7,000 Starbucks stores in the US will switch over from their current service provided by AT&T to Google's network. Google is saying that the WiFi connection will be up to 10 times faster than the current AT&T solution (which has to sting AT&T a little). If you happen to live in a city that Google Fiber services, that WiFi connection at Starbucks could be up to 100 times faster.

In the blog post, Google's general manager of Google Access, Kevin Lo, stated, "Google has long invested in helping the Internet grow stronger, including projects to make Internet access speedier, more affordable, and more widely available." He adds that many communities have depended on the free WiFi that Starbucks offers, either to just do schoolwork or to communicate with others in times of disaster.

Terms of this new Google-Starbucks partnership were not disclosed. However, the fact that Google is planning to offer much faster net access at Starbucks locations in the US could be a Trojan Horse method to see if there's a bigger audience for the super fast Google Fiber service in other parts of the country.

Source: Google | Image via Starbucks

Source: http://feeds.neowin.net/~r/neowin-all/~3/K5f-4RVKndA/google-will-now-host-starbucks-wifi-is-this-a-move-to-expand-google-fiber

social darwinism wisconsin recall election april 4 wisconsin primary dallas fort worth airport texas tornados seattle seahawks new uniforms

Despite Design Focus, iOS 7 Doesn't Fix Apple's Horribly Off-Center 1

I had high hopes for iOS 7. It's designed by Jony Ive, the God of Minimalism, Attention to Detail and Tight T-Shirts. I love his work almost as much as I love Phil Schiller (so huggable!) But Jony... you broke my heart, Jony. WHY DIDN'T YOU OPTICALLY CENTER THE 1 IN THE CALENDAR APP ICON?

OK, punks. It's that time of the year again. The time in which a new update to Apple iOS comes out and the calendar hits July 1. Yes, that time. The time I want to take a sledgehammer to my iPhone. The time I want to get a baseball bat, go to an Apple store, and start smashing every genius in their non-centered genitals as retribution for this act of typographic terrorism.

Did really think I was going to let this one slip away? COME ON! No, of course I couldn't let it pass.

Not until Apple fixes it like they fixed off-center calendar days, which they corrected just a few months after I wrote a piece excoriating them for it.

But I digress. The problem with the Apple's centering of the number one goes back to the very beginning of the iPhone. For some reason, Apple decided to use the bounding box to center the digits in the Calendar.app's icon instead of carefully setting them to be optically centered. So what, you ask? You don't have to be a hawk-eyed genius to see the difference:

The difference is obvious. Despite its bounding box being metrically centered in relation to the icon, the number 1 feels off-center. The example on the right shows the correct placement?the 1 feels optically centered, balanced in relation to the icon.

Does this matter? Not unless you are some detail-obsessed twunt like me.

I had hoped that iOS 7 would fix this, but it didn't. And in fact the light typography makes the bad positioning even more obvious, like you can see in the image at the top of this article.

If you are reading this, whoever you are at Apple UI design's department, please, please fix this for the love of all that is sacred and good and made of deep fried rainbow bacon twinkies. I can't stand it anymore and I've run out of pills.

And just in case there's any doubt, this is...

THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT

Reader Backhome rendered it. The right way is the one on the right. Notice how the 1's stem is not centered in relation to the white area, neither is its bounding box. And yet, the number looks pleasantly centered in relation to the icon surface. The brain makes it work just like the one in the left looks like crap compared to the right one to anyone with eyes except the most rabid and brainless of all the Apple fanboys.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/despite-design-focus-ios-7-doesnt-fix-apples-horribl-637989614

homeland Miss America 2013 Aaron Swartz Gangster Squad school shooting oscar nominations C7 Corvette

HP: We're Going to Make Another Smartphone

Despite a shaky track record, it seems HP is keen to stay involved with the smartphone market?with one of its execs insisting that it's planning to release a handset. At some point.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/2X7kVc9cxDk/hp-were-going-to-make-another-smartphone-632511284

dennis quaid bruce weber fired notorious big biggie smalls lyrics azores emmylou harris disco inferno