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Dear Tax Talk,
Is a mortgage for a house rental tax-deductible? I know mortgage interest is, but how about the monthly payment I make? I report the rental income as income; why not the mortgage as expense?
-- Yen
Dear Yen,
Yearning for some more deductions? Don't worry, we may find something for you.
When you borrow money, such as on a mortgage, it isn't considered income. And when you repay, it isn't considered expense. Instead, your tax consequences from borrowing are determined by the use of the funds from borrowing. For example, if you're a business that borrows to pay business expenses, then those expenses are deductible when paid from the proceeds of the borrowing.
When you repay the loan, you have no further tax consequence. If you fail to repay the loan, then you have forgiveness of debt income. It kind of makes sense that if you don't repay the loan that you used to claim deductions, then you shouldn't be allowed to have claimed the deductions. Therefore you must recognize income from the forgiven loan.
The mortgage you borrowed on to buy the rental property forms part of the cost of your property. Your property is depreciable for tax purposes. Hence your principal payments on the loan are recovered by claiming depreciation on the property.
For example, assume you buy a condo for $275,000, which you finance 100 percent by a mortgage on the property with a lender (those kinds of lenders don't exist anymore). Residential rental property is depreciated over 27.5 years, so that means you get to claim $10,000 in depreciation per year that you own the property. The $10,000 in depreciation plus the interest you pay probably yields a greater tax break than a deduction for the principal repayment, so you're ahead. That should satisfy your tax-deduction desires.
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BURLINGTON, Mass. — Pier 1 Imports could be in for powerful home sales this holiday season as a result of its investments in its omni-channel strategy.
The company recently revamped its website as well as its mobile commerce site with help from Demandware, a leading provider of e-commerce solutions.
Demandware enables companies to design, implement and manage all aspects of e-commerce. Pier 1 is using the Demandware Commerce platform as its digital commerce backbone to connect consumers to its brand regardless of location, device or channel.
"Our goal at Pier 1 Imports is to provide our customers with the best shopping experience possible, and this includes making it easy for them to find the Pier 1 Imports products they love, no matter where or how they shop," said Laura Coffey, SVP of business development and strategic planning for Pier 1. "With Demandware, we have an omni-channel digital commerce platform that will allow us to continue to delight and inspire our customers across all channels and devices and provide a consistent brand experience."
Pier 1's current omni-channel operations include several Demandware-powered cross-channel shopping experiences. E-commerce Site-to-Store enables Pier 1 consumers to purchase products on the website and pick them up at the U.S. Pier 1 Imports store of their choice, thus avoiding shipping and handling fees. E-commerce Direct Shipping enables consumers to purchase products online, and have them shipped directly to their location of choice within the continental U.S. If they need to return online purchases, they can do so at any Pier 1 Imports brick-and-mortar store. Endless Aisle enables consumers who are shopping at a Pier 1 Imports store to browse and purchase merchandise from the company's broader selection available online, thus enhancing the customer's overall shopping experience.
"From the outset of our relationship, Pier 1 Imports stressed that omni-channel operations and time-to-market are critical to its growth strategy," said Jamus Driscoll, SVP of marketing for Demandware. "The flexible, scalable, omni-channel capabilities included in Demandware Commerce make it the perfect fit for Pier 1 Imports. We're delighted to add them to our client roster and look forward to working with them to further turn their vision into reality."
Pier 1 is moving forward with its omni-channel initiative following strong third quarter results that showed a same store sales increase of 7.9%, and which also marked the first full quarter of e-commerce sales results, all of which pleased Pier 1 president and CEO Alex W. Smith.
"The combination of our sizeable store base and e-commerce capabilities provides us with a powerful platform for growth," stated Smith following the release of the third quarter results. "We are continuing to build out our multi-channel functionality and believe the business is ideally positioned to achieve the goals laid out in our three-year growth plan."
Pier 1 makes itself at home in digital world
BURLINGTON, Mass. — Pier 1 Imports could be in for powerful home sales this holiday season as a result of its investments in its omni-channel strategy.

subset: commoncrawl


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Thanks my dude! I look forward to pumping them out! I saw you said you haven't seen any but check out my actual blog count, I'm at 37 now. So, I'm sure you've missed some lol.
Cheers for the FR chief!!
Yo man, damn right bro! GO PHILS! And TY on the blogs... it's a lot of pressure for me to keep everyone entertained lol... glad another one likes them.
Thanks for the friend invite
Thanks for the add bud.
Always happy to add a new friend, pleasure the name's Luis aka SEZ and I hope to know more of you soon.
Take care.
Wow man! Been to the original EVW shows in the Arena?
Envy +1
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Black Ninja!
Moderator "The Trinity"
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© 2011 eWrestlingNews, All Rights Reserved.


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How should one go about practicing metta? I still feel like I don't really have a good grasp of what metta is, but all I've heard is that it's a good way to counter aversion.
I've always had a strong cynical/bitter view towards life, due to being born into a family that had many problems, etc. This has led to a generally low self-esteem throughout most of my life (i am in my early 20's), including a bout of depression for the past 2 years, although I am definitely out of it now. What really struck me was actually a recent meet-up I had with a friend from highschool whom I haven't seen for years, and halfway into the conversation he joked about how I sound so much bitter now. I guess I've finally come to realize that it's impossible hiding one's bitterness, and have decided that I want to do something about it, hence started looking into metta. Other people have mentioned that after practicing metta, their interactions improve greatly since one tends to "emit kindness," so to speak, and I certainly don't want bitterness/cynicism to dominate my life.


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Connecticut town goes Fahrenheit 451 on 'violent video games'
451-degrees Fahrenheit, or the temperature at which books burn. I'm not sure what the autoignition point of video games are, but a town in Connecticut is holding an event that seems awfully similar to that of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451.
Residents of Southington, a small town in Connecticut about 30 miles from the site of the Newton massacre, are organizing a voluntary video game return program to help dispose of "violent" video games. The Violent Video Games Return Program is being held on Saturday, January 12, 2013 at the Southington Drive-in Theatre where there will be a dumpster set up for the collection of violent video games, CDs, and DVDs. The violent video games turned in will be destroyed and placed in the town dumpster for "appropriate permanent disposal." In other words, Fahrenheit 451 has come to life.
Those who turn in their "games of violence" will be offered a gift certificate donated by a member of the Greater Southington Chamber of Commerce "as a token of appreciation for their action of responsible citizenship."
SouthingtonSOS, the organizers of the event, were sure to make clear that the group's action is "not intended to be construed as statement declaring that violent video games were the cause of the shocking violence in Newton."
"Rather, SouthingtonSOS is saying is that there is ample evidence that violent video games, along with violent media of all kinds, including TV and Movies portraying story after story showing a continuous stream of violence and killing, has contributed to increasing aggressiveness, fear, anxiety and is desensitizing our children to acts of violence including bullying," a statement in the flier read. "Social and political commentators, as well as elected officials including the president, are attributing violent crime to many factors including inadequate gun control laws, a culture of violence and a recreational culture of violence."
How this group could say the event shouldn't be construed as a knock on violent video games is beyond me. I'm actually more offended that they think me stupid enough to not realize their blatant intentions with this event. This group's statement seems like nothing more than a PR-written in pre-response to the impending backlash they will soon face from gamers everywhere. They probably saw the response to the NRA's moronic statements regarding games and violence and prematurely defended themselves.
For humanity's sake, I hope the residents of Southington aren't brainless enough to show up to this event. This is truly like something from a novel or film. What is this town going to do next, ban dancing?


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We were late leaving the Carolina Bed & Breakfast in Asheville, NC and it was already dark as we pulled into the parking lot of All Soul's Pizza. Our destination was the field next door which had been set with long picnic tables and festooned with fairy lights. Because we were late arriving Elliot Moss, former chef of the Admiral was already standing by the stone fire-pit and addressing the crowd while cooks were rolling and cooking tortillas on the fire behind him. Apparently the ground was so saturated that the pit-roasted whole lamb had to be dug up and taken to the nearby restaurant kitchen to finish cooking. He had hope to fork-pull it like pork but was afraid it would not get cooked enough in the time left. It's never a good sign when the Chef is apologizing for his food before it even comes out of the kitchen but the ambiance and attendees at the Autumn Market Feast were so great that we were willing to let it pass.
"How did you get on the list?" was the question on everyone's lips. Frankly, we had no idea since we had no idea there even was a list. Having received our invitation in our email, I assumed it came from Full Sun Farm as the dinner was sponsored by the Montford Tailgate Market. Since no one from the farm was there this may not have been the case. However we got invited, we were excited to be there. Pop-up dinners and outdoor feasts have been a movement in Asheville which I have watched with envy. They usually are hosted by a group of Chef's and the menu is up to them. For this feast the Chefs included David Bauer of Farm & Sparrow Bread and Brendan Reusing from All Soul's as well as Elliot Moss.
To be brutally honest, the food was only so-so and not worth the fairly steep price of admission. As previously stated they were unable to cook the lamb properly so there wasn't much of it to go around. The meal was served family style and we were in that awkward place between two groups so the platters always got to us last. After passed hors d'oeurves of fermented Patty Pan squash and roasted lamb's liver and kidneys, we started with a salad of greens, fresh radishes, caramelized onions and a fresh rosemary vinaigrette. The tortillas (which were wonderful) then made their way to the table along with a trio of salsas and a lentil dish. Platters of lamb and roasted sweet potatoes finished the main course.
But what made the evening so wonderful was the people! Abby found herself seated next to a producer for the Food Channel and her mother, and I spent a long time talking to some sous-chefs who had worked at a number of restaurants in town. James found a kindred soul who had lived in Mumbai, India and they were busy trading stories. The conversation was lively and interesting and before we knew it they were bringing us bowls of cinnamon ice cream topped with warm caramel sauce (the way to my heart is caramel sauce!). The stars shone down from above, the glow of the fire lit the faces of the small blue grass band playing behind us while the wine flowed. Really, sometimes it's not just about the food.
Would we go to another one? Absolutely. It was a great evening, full of laughter and fun in a beautiful setting. Maybe next time the ground will be dryer or the food cooked differently. I can't wait to find out!


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Breathe easy, Washington Nationals fans. Ace righthander Stephen Strasburg is fine and will make his next start, according to The Washington Post.
Strasburg admitted to some forearm tightness after leaving his start Monday night, creating plenty of concern within the organization and among the fan base. Strasburg, 24, missed most of the 2011 season after having Tommy John surgery in September of 2010. Then, of course, he was shut down in early September last season (and missed the postseason), as the Nationals took what many believed to be an overly cautious approach to his health.
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo told the newspaper that Strasburg's pitching arm is "structurally perfect" and that the righthander merely was feeling "irritation" in his forearm.
Added Rizzo: "He's strong as an ox."
Strasburg was uncharacteristically wild Monday, walking four batters before exiting after the sixth inning. Manager Davey Johnson told reporters afterward that he decided to remove Strasburg after only 93 pitches because his command was off and he noticed him shaking his elbow frequently.
In six starts this season, Strasburg is 1-4 with a 3.13 ERA, a 1.21 WHIP and 36 strikeouts (in 37 1/3 innings).


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Posted 7 years ago
(1 item)
Hi folks,
Came across these three jigsaws a few years ago and re-found them at the back of a drawer.
I am looking to know if anyone knows anything about them or roughly the date?
There were 4 jigsaws in the series but unfortunately I only have 3 of the series.
They are all in sealed envelopes measuring 25.5cm x 18.5cm and my guess is that they were produced after the second world war when items were rationed and wooden jig saws were not produced. Does anyone have series 3 the British Aeroplanes.
Would love to hear from any jig saw enthusiast who could shed some light on the puzzles and add to the story.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks Alan.


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People acting like this game meant nothing is talking out of their ***...Miami came out as active as I've ever seen them tonight.
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People acting like this game meant nothing is talking out of their ***...Miami came out as active as I've ever seen them tonight.
thread on realgm forum has 85 pages. but they don't care about this game. people are sharing twitter photos heat players took with justin timberlake after the game as an evidence of players not giving a ****. man it's so easy to hate heat fans. they are nothing but spoiled idiots.
Last edited by xtacy; 12-11-2013 at 04:14 AM.
I know that many here don't agree....but I think that this was a Statement Game that the Local Fan Base needed to see.
Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.
Happy Birthday Roy Hibbert. A spectacular 24 point performance against Miami tonight.
We're 150+ some odd posts into a post game thread against the two time defending champs. I wasn't there so I don't know, but there were plenty of PDers that were and there hasn't been a single post, here or on the Pacers fans I follow on Twitter, about "too many Heat fans." No "more mustard than ketchup" stuff. Not that I was trying to look for them, but I can't remember a single person in the crowd in a Heat jersey. Last year in the playoffs I remember a dude sitting front row in a Lebron jersey being a Miami douche. I do remember some dude in a yellow button down right next to Spoelstra's seat going insane in the second half about every call against the Pacers.
We have a homecourt advantage again guys. And it's great.
For us long-time PDers.....we know that it's more of an important game ( for Home Court Advantage ) than an actual Statement game ( cuz there are 3 other that we still have to play ). But for the Casual fans....they have to see that we are legit by beating a "Brand Name" team like the Heat. You'd think that having the best record in the NBA would do that.....but I'm guessing many of the "Casual Fans" don't know that the Pacers are the best Defensive Team in the League, they don't know about any of the Players on the roster outside of PG24, GH and Hibbert. I agree with you....seeing the Pacers beat the Heat lays a strong foundation and will likely bring more of them back...which is what we want.
As you say...the Pacers are a hot ticket again.....winning games like this at Home can go a long way. It's a Statement that the Pacers needed to make in front of the Homecourt.
Last edited by CableKC; 12-11-2013 at 04:39 AM.
Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.
and whataya say we stop whining about media coverage
it was a great win but it was just one game of the regular season, statement ? yes but it was just one game. When we beat them in the playoffs thats when ill be jumping for joy.
[/center]If you havin' depth problems, I feel bad for you son; I got 99 problems but a bench ain't one! - Hicks
Chris Webber was a complete and utter dick. I am shocked that he was THAT unprofessional. It was so bad I honestly feel like he should get suspended or lose his job or something. To get some guy to agree to come out of his comfort zone and just bash him publicly is pretty ridiculous.
Eh. Not like he was interviewing Jackie O or something. All in good fun, dude handled it well, good on him. Got some tix, whatever, fun was had for all I'm sure.
Hey, all you old dudes.
Thought experiment. Replace current Roy with circa 2000 Smits. Not subbing, replace. How's that go? I watched it, but I was also 16 and learning to drive and...stuff.
Smits wasn't a rim protector. I love Rik, but he wouldn't fit nearly as well as Roy.
Right, but Rik was an honest to goodness offensive threat against dudes his own size
He "takes people out of their game"... After the meeting at the summit, which bloodied Hibbert's nose and resulted in a missed shot. James crapped his pants for the rest of the game.
I was so proud of Hibbert tonight... that was straight up denial of the best player in the NBA.
Sent from my LG-G2 using Tapatalk
He looked better in pregame shootaround last night, but I don't think he's anywhere near ready to go in meaningful NBA minutes.
"Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel
"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "
Let me see what the TV version is doing first. I don't know why people keep thinking ESPN web site proves anything - a lot of people won't see that because they go straight to the "HEAT Check" section.
That said, PJ spent a lot of time talking about PG yesterday, and it was practically the only non-NFL coverage except for Kobe, so it may be thawing.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...
I haven't lived in Indy for 15 years, but random people in town can refer to my high school by initials and everybody knows who they're talking about. I love Indiana.
This space for rent.
This space for rent.
Maybe ESPN needs to take their talents to Indiana Beach!
So if you go to the Sportscenter website, the Pacers-Heat have the top video.
That's a shockingly bad recap. Just awful. I haven't watched Sportscenter in ages, and crap like that demonstrates why.
EDIT: for comparison, look how much better the NBA.com recap is.
Last edited by Anthem; 12-11-2013 at 09:40 AM.
This space for rent.
I'm pretty sure that our best home record is when we went 36-5 in the first year of the Fieldhouse (99-00 when we wen to the Finals).
We're 10-0 now. I'm beginning to think that we can give that 36-5 record a serious run for its money. We'll probably lose a couple at home to good (West) teams, and will probably have a "WTF loss" to a garbage team that comes in here and catches us on a bad night where our guard is down, but I just don't see us losing more than 5 games at home this year. We're just becoming near impossible to beat at home.
It's beautiful to see a great home court advantage again. That crowd seemed so loud and intense last night. The Pacers are once again a "cool" thing to do again.
If I never hear the phrase, "Statement game" again it will be too soon. I personally think that phrase is 100% meaningless. Why so much of the discussion is about a meaningless phrase is beyond me. Sad thing is there are so many interesting actual basketball things to discuss about the heat vs pacers matchup.
After a night to sleep on it, I still think we sucked last night. We can't play like that and expect to win too many. 21 turnovers? You kidding me? The Georges gave us a combined 16 minutes of good basketball. I'm hoping it was just fatigue from the long road trip.
I am going to post several links to articles about the game last night.
good article about what PG did after losing game 7 in Miami last year
Nice general article about the game last night.
"I thought we brought it tonight," James said. "We know they're a very good defensive team. I thought they hit some tough shots and they attacked the rim real well but even though they had us down by 10 rebounds, I thought we rebounded well and we battled."
"Anytime you get into this kind of a slugfest with them, where you're down six to eight points, it feels like it's a 20-point lead," Bosh said. "We know they're a good team. We know what their goals are, we know what our goals are, we want to keep building to be a complete team for the spring."
Promising Start For A Season Of Heated RivalsBy Brian Windhorst | ESPN.com
INDIANAPOLIS -- Regardless of how they may try to insulate themselves from letdown or criticism by debating the terms of the word "rivalry," there's only one thing you need to know about how the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers view each other.
In the waning seconds of the Pacers' 90-84 win Tuesday night, as the players waited for the clock to run out they used the time to start barking at each other. The basic message, cleaned up, was this: " We'll see you next week."
If there's a way to determine what games matter to players, it's when they know the date of the next game without having to look at their pocket schedule.
"Everybody was talking," Pacers forward David West said. "We circle them on our calendar and they circle us. We'll see them in Miami next week."
This was a quality win for the Pacers, who have focused their entire regular season on finishing ahead of the Heat to assure home-court advantage for the playoffs. But there was no yellow rope rolled out to remind the Heat of their season's mortality. Or, as Chris Bosh said before the game: "It's hard to play like there's no tomorrow when, you know, there is."
Instead, it was a mostly entertaining stage-setter. As the rest of the East embarrassingly languishes below .500, the Pacers and Heat just had the first round of what could be an 11-game bout between now and June. It took until the 10th meeting between the two teams last season to settle matters.
The challenge has only intensified, and the failure of many of their peers has made this a premier matchup in the league. Tuesday showed just how much promise it has for drama and how much uncertainty there is in the outcome.
Both teams are just so different in their identities. The Pacers are traditional with their anchor defensive center with focuses on rebounding, dumping the ball to the big man and letting the star wing player create his own shot. They talk loudly and strongly about their goals and sometimes come off as brash in their expectations.
The Heat are so modern with their multi-position, centerless attack that values creating turnovers more than rebounds and efficient shots more than even wide-open inefficient ones. They seem to ignore all their opponents, even when they're successful. They stick to the boring script when it comes to their true motivations, wanting their actions to settle things.
The Heat's style has beaten the Pacers twice in contested playoff series and it seemed destined for a third. Yet neither, as we see often in rivalries, has yet budged on its philosophy to better deal with its top competition. They've both just tried to get better at playing and winning at their games.
That tug-of-war is what will probably eventually decide who wins their battle this season. Or as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra put it simply: "Who can get to whom."
Tuesday the Heat were so interested in setting a tone and perhaps answering the Pacers targeting them so publicly recently that they exploded with energy in the early going. They were nearly as aggressive defensively on Paul George as they were two years ago when Linsanity rolled into Miami and they went so ferociously at Jeremy Lin that it might've done psychological damage in the first quarter of that blowout. Lin, frankly, has never looked the same.
On the game's first possession, George came off a screen and saw LeBron James guarding him chest-to-chest, hardly the type of ease-into-the-game style that is commonplace even in big regular-season games. George was stunned and he was also scoreless in the first quarter.
At first it looked like James was trying to send the younger George, who edged him out for Player of the Month in November and looks like his first serious Most Valuable Player challenger in the East in the past few years, a message. But it did not last.
"I knew it was the kind of night it was going to be then," George said. "At that point I knew I just had to run him. I couldn't allow him to load up on me."
George did run him and James didn't give in, but he did get tired. Spoelstra had to call timeout to get James off the floor with a minute left in the first quarter he was so gassed. In the second half, when the Heat were relying on James to carry them offensively, they couldn't afford to have him on George. So Dwyane Wade and Ray Allen were getting the assignment and George reeled off 15 points as the Pacers took over the game.
"It's rare to see LeBron tired," George said. "It was a challenge to me to rise to that level. I had to be a mature player."
James, who seemed to have zapped himself with that first-half burst, was a rare non-factor in that second half as he was largely outplayed and out-defended by George.
James had just seven points in the second half plus several crucial turnovers.
Consider that one of the points of emphasis when the teams play the Pacers again next week. You can count on James not wasting his reserves by trying to smother George in the first quarter. There will be lessons the Heat take and apply, the next phase of what promises to be an enjoyable back-and-forth all season.
Roy Hibbert got the Heat out of their preferred game as they mostly ditched their spread offense and eventually moved Bosh to power forward and put Chris Andersen at center to try to handle the Pacers center. His 24 points and defensive aggression ended up defining this matchup.
Bending to deal with Hibbert caused the Heat to be slower and play fewer shooters, which explains why they scored just 37 points in the second half, shot just 4-of-21 from 3-point range and weren't able to punish the Pacers for turning the ball over 21 times. Normally you turn the ball over 21 times against Miami and it's a Wade-James dunk show and a loss.
Instead the Heat were complaining about officials letting Hibbert get away with his defensive collisions in the lane. Hibbert may not have won Defensive Player of the Year last season, but he's started regularly getting star calls at that end from officials. He has established himself as a rock and when he goes up the whistles often get swallowed. He didn't even get a foul until midway through the fourth quarter.
If James getting whistled for an offensive foul and then a technical for complaining after a midair meeting with Hibbert in a vital moment in the conference finals last season wasn't a message of how it is going to be, this night was a refresher.
The idea is the Heat's shooters will punish Hibbert for staying home, but Shane Battier has struggled so much as a shooter recently that he's been losing minutes. The Heat have stopped playing Udonis Haslem, who had several big games against Hibbert in the playoffs last season. And Allen seems to hate Bankers Life Fieldhouse. He didn't even score in two regular-season games there last season and Tuesday he was 1-of-5 shooting.
"When they go big-big instead of small-big with Bosh and the Duke guy -- what's his name? oh, Shane Battier -- it allowed me to roam free a little bit," Hibbert said. "We always stay big and we make teams adjust to us." When they're not even remembering your name, it sort of sums it up.
This script will be flipped and flipped again before this is over. The Heat will surely have their moments when their strategies make the Pacers look foolish. There will be countermeasures aplenty, the Heat having Greg Oden somewhere in their future to deal with Hibbert in some fashion and the Pacers waiting to roll out Danny Granger.
The only thing that seems assured is that nothing is assured. The Heat's ultimate success against the Pacers the last two seasons has only emboldened them and made them a huge threat to a fourth consecutive Finals.
"The respect runs deep between these teams," Spoelstra said. "There are going to be some ups and downs."
Last edited by Unclebuck; 12-11-2013 at 10:00 AM.


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The indices aren't doing much again but there's a bit more selling pressure today. Breadth is running 2100 gainers to 2800 losers, and the best sectors are biotech and solar. Gold continues to be pounded but there isn't much leadership overall. The best big-caps are LinkedIn (LNKD), Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX), but there isn't much good momentum.
I'm doing very little other than managing positions and making sure nothing slips too much. Finding new buys has become extremely tough, so I'm making sure I don't give back any big gains. I wouldn't mind seeing a bout of selling shake things up, but the dip buyers don't seem to be going away. They already made one good try and we'll see what happens if the intraday lows are retested. The dip buyers are not going to stop until they have been burned a few times and, so far, they haven't even been burned once.
It is often said the market tops are a process and the reason for that is that bulls don't suddenly change their minds when the market is uptrending. They have to feel a little pain before they reconsider, and this market hasn't done a thing to make the buyers worry.


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Perkele, while this is how it is likely to be perceived my intention was not to "team up against" anyone. Just recently Blackbird and I disagreed rather strongly. This is what happens on these fora a lot and some of it can be useful - we can learn from different perspectives.
Binocular is a frequent contributor and as such is bound to run into some disagreements. I don't think we should take them personally. What do you think?


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Bulgarian coach Radostin Stoytchev: Germany deserved the victory. We started very badly. In the first set, we made 12 unforced errors. I am very satisfied with our comeback. Unfortunately, our risk was not rewarded in the fifth set.
Bulgarian captain Matey Kaziyski: It was a difficult game. We started very badly, made many mistakes and did not show good volleyball. Then we come back in great style and had the chance to win. Tomorrow, it will be a very tough game again.
German coach Raúl Lozano: The game was like the two games in Varna. One phase one team was strong, one phase the other team. We must play with more stability, but this of course also depends on the opponent. The first two sets were our best in the World League 2011.
German captain Robert Kromm: We started very well and put the Bulgarian team under pressure. We blocked well and our attack was also great. In the third set, we broke down, caused by the strong services of Bulgaria. At the end we were lucky and had the home field advantage.


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PLYMOUTH, N.H.–Jamie Sydoriak, a Plymouth State University graduate student studying grassland bird communities, has been awarded the Joe and Gail White Fellowship for 2012-13. The White Fellowship was created by two Plymouth State graduates who care deeply about protecting New Hampshire's natural resources and fostering PSU's ongoing efforts in educating the public about this goal. Joe '68 and Gail White '66 were both teachers who eventually started a successful organic farm in southern New Hampshire. The White Fellowship helps pay a graduate student's tuition, stipend, or research expenses.
"I am incredibly grateful and honored to be awarded this gift from Joe and Gail White," Sydoriak said. "I truly believe in the mission of open space conservation and the goals of the Center for the Environment here at PSU, and it's great to know there are people who feel the same way. Support from the Center for the Environment and the Whites' foster these values into the minds of future conservationists like myself."
Sydoriak, a student in the Master of Science in Environmental Science and Policy program in PSU's Center for the Environment (CFE), will use the White Fellowship Award to assist her thesis research on grassland bird conservation. Her project is interested in maintaining or improving privately-owned grasslands with the goal of stabilizing bird populations that use them. She will conduct rapid assessment surveys in New Hampshire grasslands to determine the state of the bird populations and habitat quality. From that she will focus on developing landowner outreach materials about the background, science and management of maintaining grasslands for birds.
"The award is enabling me to put my best foot forward in our grassland conservation project," noted Sydoriak. "Any and all data will help us in teaching people to think differently about managing their land, and ultimately help improve habitat for grassland birds."
For her thesis project, she will work with the CFE and the Vermont Center for Ecostudies under the direction of her mentor, Dr. Len Reitsma at PSU.
"Jamie's work on grassland bird conservation with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies represents an excellent melding of science and policy," said Reitsma. "Her project is also the type of linkage with regional environmental organizations that has typified the work of the Center for the Environment. Receiving the Joe and Gail White Fellowship will enhance the quality of this collaboration."
Jamie received a bachelor of science in Biology with a minor in Environmental Earth Science from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2011 and has previous field experience working with bird ecology.
For more information about this release, contact Bruce Lyndes, PSU Media Relations Mgr., (603) 535-2775 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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Nancy Heche has written "The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality" with co-author Joe Dallas. Great. Couldn't he have found a different last name?
Heche's hatred of gays goes back before her daughter Anne's relationship with Ellen. Mother Heche's husband was a closeted gay man who died of AIDS in 1983. Her bitterness comes through in the first few pages of the book that is available on Google Books.
What a load of crap.
Her co-author is a self-hating gay man who has been "struggling" with his homosexuality since the 1970s. He's apparently been in and out of the closet for years. What's most horrifying about this man is that he now counsels other gay men, causing them the same distress and guilt he feels, induced by some warped religious teaching.
You want to be miserable? Fine. You want to cause other people misery and counsel them into committing suicide? He should be arrested.
They should have stopped after their third sentence.
"If it doesn't matter to God, it needn't matter to us.
"There are, after all, countless issues for Christians to be concerned about. So in an age marred by terrorism, poverty, violence, and corruption at every level, some would assume that sexual morality is, by its nature, a secondary matter."
Obviously their answer is no. It doesn't matter what God thinks. Even though there are countless issues that people should be concerned about, this one makes money by pandering to bigots.
The book helps good Christians deal with vexing moral dilemmas. What should you do if a relative you love who is gay wants to visit with his partner? They give advice to "Christian" counselors who are treating gays and lesbians who have come to them for help. Why would any gay or lesbian go to a counselor who would take advice from this bitten woman and her self-hating gay partner?
I always enjoy when bigots misquote the Bible for their own purposes.
In a footnote, they cite 1 Corinthians 6:11.
The line I found was:
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Their translation:
Former homosexuals are nothing new.
We can all translate. I'd interpret the line to mean that after being cleansed, even hateful people like Heche can become loving, accepting people.
In case you're wondering about transgender issues, Heche devotes the entire last three pages of the book to the issue. Just find the right pastor and, despite surgery, you can begin living as the sex you were born.
Who really cares what this woman says? The only reason for her celebrity is her famous daughter's bisexuality and that daughter's relationship with someone America actually loves.
Sally Kern could use this book for some new rants if she ever runs out. It should become a best-seller.


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NASCAR's new era begins Sunday following the end of an error.
When NASCAR drops the green flag on the Daytona 500, the universally disliked Car of Tomorrow officially becomes the Car of Yesterday. Welcome the Gen-6 design, which will drive NASCAR into the future by resurrecting its past.
"I'm driving a Chevy again," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. "I didn't know what my COT was."
Junior was only half joking.
The COT was conceived of the best intentions following the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. in the 2001 Daytona 500. NASCAR wanted to build the safest possible car, so it designed the COT with safety in mind.
Great idea. But in executing the plan, NASCAR lost touch with its roots.
A core component of the COT was to also balance the playing field with a one-design car that would give every driver the same package. The problem was that every car looked the same. In a sport born of founder Bill France Sr.'s mantra that "the stars are the cars," the COT made Fords, Chevys, Toyotas and Dodges indistinguishable.
And the concoction pleased no one when it came to aesthetics or competition.
Fans hated the COT. Manufacturers hated the COT. Drivers hated the COT. Sponsors hated the COT. And during the six-year run of the COT, all the momentum that NASCAR built in the 90s plunged. Attendance was down. Television ratings were down. Sponsors dropped out.
In December, 2010, representatives from the four manufacturers met to discuss the problem. In an almost unprecedented show of unity, the manufacturers asked NASCAR to replace the COT with a template that would put "car" back in NASCAR.
The automakers also promised NASCAR the full support of their technical staff and various aerodynamic and wind tunnel facilities.
Sunday, just over two years after the project began, NASCAR's "Gen-6" car goes racin'.
"The introduction of the new Gen-6 has created buzz," NASCAR chairman Brian France said. "Everyone around the sport is excited about this car."
But it's not "this" car. That's the beauty of the Gen-6 design. A Ford is a Ford again. A Chevy is a Chevy and a Toyota is a Toyota. The best looking of all Gen-6 cars would have been the new Dodge Charger, had Dodge's European-based parent companies not decided at the end of last season to get out of NASCAR.
"This is an important year for NASCAR," four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon said. "In the new car, I think there is something for everyone, the manufacturers and old fans as well as new fans."
NASCAR's manufacturing sponsors hope to see a return of the day when customers bought on Monday the model car that won on Sunday. Chevrolet, in fact, will soon be offering a new SS design based on their Gen-6 model.
NASCAR's Ford now looks very much like the Fusion on the street. The Toyotas look like the Camry.
The biggest question NASCAR has been facing is "what took them so long?"
"I think everyone is energized by the new car," Jimmie Johnson said. "Everybody is excited about the look of the car, the speed of the car. Now the question is, how do we improve it? How do we win with it?"
If anyone should be sad to see the passing of the COT, it should be Johnson. The El Cajon native won four of his all-time record five straight Sprint Cup titles during the six-year run of the COT.
But he's not.
"No, and I mean no!" he said at a recent press briefing.
"I never really liked the COT," said Earnhardt Jr. "No one saw the COT as a great car. Most fans hated to look at it. I know manufacturers were disappointed the day it was introduced.
"We've got a great looking Chevy again," said Johnson. "Maybe it's one of the best looking cars in the history of stock car racing. When they developed the Gen-6 car, they paid attention to details of the various designs and what the fans want to see."
"Ford fans are going to be able to pull for Fords again," said car owner Jack Roush. "When you see one of our cars, it's going to look like a Fusion. I hated hearing 'what's that' with the COT."
To design the Gen-6 car, the manufacturers and NASCAR officials started with a the idea that they wanted to carry forward the safety features of the COT and keep the cars competitively balanced while making each model distinctive. Down the middle of the Gen-6 cars is a common template. The hoods, roofs and rear decks are uniform although changed from the COT. The angle of the windshield rake has been sharpened to improve the Gen-6 car's appearance although the height and ground clearance hasn't been changed.
Nearly everything else has changed.
The Gen-6 car is 150 pounds lighter, four inches wider and six inches short than the COT, although a slightly longer nose and shorter rear deck gives the car the appearance of being longer.
Other changes include the grill, side panels and side windows that give each car its distinctive shape as well as suspension components that will alter the balance and handling characteristics of the car – the total package making it tougher for the drivers to handle.
And when the Gen-6 car was completed from the engineering end, NASCAR went farther and cleaned up the amount and positioning of decals on the car.
Competitively, NASCAR wanted a car that would race better on the 1.5-mile and two-mile ovals that make up the majority of the schedule. NASCAR already felt there was solid competition on the shorter tracks and longer, high-banked superspeedways at Daytona Beach, Fla., and Talladega.
The hard part for NASCAR and the manufacturers was finding that competitive balance while building brand identity with what was in the showroom.
"It's been a challenge to get all the correct features in the car within the design parameters and still having the car competitive," said Ford Racing aerodynamicist Bernie Marcus.
"At the end of the day, you can have the best-looking car, but if it doesn't work on the track, that's not going to be good so we have to have both. We have to have the looks and the performance."
The most distinctive feature of the Gen-6 cars is the grill, which is widely different on the Fusion, Camry and SS. But the design of the sides of the car presented bigger problems for the manufacturers, who were allowed to supply their respective body panels plus the shape of the side glass. While the side glass is distinctive by model, the total area of the side glass must be the same.
NASCAR also "cleaned up" the Gen-6 by reducing the size and area for the listing of contingency sponsors. The name of the driver now appears at the top of the windshield alongside the manufacturer name.
The last questions facing the Gen-6 is will it be as sharp on the track as it is in the showroom? Which drivers, if any, will the new cars benefit? How will the new cars change the actual racing?
These question won't be answered on the high-banked oval at Daytona Beach, Fla., which has always been an unusual place to race. We won't know that until after crew chiefs get to smaller tracks like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Fontana and start tweaking the chassis.
"That won't be easy," said Johnson. "It doesn't appear there are a lot of openings to make changes to these cars."


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Public Comment Sought on Public-Private Partnership Agreement
Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs
12000 Government Center Parkway, Suite 551
Fairfax, VA 22035-0065
Contact: Merni Fitzgerald, Director of Public Affairs
703-324-3187, TTY 711, Fax 703-324-2010
Media Pager: 703-324-NEWS (6397)
Nov. 30, 2007
Public Comment Sought on Public-Private Partnership Agreement
to Rezone County Property on Silver Lakes Boulevard
Fairfax County seeks public comment on a proposed public-private partnership to share the cost for rezoning the site for the new Kingstowne Regional Library. The rezoning will permit residential housing to be built on this site in addition to the library.
Public comments are welcome until Dec. 29. They should be sent to the Clerk to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors — either by e-mail at email@example.com or by mail to Clerk to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Suite 533, Fairfax, VA 22035.
Visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/construction/lee_village to view the proposed agreement, or call 703-324-5800, TTY 711.
The county is considering an agreement with Lee Village at Silver Lake LLC. If the land is successfully rezoned, the county will negotiate a separate agreement with the developer to build the new regional library and work-force and older adult housing. This partnership is allowed by the Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002.
For more information, contact the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services at 703-324-5800, TTY 711.


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Principles of human nature: how people are.
Self-interest affects perception and reasoning.
People start from their desired conclusion, and then work backwards to find a reasoning that fits it.
Once any action is performed, the mind automatically starts to come up with reasons to justify it. This is similar to the way that the mind incorporates external stimuli into dreams automatically.
It is difficult to be truly honest to yourself, or even to perceive a reality that threatens your desired conclusions.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair
Self includes certain select other people.
Self-interest includes the interests of your family, your team, your country, etc. The division of people into "my people" and others is basic to human thought.
People are more comfortable with and identify with people from their own ethnic and economic backgrounds. Diversity harms societies by lowering mutual trust.
Most people uncritically adopt the beliefs of their social group, to minimize the stress of independent thought and the fear of rejection.
The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.
People intuitively feel the difference between good and evil, even though self-interest obscures conscious perception of it.
"If only it were all so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What is unspoken is hard to hear, but it's always the most important point.
Honest opinions often cannot be spoken because of embarrassment or political correctness constraints. See the case of Juan Williams.
Those unspoken opinions are the true explanation for much otherwise inexplicable behavior.
People prefer simple explanations and stories instead of critical thought and subtleties.
Critical thought means looking for mistaks in what you are taught (lol), which can be uncomfortable, especially when it requires that you challenge widely accepted authority.
The world is composed of shades of grey, and they are often difficult to distinguish.
The bible is popular partly because it is a series of simple explanations and stories.
Most people don't do math very well. Math is hard work.
"Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be." -- Terry Pratchett in Nation
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." -- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
Most people don't have time for politics. They're busy with work, family, shopping, etc.
Whatever it is, they usually don't care unless they can see how it immediately affects them.
That means the people who actually do care have more influence than those who don't.
Corruption hides in the shadows of complexity like cockroaches hide in the dark.
People are social animals.
All human rights and obligations exist in a social context.
Your right to swing your fist is limited by where the other guy's nose is.
No success was ever achieved alone. Success is always a combination of individual effort and social context.
People are acutely aware of their status and most consumer spending is to increase status, not for necessities.
The rich are worshipped as examples of what we want to be, no matter whether they got their money though producing something useful or through non-productive rent-seeking. The American dream creates self-blame that protects the rich from responsibility:
Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"
Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.
Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
People are motivated by money and status, but also by the desire to help, and to be fair.
Homo economicus, the "rational economic man", is a myth used by economists.
In reality, the ultimatum game proves that the motive of fairness is greater than the motive of direct personal gain.
The existence of Linux and the Wikipedia are testaments to the desire of people to be helpful.
The public desire for fairness is routinely abused by self-interested groups as a way to (ironically) unfairly take property and rights away from rival groups. There is a continuous "Victimization Olympics" where groups compete trying to prove that they are worthy of reparations at the expense of others. Since public opinion is the law, these games have serious repercussions.
Fear is an even stronger motive than money, status, helpfulness, or fairness.
People willingly give up their rights and hand control to self-interested authorities when confronted with fear of death, as after 9/11.
Even if you yourself are not afraid, if your neighbor is afraid, he will suppress your rights because of his own fear.
Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger." -- Nazi Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
Human history is a series of revolutions against hereditary aristocracies.
The rich use governments, corporations, and religion to gain ever more wealth and power at the expense of everyone else.
They entrench themselves and their families by law as the non-productive owners of all land and other assets, while everyone else does the actual work.
The more they have, the more interest and rent everyone is obliged to pay them, until finally the people revolt.
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. -- Matthew the Evangelist
And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. -- John Steinbeck
See the French revolution, Russian revolution, many others. Read Ibn Khaldun about the pattern to the rise and fall of societies.
Goals: how things should be, given how people are.
- An end to hereditary aristocracy in America though taxes on non-productive rent seeking, most especially the Georgist single tax on land values and other natural resources like radio spectrum.
- Government that represents the 100%, not just the 1%. This would be best accomplished through publicly financed campaigns.
Minimal laws, well enforced.
The average person should be able to read and understand all of the federal, state, and local laws that apply to them.
The total number of laws should also be limited to an amount that is possible to read in a month: one large book.
There should be elementary, middle, and high school courses in law.
If a law is on the books, it should be well enforced or else people lose respect for the law. For example, every single car that speeds should get a ticket, every day.
Most licensing and zoning laws are designed to protect entrenched interests against new entrants and new business models, so licensing and zoning requirements should be the absolute minimum that are truly required to protect public safety. See http://www.ij.org/
"Jury nullification, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the people and the courtroom norm." -- Ron Paul
Jurors should be allowed to decide that the law itself seems unfair and should be contested in a higher court. Maybe they get overruled, but at least they get to slow down what they consider to be bad laws.
Near-absolute freedom of speech.
All file sharing on the internet should be legal, as the Pirate Party wants. Copyright enforcement is practice for suppression of political speech.
National Security Letters and gag orders are direct attacks on the first amendment and must never be allowed under any circumstances whatsoever.
Government should not be able to read your email or spy on any non-public digital content without a judge-signed search warrant as specified in the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
True equality of opportunity.
America has the lowest social mobility in the developed world.
If you were born poor in America, you are almost certainly going to stay poor.
If you were born rich, you will almost certainly stay rich.
To really have equal opportunity, every child must get excellent health care and excellent education through high school, with explicit instruction on how social class and the business world works.
What we have now is a farce:
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France
Freedom from your boss.
Most adult human life in America is wasted in boring jobs, a kind of slow death for hundreds of millions of people.
Corporations and governments use dependencies to control you and make you work for them, especially mortgage debt, but also health care costs.
Freedom from your teacher.
Untold years of childrens' lives are wasted in boring classes.
If they learn the material and can prove they know it through testing, they should be free to leave the class so the teacher can help those who don't know it.
- Freedom from cars. We must make it possible to live and work in America without ever being required to buy a car or buy gasoline.
Freedom from debt.
Both personal and national debt are bad, except when they increase your future income more than the cost of the loan. Mortgage debt should not be subsidized or guaranteed by the government.
Non-intervention abroad, to save trillions of dollars and to maintain foreign goodwill.
Aggressive wars, even when called preventative, and even when they pertain only to trade relations, are forbidden. --Ron Paul
We should not have army bases all around the world.
"National defense" should be only to defend our own nation, not to impose our ideas or commerce on other nations.
An end to all subsidies. Subsidies harm the public in two ways: first, they cost tax money, and second, the use that tax money to increase demand, which increases prices. Instead, if the people have decided we need more of something, the government should help increase the supply of it, not the demand.
This is going to be difficult, because debt is the key point over leverage over the public, used by the ruling class to control them.
Loan guarantees for mortgages simply raise the prices of houses. Mortgages are an effective way to create obedient workers through debt.
Loan guarantees and subsidies for college simply raise the cost of college. Students loans are an effective way to create obedient workers through debt. Education is irrelevant. Indebted obedient workers are the product of colleges.
Means to those ends: how to achieve the goals
Taxes on non-productive rent-seeking, and zero tax on income from productive work.
Most wealth in America is inherited, not earned.
Wealth should be the result of your own personal productivity, not a redistribution from poorer people to the rich via mere non-productive ownership of other wealth, especially landowning.
If you could be in a coma and still earn money, then that income is non-productive rent-seeking and should be taxed:
land rent, inheritance.
There should also be a 0.1% financial transation tax on stock and bond trades to discourage fast trading.
Income earned through actual hourly work should not be taxed at all, nor should there be any sales tax.
There should be unified land ownership and land tax records for the whole country in a standardized and free digital format.
A tax on land values is good for the environment too.
Prop 13 is just about the worst possible tax law, benefitting the wealthy and businesses at the expense of everyone else. It should be repealed. If poor elderly people cannot pay their land value tax, the tax could optionally be recorded but not collected until the retired person passes away or sells land, at which time the taxes are collected from the proceeds.
Hereditary bodies... always on the watch for their own aggrandizement, profit of every opportunity of advancing the privileges of their order, and encroaching on the rights of the people. --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.
Physical gold and silver money by weight. No dollars, just grams, coined by the government in standard amounts, always 99.99% pure.
No State shall ... coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts
Though gold and silver money will not end credit problems, they will guarantee that savings preserve value.
No national debt. All government operations should be funded out of already-collected revenue.
No bonds. It costs taxpayers twice as much for everything when they pay interest. Instead, funds should be raised in advance of any project.
The option to join Medicare by paying in, with a 10% co-pay.
This is the biggest step in freeing you from your boss, and that's why the US Chamber of Commerce opposes it.
If you have a family, the ability to start a small business requires that a government catastrophic health insurance option exist. Minor and optional procedures should not be covered, but paid for out-of-pocket.
Except in life and death emergencies, all medical bills should be presented in advance of treatment so that the consumer can make a choice.
Insurance companies should also be obligated to immediately state the exact amount of coverage given a medical billing code.
Fee-for-service just encourages more unnecessary services to get more fees. Instead, your provider should get a fixed amount of money each month from your insurer.
There should be a SMALL set of STANDARDIZED health insurance plans.
So there would be plans A, B, C, D, and E and every member of plan B, for example, would cover exactly the same stuff and have the same out-of-pocket costs. Only the premiums would be different, making it obvious which plan is better.
- Mandatory paternity testing at birth and no legal obligation for child support by biological non-fathers. It's cheap, simple, and fair.
No mortgage interest deduction.
Debt for consumption is harmful, though debt for production is sometimes helpful.
Government should never encourage debt for consumption.
The government should publicly acknowledge that lower house prices are better for buyers. Deflation is good.
No Fed, no Fannie, no Freddie, no FHA.
Mortgage lending should be based on rental value, not on comps, so that
the borrower can always rent out a house rather than default on the loan.
There should be an open and transparent market for housing, with all bids verified and published.
Sellers should be legally obligated to accept any payment that meets his published asking price within 30 days.
Legalization of marijuana.
Prison guard unions oppose legalization because they like having all those prisoners.
Mexican drug cartel violence is 50% driven by marijuana profits.
The same laws about alcohol should apply to marijuana: no sales to minors, no public intoxication, no driving while high.
Recording police action.
It should always be legal to record the police with cameras. Police should never be allowed to forbid photography of arrests and other law enforcement.
- Free speech for prisoners. All prisoners should be allowed to talk to all reporters at least once per week for one hour, no matter what they are accused of.
All non-commercial file sharing should be legalized as free speech, no matter what the content of the file.
Copyright should be 10 years maximum, since copyright is censorship.
No "Mickey Mouse" extensions to copyright to protect Disney profits at the expense of the public.
Repeal of DMCA as unconstitutional. DeCSS DVD decryption software should be free to download in America under the First Amendment. It must be made legal to play movies on any device you choose, in any manner you choose, skipping the bogus "FBI Warning" and previews and going directly to the beginning, middle, or end of the movie if so desired.
Patents should be abolished.
Most patents are non-productive rent-seeking.
Drug companies spend only about 15% of revenue on drug research.
Drug research should be publicly funded and published for use globally without royalty payments. Taxpayers would end up paying much less with public drug research.
Corporate personhood should be abolished.
Corporations should not have any of the constitutional rights of natural people, because corporations are not people.
All workers in a publicly traded corporation, even temporary, contract, and janitorial workers, should get a vote on how the company is run.
Everyone who is being paid by that company, no matter how indirectly, should get to vote.
Workers should get half of the votes, and shareholders should get the other half.
- Long euphemisms and spin should be banned in government names. All program and law names should be as short and spin-free as possible. Welfare should be called exactly "Welfare" and not "Temporary assistance to needy families".
- Unemployment benefits should come with the requirement that the recipient work half-time for them in roadside cleanup or graffiti removal. The work requirement should be no more than half-time so that the recipient still has time to upgrade skills and to search for a real job.
If we must have elected Congressmen, we should at least have public campaign funding for anyone who can get signatures from 1% of registered voters in their district or state.
Congressmen and their staffs should all be forced to leave DC after two terms, and it should be a serious crime for any of them to join or advise any lobbying firm or to use their connections or influence in DC.
Congressmen must be required to READ the laws before signing them.
We should frequently scramble people in power to prevent corruption. See "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod.
We should ultimately aim for direct democracy via the web, or for sortition, the random selection of Congressmen from the population.
Children should have the ability to test out of any subject and have more free time. There should be a required course in lending, compound interest, and the evils of borrowing from a payday lender.
Many working mothers depend on school as a kind of day care though, so maybe kids who test out of a class should still be in school, but allowed to be in the library, or the gym, or working on a personal project.
No privately owned bank or other financial institution should under any circumstances ever receive a grant or a loan from the public, or any guarantee of their debt, or any bailout.
No privately incurred debt should ever be purchased, or guaranteed, or paid off by the government.
No bank should ever be allowed to have more than 1% national market share.
Mortgage lending should be limited by law to the amount that can clearly be paid back by renting the place out and subtracting property tax and maintenance. That would prevent all foreclosures, since you could always rent the place out to cover all expenses.
Interest must always come with risk.
If your deposit is to be available on demand, then it must be held at the bank for you, and you will not get interest, and will probably pay a storage cost.
Deposits lent out (participation in risk for return) will not be available on demand, but rather only after a certain term, as with a CD, and may lose value if the loans are not repaid.
Urban commuter rail should be free to ride, funded by taxes on land values within several miles of any station.
The land values will go up when the trains are free, and the cost of ticket collection will be eliminated.
Highway traffic and deaths will be greatly reduced, and businesses near the stations will get much more business.
Security on free trains must be very good, or people won't ride the train. Fear motivates more than greed.
End of all medallion sales for taxi operations. It should be completely free to operate a taxi and would greatly reduce car trips and parking.
Taxi drivers should have to print out the exact cost to your destination before they start moving.
All traffic laws and road construction should give pedestrians the highest priority, with bicyclists second, and cars third. This will lower our dependence on foreign oil, make us healthier, improve air quality, save money, and allow more personal interaction.
- Hate speech must be legal, however repulsive it may be, or we risk further erosion of free speech. There should be no such thing as a "hate crime". There is only assault, which is already illegal. You cannot legislate good will. The motive for an assault is irrelevant. Thoughts and feelings must never be illegal. The assault itself is what must be punished.
- A ban on kangaroo courts. Corporate HR departments, university PC-compliance departments, and similar self-appointed bodies have been accumulating ever greater power to conduct witch hunts and inflict great harm without any accountability, often for trivial reasons such as the politically incorrect use of pronouns. If a law was broken, the legal system should handle it, not corporate employees or university activists. We need laws specifically banning such extra-legal courts in the workplace and at universities.
Government encouragement of locally generated power and food until half of it is local.
Local production may not be as efficient, but it removes dependency on centralized sources of control or on foreign powers.
Heating and cooling via deep heat exchangers and wastewater heat recovery.
Local fruit trees, especially in schools. Required middle school classes on food production, with actual hands-on work and eating of the harvests.
Girl Scouts should be allowed to personally bake and sell their own cookies, rather than being dependent on centralized corporate control for the benefit of the 1%.


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Victorian clubs scrambling for Kristian Jaksch
Carlton and the Western Bulldogs are among the clubs pursuing out-of-contract young Greater Western Sydney key defender Kristian Jaksch, trying to persuade the Victorian to return home.
Several Victorian clubs have shown strong interest in Jaksch, with Hawthorn also rating the young key back highly as a potential replacement for the veteran premiership player Brian Lake.
The Giants are confident of retaining Jaksch, who has been one of the young players who has faced the frustration of a lack of opportunities to play at senior level this year, encouraging rival clubs to believe he was a likely candidate to return home.
But Jaksch has played three of the past four games in the AFL and on Sunday performed well on highly rated Carlton swingman Lachie Henderson.
Jaksch is understood to be settled in Sydney and comfortable about remaining there if he continues to get opportunities to play senior football and the terms are right to stay. He is expected to talk with the club in the next month to six weeks about his future and a new contract.
Jaksch is among several Giants coming of contract who are seen as gettable by Victorian clubs. Pacy midfielder Dylan Shiel heads that list of players whom Victorian clubs are pursuing.
Shiel, who is contracted until the end of 2015, is regarded as the most accomplished of the players yet to re-sign with the Giants and clubs are hopeful of persuading him to return home in a similar trade to the one that enabled Dom Tyson return to Melbourne to play with the Demons this year.
Shiel's girlfriend is the daughter of Richmond assistant coach – and former Giants coach – Mark Williams, and so his name is invariably linked with a move to Punt Road.
The market for difficult to find key defenders is intense, which explains the level of interest in Jaksch who is from Melbourne and went to school at Carey Grammar.
Several clubs eagerly await the next move by out-of-contract Demons defender James Frawley. A former All-Australian, Frawley has put off talks with Melbourne until the end of the year, heightening speculation he may choose to leave the club.
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The Federal Perkins loan program is a limited availability, need-based, federal loan program. To qualify you must file a FAFSA and utilize your full Subsidized Stafford Loan Eligibility each year. Perkins loans are administered through the college and serviced by ECSI (Educational Computer Systems, Inc.). Perkins loans have a low fixed interest rate of 5 percent and can be awarded up to $4,000 annually at Maryville College. Actual loan amounts awarded are determined by the college and FAFSA information. Repayment begins nine months after ceasing to be enrolled as at least a part-time student.
Step 1: Maryville College Award Acceptance
If you are awarded a Perkins Loan, you must accept your award online through the Maryville College Online Financial Aid System: you must choose "accept" for the Federal Direct Stafford Loan before accepting the Perkins Loan, then accept all other aid and click on "submit" to finalize your acceptance. To access the website, you will need your MC Online Financial Aid Web ID and your MC Online Financial Aid System PIN.
If you need assistance with your Web ID or PIN , please call the Financial Aid Office at (865) 981- 8100.
Your Perkins Loan will not be disbursed to your Student Account until the Perkins Award has been accepted.
Step 2: Complete Entrance Counseling and sign MPN
After you have accepted your Perkins loan, you may complete your online entrance counseling and e-sign your Perkins Master Promissory Note (MPN) by clicking here or from the Maryville College On-Line Financial Aid System "Documents & Loan Information" tab. You will be required to sign the Perkins loan MPN only one time while continuously enrolled at Maryville College. Your Perkins loan cannot be disbursed until the entrance interview and MPN have been completed.


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ANTIOCH — Drivers headed southbound on Highway 160 from the Antioch Bridge toward central Contra Costa may experience some delays later this week.
As part of the work to add connector ramps between Highway 160 and Highway 4, contractors will be shifting traffic onto a newly paved lane near the Main Street on-ramp from 10 p.m. Wednesday night to 4 a.m. Thursday morning, according to a Contra Costa Transportation Authority news release.
The work may cause an intermittent highway closure between Main and the Highway 4 interchange, officials said.
Other roadwork this week on Highway 4 includes lane closures westbound overnight Tuesday and Wednesday between the off-ramp and on-ramp at Contra Loma Boulevard, and eastbound from G Street to Lone Tree Way overnight Wednesday through Friday.
For more information, visit www.4eastcounty.org.
Contact Paul Burgarino at 925-779-7164. Follow him at Twitter.com/paulburgarino.


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NEW YORK—Winning the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night was a triumph not only for Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, but also for the Heisman voters, who stayed true to the award's voting criteria, and not to unwritten rules in making Manziel the first freshman to capture the award.
Manziel, a redshirt freshman, threw for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns this season, while running for 1,181 yards and 19 touchdowns. He also had one of his best games in the brightest spotlight, completing 24-of-31 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns, while running for 92 more yards in Texas A&M's victory over then-No. 1 ranked Alabama—the only loss the defending national champion Crimson Tide suffered this season.
"Just me being able to break that barrier, it's such an honor and so humbling for me to be the first freshman to win, and really, make history," Manziel said. "I can't explain it, because it's just truly an honor and something I'm so humbled by.
"For kids who come out of high school and into college, it doesn't matter what year you are. It doesn't matter if you're a freshman, or a true freshman—guess that's the next thing that there is to do. It doesn't matter who you are, if you work hard enough and have a great group of guys around you and a great university, great things can happen."
Manziel received 474 first-place votes, more than all other freshmen in Heisman history combined. Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson had been the closest first-year player to winning, finishing second to Matt Leinart in 2004. Manziel's vote total was just another record for the pride of Kerrville, Texas, as he also shattered the SEC record for total offense, and the NCAA freshman records for total offense and quarterback rushing yards.
"As I said earlier this year, you put his numbers up against anybody that has ever played the game for a single season, and the numbers will speak for themselves, and the voters will recognize that," Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. "And that's what happened."
The Heisman went to Manziel over a pair of seniors, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein. For traditionalists who dislike the idea of a freshman winning the Heisman, there's always baseball, whose writers gave the American League MVP award this year to Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera over Angels rookie Mike Trout despite Trout's superior all-around contributions. The fact that the Tigers made the playoffs and the Angels did not, even though Los Angeles had a better record, also played a role in that vote.
In this case, Te'o is taking Notre Dame to the BCS title game, while Klein led Kansas State to the Big 12 championship and a berth in the Fiesta Bowl. Manziel and Texas A&M did not make the BCS, settling for a Cotton Bowl matchup with Oklahoma. But the Heisman is an individual award, not a team trophy.
Klein and Te'o will not get another chance to win the Heisman, while Manziel will. Still, there is nothing in the Heisman guidelines that puts any weight on how old a candidate is. Had Te'o become the first linebacker to win, the same could be said of him, that there is nothing in the Heisman guidelines about a player's position.
"The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity," reads the Heisman mission statement. "Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard work."
All three of Saturday night's finalists fit the criteria, and the voters got it right by looking only at what the candidates did, not their classifications or positions. When the runners-up talked about Manziel, they praised him as a football player without those three words to cheapen it: "only a freshman."
"He just makes plays," said Te'o, who has seen plenty of Manziel's exploits while watching tape to prepare to face Alabama in the national title game. "He's always on ESPN, just making plays, just running around like a human video game."
WATCH: Manziel's acceptance speech
MORE: Voting results
Said Klein: "Watching Johnny, when stuff starts going wrong, he's able to make plays, and turn a whole lot of negatives into major, major positives for his team and for his offense. He's a fun player to watch and makes a lot of things happen."
He has now made history happen, becoming forever part of the Heisman legacy.
When the Downtown Athletic Club decided to start honoring excellence on the college gridiron in 1935, the "DAC Trophy" was awarded "to the Outstanding College Football Player East of the Mississippi River," the award that year going to University of Chicago senior running back Jay Berwanger.
The award was renamed for John Heisman after the legend's death the following year, and went to Larry Kelley, Yale's senior end. The geographic distinction went away in 1936, as Nebraska senior fullback Sam Francis was the No. 2 vote-getter.
The next Heisman went to Yale senior Clint Frank, the first quarterback to win the award, and there have been other firsts along the way. The first junior was Army fullback Doc Blanchard in 1942; the first African-American was Syracuse running back Ernie Davis in 1961; the first (and only) back-to-back winner was Ohio State running back Archie Griffin in 1974 and 1975; the first defensive player was Michigan cornerback and kick returner Charles Woodson in 1997; and the first underclassman to win was Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, a sophomore in 2007. Now, Manziel is the first freshman.
If Manziel's victory does not seem so groundbreaking, consider the different rules that are applied to freshmen throughout college football. Sumlin, for instance, does not allow his first-year players to speak to the media—a ban that finally was lifted for Manziel after the regular season because of his Heisman candidacy.
"There was kind of a question mark about me, whether I could speak or not," said Manziel, who praised Sumlin for the way he handled the situation. "It's good to let people know that I can talk just like everybody else."
Just like everybody else. Manziel is a football player—the best of the college ranks this year. The Heisman Trophy itself depicts a football player, carrying a football and delivering a stiff-arm as he moves ever forward. Saturday night, Manziel brought that forward motion to life.


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Karen Schroeder Kassel, MS, RD, MEd
Potassium is a mineral and an electrolyte in your body. Electrolytes are compounds that are able to conduct an electrical current.
Potassium's functions include helping to:
Most people should aim to get close to 5,000 milligrams (mg) of potassium per day.
Severe potassium deficiency leads to a low potassium level in the blood, called hypokalemia. But a potassium deficiency is rare in healthy people. However, certain conditions can cause the body to lose significant amounts of potassium. Examples of these conditions include:
Signs of a severe potassium deficiency include the following:
If hypokalemia persists, it can lead to irregular heartbeat. This can dangerously decrease the heart's ability to pump blood.
In addition, people who are on high blood pressure medication
should ask their doctor about the need for a potassium supplement.
Potassium is rarely toxic because excess amounts are usually excreted in the urine. However, people with kidney problems may be unable to properly excrete potassium, allowing it to build up in the bloodstream (called hyperkalemia). Therefore, people with kidney problems need to closely monitor their potassium intake.
Hyperkalemia can also lead to an irregular, sometimes fatal heartbeat.
Potassium is found in many foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Less processed foods tend to have more potassium.
Here are some examples of foods that are high in potassium:
You can make small changes to your diet that will help increase your intake of potassium. These include:
American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Office of Dietary Supplements
Dietitians of Canada
Health Canada Food and Nutrition
Chapter 8 sodium and potassium. Health website. Available at: http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/html/chapter8.htm. Updated July 9, 2008. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Food sources of potassium. Health website. Available at: http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/html/appendixb.htm. Updated July 9, 2008. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Hyperkalemia. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated May 14, 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Hypertension. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated January 6, 2014. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Hypokalemia. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated November 15, 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Potassium. American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website. Available at:http://www.eatright.org/Public/content.aspx?id=6801&terms=potassium. Updated January 2013. Accessed January 9, 2014.
Whelton PK, He J, Cutler JA, et al. Effects of oral potassium on blood pressure. Meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials.
Last reviewed January 2014 by Michael Woods, MD
EBSCO Information Services is fully accredited by URAC. URAC is an independent, nonprofit health care accrediting organization dedicated to promoting health care quality through accreditation, certification and commendation.
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Information Services. All rights reserved.


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LLysfasi Hill Climb
Type:Road ride
Distance of the ride:1 mi
Hill climb starting form behind Coleg Llysfasi. Book in at the college car park. Details & entry form will be available on the Chester & N Wales CTC website
Map and Address
Location address and information:
Ruthin, Denbighshire LL15 2LB, UK
Map grid reference:SJ148523
Contact name:Lowri Evans
Contact phone number:01834 705709
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Events Listing Advice
The details above are correct to the best of our knowledge, for the most up to date details always refer to the organisers website or contact the event organiser.


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YOUNG mum Donna Galliott sat in the car, sobbing.
She'd taken her sick one-year-old daughter Lily for an emergency appointment at Winchester's St Clements Surgery.
As doctors were running late, the pair had sat for 20 minutes past their allotted time in the cramped waiting room.
But because her toddler was distressed and screaming in pain, Donna says a receptionist told her to take the sick child outside and wait there.
"I felt so humiliated, it was awful" she said.
"Lily had been unwell with a temperature for a week. When I noticed blistering on the roof of her mouth I rang the surgery and was told to bring her straight in.
"We arrived just after 5pm for an appointment at 5.10pm, but were still waiting at 5.30pm.
"Lily wasn't comfortable, she was screaming.
"Then we were thrown out of the waiting room - the receptionist said 'you're making too much noise'.
"I could feel myself welling up."
After standing outside in Winchester's rush hour traffic for several minutes, then crying in her mother-in-law's car as she related what had happened, Donna decided to have Lily seen elsewhere, so cancelled her appointment.
An out-of-hours consultation later that evening concluded the tot was suffering from a viral infection.
Donna, of Holly Meadows, Teg Down, who holds down two jobs as well as well as being a mum, rang St Clements Surgery Practice Manager Kathy Bracher to complain – but says she has not received an apology.
Fellow patient Julie Hicks said she watched in horror as a woman and child were ejected from the GP's practice.
"I couldn't believe what was happening and really felt for them. There were only two other people in the waiting room who didn't seem bothered by having Lily there.
"Anyone with small kids understands they scream when they're ill – it's just the way it is.
"It was disgraceful and well out of order."
Ms Bracher later told the Hampshire Chronicle that medical confidentiality meant that she was unable to comment about any incident involving a patient.


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The most important holiday in February has finally arrived. I'm not talking about Valentine's Day and I'm sure as hell not talking about President's Day: I'm talking, of course, about International 'That's What She Said' Day.
"That's what she said" is a phrase that adds sexual innuendo to an otherwise innocuous conversation, and it has been in the American vernacular for over 15 years. A typical usage might be to hear a friend or co-worker say "That was fast" in response to a quickly achieved task, only to be followed up by "that's what she said" from someone else.
The 'holiday' was initially created as a Facebook event by John Hughes, an Engineering student from Central Washington University, and knowledge of International 'That's What She Said' Day quickly spread by word of mouth via the social network to hundreds of thousands of users. At the time of this writing, Hughes' had amassed 148,477 people who were willing to take part in his slightly warped holiday, many of which have taken the time to accurately translate the popular phrase into countless foreign languages (and permeating a significant portion of Facebook's user base to boot). Participants are encouraged to work the term "that's what she said" into conversations today as relevantly and often as possible.
While we may never know the exact origin of the phrase, one of the earliest, if not first, occurrences of "That's what she said" in popular culture can be traced back to 1992 in the SNL sketch-turned-film, Wayne's World:
[Holding Claudia Schiffer picture]
Garth: Hey, are you done yet? I'm getting tired of holding it.
Wayne: Yeah, that's what she said.
Recently, the term has gained renewed popularity by usage in television shows such as King of the Hill, Family Guy, and, most prevalently, The Office.
Hughes also notes the planning of the holiday for February 15th, the day after Valentine's Day, as strategic as it "[makes] your job an easy one."
For more on the holiday, the following videos are recommended viewing: NBC promoting the phrase in song, as well as a visual primer for first-timers.
Today is so important that this article is the first (and only) one to be cross-posted at my blog and Newsvine.


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To create the stock list below we screened for companies with significant decreases in shares shorted month over month. This signals optimism, or rather a lack of pessimism, from short sellers – a group of investors who benefit when share price falls. [More lists: High Yield Dividend Stocks with Significant Insider Buying Activity] From there we looked for names trading below their lowest analyst target price. But because target prices are notoriously inflated, we only used the most pessimistic (the lowest) target prices, and for stocks with sufficient analyst coverage we only screened for those with 5 or more analyst ratings. Combined, these data points can be a powerful indicator that savvy-investors think these stocks are on their way up, perhaps towards the expectations set by industry analysts. The List Four stocks made the cut. Short sellers seem to think these stocks have upside to price in, an opinion supported by analysts. Do you think these stocks should be trading higher? Use this list as a starting point for your own analysis. Read descriptions for all companies mentioned 1. Gevo, Inc. ( GEVO): Focuses on the development and commercialization of alternatives to petroleum-based products based on isobutanol produced from renewable feedstocks. Market cap at $85.4M, most recent closing price at $2.08. Of the 6 analysts that have set a target price on the stock, the lowest price target stands at $3. This implies a potential upside of 33.92% from current levels around $2.24. Shares shorted have decreased from 7.22M to 7.02M over the last month, a decrease which represents about 1.01% of the company's float of 19.72M shares. Days to cover ratio at 4.75 days. 2. Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ( QCOR): Provides prescription drugs for central nervous system and inflammatory disorders. Market cap at $1.8B, most recent closing price at $30.77. Of the 8 analysts that have set a target price on the stock, the lowest price target stands at $38. This implies a potential upside of 16.78% from current levels around $32.54.
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