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Peer Pressure
February 20 2006 at 11:35 AM
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I think it should be by letting people have more choice, not less
Melissa, don't you think another possible outcome of your suggestion is that females might feel pressure to do something they don't want to do? If other girls their age are showing more skin, there can be tremendous pressure to do the same, even if they don't want to.
Teens are followers. Some school districts started requiring school uniforms because of the pressure students were feeling to follow the crowd and dress in ways that maybe they couldn't afford or didn't like. Students themselves later said that they like the unforms, because they took some of the pressure off that they had felt before.
If the trend became "showing more skin", then flat-chested, overweight girls or others not comfortable with nudity might feel pressure to exhibit themselves in a way that they feel uncomfortable with or like they don't measure up (I know when I was in high school and was this toothpick of a boy, I wouldn't have wanted to go shirtless or even wear a tank top around the buff athletes and others with larger, muscled chests, shoulders and arms. Gym class was hard enough!). As adults, we can resist such pressures, but teens especially have a hard time doing their own thing, as they want to fit in and be accepted.
I think we should de-sexualize the school environment as much as possible. Let kids be kids . . at least those who aren't in such a hurry to have sex and seek other adult pursuits. I always said to my sons and their friends, "Enjoy being a kid. You will have a long time to be an adult, and you will probably look back on your youth and wished you hadn't hurried through it."
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Body discrimination
- Nat on Feb 20, 2006
Body Discrimination
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body discrimination
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Re: Real beauty
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Body acceptance is not about sex, it's the reverse
- Melissa on Feb 20, 2006
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[INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLIES] Honduras, which opens the Hexagonal against the United States on Feb. 6, plays Peru in a friendly game Wednesday in Houston. Three
players still involved in the MLS Cup playoffs, including Oscar Boniek Garcia of the hometown Dynamo, have been called up by the Catrachos.
Mario Martinez, whose goal moved the Seattle Sounders into the Western Conference final, and D.C. United's Andy Najar, who remains suspended, were also called up, along with the New England Revolution's Jerry Bengtson.
Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said Martinez was "stuck between a rock and a hard place," while Houston coach Dominic Kinnear said the good thing was that Garcia at least didn't have to travel for the game.
Najar will serve the third game of his suspension for throwing a ball at referee Jair Marrufo in Sunday's match against Houston in the second leg of the Eastern Conference final.
New York's Roy Miller and Columbus Crew forward Jairo Arrieta are the only MLS players in Costa Rica's squad for its game at Bolivia.
FC Dallas forward Blas Perez and Philadelphia Union midfielder Gabriel Gomez are in the Panama squad to face Spain in Panama City.

subset: commoncrawl


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Chicago, IL, December 17, 2013 –(PR.com)– Sterling Payment Technologies announced today that Saber-Toothed Computing, a Chicago-based technology consulting company, has selected Sterling as its preferred payment-processing provider.
In addition to offering a full range of IT solutions for businesses, Saber-Toothed Computing is one of the nation's top sellers of Aldelo Restaurant Point of Sale (POS) Software, which will be bundled with Sterling's payment processing services to create a complete, seamless POS solution for restaurants.
"We pride ourselves in learning and understanding our clients' industries, so we can effectively service their information technology needs," said Anthony Zito, president of Saber-Toothed Computing. "We've found Aldelo Software to be the ideal POS solution to help simplify operations for all types of restaurants."
Anthony said he originally chose Sterling as its payment processor because of the preferred partnership that Sterling has with Aldelo.
"We soon realized why Aldelo chose Sterling," he said. "Working with Sterling has been so easy, I feel like I have a partner, not a vendor. My customers receive fast and easy merchant service setups and they save money in the process."
Gary Staub, Sterling's Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, said, "We're proud that Saber-Toothed Computing has selected us as their preferred processor. Our goal is to partner with companies that share our commitment to providing businesses with top-of-the-line products and customer support."
About Sterling Payment Technologies — Sterling offers a complete range of payment services, including credit, debit, PIN debit, fleet, gift card, EBT, check authorization and conversion, as well as rewards and loyalty programs. Sterling's 13-year focus on payment integration has made it a market leader in combining point of sale technology and value-added business benefits, high-speed wireless connectivity and online management tools. Visit: www.sterlingpayment.com Contact: Michele German, Executive Director of Marketing, (813) 371-8293 or [email protected]
About Saber-Toothed Computing – Saber-Toothed Computing is a full-service computer technology company offering practical business solutions ranging from point of sale systems and web design to computer sales to network administration and security. The company serves businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Visit: www.sabertc.com Contact: Anthony Zito, (708) 935-3700 or [email protected]
Contact Information:
Sterling Payment Technologies
Michele German
Contact via Email
Anthony Zito, (708) 935-3700 or [email protected]
Read the full story here: http://www.pr.com/press-release/533311
Press Release Distributed by PR.com
Source: PR.com


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New Listing!!!MLS #:838533
$131,950Calculate Payments
Roanoke, VA 24012 United States
Presented By:
Olde Colony Realty
Property Details
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 2
Year Built: 1950
Square Feet: 1,530
Min. Down: N/A
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Property Type: Single Family (Detached)
Sale Type:Resale
Subdivision: Airlee Court
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Information provided is for viewer's personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties the viewer may be interested in. All information is deemed reliable but its accuracy is not guaranteed and the viewer should independently verify all information.


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SALT LAKE CITY — The NBA's new anti-flopping policy won't affect halo-sporting, non-flopping Utah Jazz players — or their wallets, of course.
But as far as the Jazz are concerned, the crackdown is in the NBA's best interest.
"I think it's going to be good for the league," Jazz center Al Jefferson said of the league's new policy geared toward stopping floppers. "It will keep guys honest."
Not to name names, but guard Mo Williams laughed while mentioning Minnesota guard J.J. Barea.
"That helps me when he guards me now," Williams said, grinning. He quickly added, "That was just a joke."
Jefferson is curious how it will be determined whether taking a charge is a flop or not, but he said flopping isn't his style.
The NBA will review possible infractions and a warning will be given for the first flop — deemed to be "any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player."
The second flop will cost players $5,000, with an additional $5,000 being added to the fine for ensuing flops through $30,000 for No. 5. The sixth flop will be subject to a bigger financial penalty and possible suspension.
"Once it settles down and guys get used to it, I think it will be good for the game," Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin said. "The referees have their hands full with a lot of the guys (who) are so good at what they do to trick them with flopping. It's a disadvantage for them. It's a disadvantage for the teams getting the calls (against them)."
Corbin believes safety is a factor, too.
An opposing player flopped and fell into his leg near the end of his career, twisting his knee and forcing him to miss playoff games.
The Jazz coach prefers if referees allow play to continue when players flop. If the desired acting job doesn't result in a foul, it'd give the offense an advantage.
Corbin talked to his players about the policy, which he claimed wouldn't have cost him.
"I didn't flop anyway," he said. "When I played the game, you had to stand up. (If) you flop, a guy (would) lay the ball in the basket and somebody's coming to the table to take you out. You don't want to take that chance."
FATHERMURPHY: Rookie KevinMurphy arrived at the training facility during the Jazz's practice in time to participate in Thursday's only session. The TennesseeTech shooting guard missed the first two days of camp to be with his wife in Atlanta for the birth of their son.
"Not being here for the first four practices will hurt him some, but hopefully he can get up to speed pretty quickly," Corbin said. "The great thing is he had an opportunity to go home and see his first child being born and that's more important than anything."
STARTINGFIVE?: Media are only allowed to watch the first 15 minutes of morning practices, and players are usually just stretching. OnThursday, however, coaches worked with the squad on offense.
The most interesting part of the walk-through was the group on the court. The five included expected starters Williams and Jefferson along with PaulMillsap,GordonHayward and RandyFoye.3 comments on this story
Corbin has been reluctant to offer insight about starters and rotations, so it remains to be seen if that turns out to be his opening group.
CAMPNOTES: The Jazz attended Thursday's USC-Utah game as a team. They return to two-a-days Friday. … Corbin has been impressed by the "competitive nature" of the first scrimmages. "Nobody was looking for shortcuts. Everybody was looking to learn and getting better and compete." … The Jazz will hold auditions for national anthem singers Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at EnergySolutions Arena.
EMAIL: firstname.lastname@example.com TWITTER: DJJazzyJody


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Wed 17th Apr at 8:00pm
Wooden Horse
@ The Musician, Leicester
Also appearing: Dan Walsh
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Wooden Horse + Dan Walsh
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Wooden Horse
Wooden Horse are a duo playing rootsy music. Comprising of the powerful vocals and guitar of Jamie Knight and the bottleneck and finger-picking skills of Ben Church, the duo use various instruments and arrangements to perform a mix of country blues, bluegrass, Americana and originals all filled with classic harmonies and great playing.
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Dan entertains with his highly distinctive banjo-playing, taking influences from Bluegrass, Irish and Scottish folk, jazz, funk, blues and rock.
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RCGroups.com user frankg was on the floor at the WRAM show, here are some of his observations: Yesterday, the wife and I went to see old friends and business acquaintances at the WRAM Show, up in the Meadow Lands Expo Center.
There were a number of model boat companies there to show their wares. I am sorry to say that I did not take pictures of all the booths, but will list the ones in attendance. LOYALHANNA DOCKYARD, MIKES SUB WORKS, RAM R/C MODELS, and SHIPS N THINGS. Clubs and Originations attending were: NORTH AMERICAN MODEL BOAT Assoc. (NAMBA), and THE SUB COMMITTEE. One of the interesting things was that MAPLE GATE GROUPS was present and handing out the two new issues of RC BOAT, the new model boat magazine which I started a thread about on the forum DOCK TALK. In talking to most of the modelers in attendance at the show, I did a little survey asking one question: where do you obtain information about your hobby? Without question, the answer was, "on the internet forums." Even without any presence at the show in the form of a booth, the internet forums, have to my mind, become the greatest tool a modeler will ever learn to use.
Last edited by Terry; Mar 01, 2013 at 12:16 PM..
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text:
The Texas Education Agency is laying off 178 employees this week as part of budget cuts ordered by the state Legislature.
The state education agency oversees pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade education and allocates billions of dollars to school districts.
The cuts are being made to deal with reduced state tax revenue caused by the nation's economic downturn. The Legislature chose to cut spending by $15.2 billion rather than increase taxes or spend all of the $9.7 billion rainy day fund.
Thousands of state government layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.
Published at 10:38 AM CDT on Jul 13, 2011


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|10 Mar 2009
|Filing date
|27 Jan 2003
|Priority date
|27 Jan 2003
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Li Li, Sanjoy Paul, Marina K. Thottan, Bin Yao
|Original Assignee
|Alcatel-Lucent Usa Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (5), Non-Patent Citations (4), Referenced by (31), Classifications (17), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
The present invention relates to network management. More specifically, the present invention relates to optimizing a scalable distributed polling system.
Accurate network measurement is essential for understanding network behavior and for providing Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Most commercial network management software utilizes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) as the primary method for data collection. Using SNMP involves running SNMP agents on network devices, where an SNMP manager polls these devices for management information.
SNMP-based polling systems have an inherent overhead in terms of processing load on network nodes and network bandwidth consumption. This overhead is further exaggerated when network devices are polled at a high frequency. Such frequent polling is vital for providing QoS guarantees and failure detection. There is a considerable amount of work being done to improve SNMP protocol by reducing the CPU load on the network node. For example, work has been done both to improve SNMP primitives as well as to design better polling strategies by batching SNMP requests. On the other hand, not much research has been done to reduce network bandwidth consumption. Bandwidth is a revenue generating resource and, therefore, service providers are reluctant to allocate large amounts of valuable bandwidth for network management purposes. Thus, bandwidth constraint for network monitoring is an essential design criteria for any measurement infrastructure.
In a centralized measurement system where all network nodes are monitored from a central manager, poll responses are forwarded to a central location in the network. This provides a network-wide view, but creates a potential for bandwidth bottleneck on links that are close to the central manager. On the other hand, in a distributed measurement system the polling load is shared among multiple pollers located at different points in the network. However, using distributed pollers typically increases the cost of network management in terms of the number of pollers deployed, as well as suffers from the lack of a network-wide view.
Accordingly, a method of optimizing a scalable distributed polling system is desirable to reduce the costs of deployment of the measurement infrastructure at an economy of scale.
The disadvantages heretofore associated with the prior art, are overcome by the present invention of a method and apparatus for optimizing a distributed polling system in a network comprising a plurality of nodes. The method includes identifying bandwidth constraints on polling traffic for each of the plurality of nodes. Selecting, from a plurality of unpolled nodes within the plurality of nodes, at least one poller node according to a maximum number of unpolled nodes assignable to each of the at least one poller node without violating bandwidth constraints, and respectively assigning the unpolled nodes as pollee nodes to the at least one poller node.
The apparatus includes a central manager and a plurality of pollee nodes coupled to at least one poller node via at least one routing path. At least one aggregating node is coupled to the at least one poller nodes, where the aggregating node is further coupled to the central manager.
The teachings of the present invention can be readily understood by considering the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures.
The present invention provides a method for optimizing a measurement system for a service provider network that supports guaranteed quality of service (QoS). The problem of minimizing the number of pollers in a given network subject to bandwidth constraints is Non-deterministic Polynomial hard (NP hard). The methods discussed herein provide solutions to this problem by using heuristics based on the polling load and the maximum assignment of pollees. The results obtained using a heuristic comprising maximum pollee assignment with re-shuffling is the most scalable in terms of both the number of pollers as well as the total bandwidth consumed by the measurement traffic. Based on empirical studies, the heuristics of the present invention are close to the optimal solution by a factor of 4.5 in terms of the number of pollers and by a factor of 2 in terms of bandwidth consumed. A detailed simulation is provided herein for service provider networks with a hierarchical topology as well as for enterprise networks. The impact of QoS support on measurement systems is accounted for by including the bandwidth required for Multi-Protocol Label Switched (MPLS) tunnel monitoring.
In particular, the network 100 comprises a service provider 101 having plurality of nodes 102 1-102 n (collectively nodes 102) coupled by a plurality of links 104 1-104 p (collectively links 104) where n and p are integers greater than one. Each link 104 illustratively comprises two unidirectional (simplex) links (not shown) in opposite direction. A first simplex link provides a transmit path, while a second simplex link provides a receive path. For example, a node 102 1 is also illustratively labeled v1, while a link 104 1, labeled e12, denotes the signaling connection (e.g., physical wiring or fiber) between nodes v1 and v2 (i.e., nodes 102 1 and 102 2).
Referring to
The present invention is discussed in terms of a hybrid network or hierarchical system network. Taking into account the issues of scalability and network-wide view for large service provider networks, the hierarchical network system utilizes a central manager 106. However, the resource intensive tasks such as polling are distributed among a set of polling nodes. Between the central manager 106 and the polling nodes, there exists a set of aggregating nodes (e.g., nodes v8 and v10. The pollers are distributed in the network 100 and each poller is responsible for a polling domain consisting of a subset of the network nodes. Information gathered from the individual polling nodes are then aggregated at the aggregators v8 and v10). The condensed information is then sent to the central manager 106 which provides an overall view of network behavior. Such a hierarchical architecture reduces bandwidth overhead while still maintaining a network-wide view.
Although the controller 1100 of
In the hierarchical polling-based measurement infrastructure, the bandwidth overhead is mainly composed of polling traffic to the network nodes. The amount of traffic to the aggregator from the polling nodes, and to the central manager 106 from the aggregating nodes, is expected to be significantly smaller. Therefore, by distributing the polling traffic the overall impact on network bandwidth can be significantly minimized. However, using a large number of distributed pollers tends to increase the cost of deployment and increase the complexity of the aggregation process. The exemplary methods described herein identify a small subset of the nodes as the distributed poller locations that are required for a given network topology, with a known polling load under a fixed per link bandwidth constraint. Formulation of the distributed pollers includes the bandwidth constraint explicitly, since it is critical that the measurement system does not create a potential for bottleneck links in the network.
The problem of minimizing the number of pollers in a given network subject to bandwidth constraints is NP hard (i.e., it cannot be solved by a nondeterministic Turing machine in polynomial time; no computer and/or algorithm can output the optimal solution in reasonable amount of time). A system model for the service provider network is an undirected graph model G=(V, E), where V={v1, v2, . . . , vn} is the set of nodes or routers that must be polled, and e=(vi, vj), where i=pollee and j=poller) represents the edge that connects the nodes vi and vj and e ε E, where E represents the set of edges. This model assumes that the graph edges are un-directed since it is assumed that the SNMP poll requests and poll responses are approximately equal in size (number of bytes). That is, polling for large tables is excluded from the model, since there is a significant increase in the response size relative to the query size. The graph model spans the entire service provider network from the aggregating nodes at the access points to the core nodes.
As such, n=|V| represents the total number of routers in the service provider network (including the access routers) and m=|E| represents the total number of links in the network but does not include the incoming links at the access routers.
It is further assumed that SNMP managers (pollers) can be co-located with the network nodes. Each node vi generates a polling traffic of wi bits per second (bps). This polling traffic is destined to the poller that has been assigned to this node. The polling load from each node is a function of the number of physical links as well as logical links (i.e. MPLS tunnels). Let l(e) and b(e) represent the actual polling bandwidth used and the amount of link bandwidth allocated for polling traffic for each of the edges. Bandwidth constraint is typically a fraction of the total capacity c(e) on the link.
The optimal poller location and pollee assignment problem (hereinafter termed "minPL") can therefore be stated as follows: Given a network G=(V,E), determine (1) a minimum subset of nodes Sε V on which to place pollers such that the bandwidth constraint on each and every link l(e)≦b(e) is satisfied where b(e), is the maximum bandwidth that can be used for polling on link (e); and (2) a mapping λ, which maps a pollee to its poller. That is, for each node vi, if λt(vi)=vj, then node vi is assigned to the poller placed on node vj. Note that, if λ(vi)=vi, then node vi is being polled by itself.
In a typical service provider network the routing paths are fairly stable. Accordingly, it may be assumed that the routes between the poller and the pollee are fixed and symmetric. Further, the routing paths are known, and therefore considered as input to solving for poller placement in the network.
Integer Programming Formulation minPL
Given the assumption that the routes are fixed between any given poller-pollee pair, the minPL problem formulation presented above can be casted into an integer programming formulation. The objective is to minimize the number of pollers required to poll all of the nodes in the network 100 within the bandwidth constraints, which may be expressed as:
(3) xij≦yj, for each vi, vj ε V;
(5) xi ε {0,1}, for each vi, vj ε V;
(6) yj ε {0,1}, for each vi ε V;
n=|V| is the total number of nodes in the network. The binary variable xij indicates whether node vi is polled by node vj, where vi, vj ε V. The binary variable δij e indicates whether edge e belongs to the path Pij between node vi and vj. Let wi represent the polling bandwidth required to poll node vi and be corresponds to the bandwidth constraint on the edge (physical link) e. Further, the first constraint makes sure that each node vi is assigned to exactly one poller. The second constraint guarantees that a node vj must be a poller if some other node vi is assigned to it. The third constraint ensures that the sum of the polling bandwidth used by all the poller-pollee pairs on each link does not exceed its allocation.
The minPL problem is proven to be nondeterministic polynomial hard (NP-hard) via a reduction from the multi-processor scheduling problem, which is stated as follows. Given the set of tasks T, the number of available processors m, length L(t) for each task t ε T and a deadline
find a m-processor schedule that meets the overall deadline. The above instance of the m-processor scheduling problem may be applied to an instance of the minPL problem. Specifically, for each task t ε T, create a pollee node that has a polling demand of L(t).
Such a construction results in a clique (i.e., a set of vertices in an undirected graph in which every vertex has an edge to every other vertex) of size |T|. For each processor in the scheduling problem, create a new node whose bandwidth demand is
and connect this node to an arbitrary node in Q with a new link that has d amount of bandwidth allocated for polling traffic. This step creates m additional nodes represented by P, and m additional links.
Accordingly, any node in P can only be polled by itself, since its only link has bandwidth constraint d, which is less than its own demand
Therefore, the solution to this minPL instance has at least m pollers. Consequently, if the minPL problem has exactly m pollers, all nodes in P and only nodes in P are pollers, with each poller handling no more than d amount of traffic from its pollees in Q. Since every node in Q is polled by a node in P, the poller-pollee relation between nodes in P and Q gives a m-processor schedule that satisfies the deadline d. On the other hand, suppose that the scheduling problem has a m-processor schedule, then a m-poller solution can be constructed as follows: for a node q ε Q, find the processor on which the task represented by q is scheduled, and let q be polled by the node p ε P that represents that processor.
Heuristic Algorithms for minPL
As discussed above, the Integer Programming formulation minPL has an exponential running time in the worst case.
The method 300 starts at step 301, and proceeds to step 302, where the nodes (v) and interconnecting edges (e) are identified, as illustratively shown in
It is noted that the bandwidth requirement "b" is usually provided in terms of bitrate (e.g., 30 Mbits per second), as typically used in regard to MPLS, ATM, and FR networks. For WDM networks, b is represented by a magnitude of wavelengths without any units. In other context, such as service overlay networks, b can be some other metric as long as all links in the graph consistently use the same type of metric or that conversion between used metrics is provided.
At step 306, the polling load (w) for each node is identified. Referring to
For example, referring to
At step 310, the central manager computes and assigns the maximum number of unpolled nodes to the selected (new) poller without violating the bandwidth constraints.
Once a new poller (u) is selected in step 308, a determination of a set of pollees to be assigned to that poller is performed. Ideally, a maximum number of un-polled nodes are assigned to a new poller (u). Note that an un-polled node refers to those nodes that are not yet assigned to a poller. This problem is herein referred to as a "MaxPollee" problem, which states: given a poller u, find the maximum set of pollees vi that can be polled by a without violating the bandwidth constraint of the links.
Let G0=(V, E) be the graph where Eu includes edges on the route from v to u, for each v ε V-{u}. One problem is where Gu is not a tree. In instances where Gu is not a tree, the problem is considered NP-hard (can not be solved in a reasonable time). However, the problem can be solved optimally where the network graph Gu is assumed as forming a tree. This assumption is reasonable since the shortest path routes in a network form a tree.
At step 504, the unpolled nodes in the tree are sorted in increasing order. Specifically, the algorithm first sorts the nodes in increasing order based on demand (w). For example, referring to
If the demands (w) are the same for any two nodes, then their level (i.e., placement) in the tree is considered, where the node with smaller level appears first in the ordering scheme. For example, nodes v3 and v10, have the same polling load (3), while v4 and v2 having the same polling load (2).As between nodes v3 and v10, v3 is one hop from poller node v5, while v10 is four hops from poller node v5. Accordingly, node v3 is ordered before node v10. Regarding nodes v2 and v4, v4 is one hop (level) from poller node v5, while v2 is two hops from poller node v5. Accordingly, node v4 is ordered before node v2. If the level is also the same, then a node with the smaller identifier (e.g., IP address) appears first.
At step 506, each node vi in the tree is considered in increasing rank of the ordering scheme of step 504. At step 508, an unpolled node vi is selected, where the selected node vi has the lowest demand (w) in the sorted list of step 504. At step 510, if a pollee v can be assigned to poller s without violating the bandwidth constraint on each link, then v is included in a solution set J. In the example above, node v11 is considered first, followed by node v4, then node v2, and so forth.
If at step 510, the selected node vi is not assignable to the poller (s) without violating the bandwidth constraints, then the method proceeds to step 512, where the selected node vi is excluded from the solution set (J). Otherwise, if at step 510, the selected node vi is assignable to the poller (s) without violating the bandwidth constraints, then the method proceeds to step 514, where the selected node vi is included in the solution set (J).
For example, referring to
Once the determination of whether the selected node vi is included or excluded from the solution set J, the method 500 proceeds to step 516, where a determination is made as to whether the selected node is the last unpolled node in the tree that has been checked to comply with the bandwidth constraints. If at step 516, the selected node is not the last node in the tree that has been checked, then the method 500 proceeds to step 508, where steps 510 through 516 are performed on the next unpolled node in the sorted list of step 504. Otherwise, at step 516, if the selected node is the last node in the tree that has been checked, then the method 500 proceeds to step 599, where method 500 ends.
This first heuristic embodiment of
It is further noted that method 300 is repeated until there are no longer any unpolled nodes in the network. In the example provided above, nodes v11, v4, v2, v3, v10, v1, and v7 are all assignable to node v5 without violating bandwidth constraints. Accordingly, method 300 is also performed to ensure that nodes v6, v9, and v8 are also polled by at least one additional poller node. For example, if node v9, is determined at step 308 to be a second polling node, then at step 310 of method 300 further determines whether nodes v6 and v8 may be polled by node v9. If so, then two pollers (s) are all that are required to poll all the nodes in the exemplary network 100. If not, then additional pollers are provided according to the method 300 of
The HmaxPollee algorithm (G, Tu, λ, u, w, b) is expressed as:
Input: G=(V,E) is the undirected network;
Output: J ⊂ V=maximum set of pollees that can be polled by u.
1) Set J=0
2) Sort unpolled nodes in increasing demand w and their level in the tree
3) Consider each node v in increasing rank
4) If (canAssign (Tu, u, v, w, b))
5) J=J∪{v}
6) Return J
Method 600 starts at step 601, and proceeds to steps 302, 304, and 306, as described above with regard to the first heuristic of method 300 of
At step 602, a new poller node u is selected that can poll a maximum number of unpolled nodes. Specifically, the method 600 proceeds to method 500, where each node vi is considered as a possible poller by examining the number of pollees that may be assigned to it, without violating the bandwidth constraints.
As discussed with regard to method 500, for each routing tree, all of the unpolled nodes vi are sorted in increasing order based on their respective polling loads (step 504). Each node in the sorted list is a candidate to become a new poller (u), where the selected node is then examined to determine the number of unpolled nodes that may be associated with that selected node (steps 508 through 516). The node having the highest number of unpolled nodes associated with it without violating the bandwidth constraints is selected as a poller node. It is noted that where the first poller is chosen using the polling load criteria (i.e. in the algorithm), then S is empty. If a pollee v can be assigned to poller u without violating the bandwidth constraint on each link, then selected node v is included in the solution set J.
For example, referring to
Steps 602 and 604 of method 600 are repeated until there are no longer any unpolled nodes remaining in the network 100. As such, more than one poller node (u) in the set of poller nodes (s) may be required to solve the poller-pollee problem. The method 600 then proceeds to optional step 312, which is discussed below in further detail with regard to
Method 700 starts at step 701, and proceeds to steps 302, 304, and 306, as described above with regard to the first heuristic of
At step 702, a first node is randomly selected as a poller node (u) in the set of poller nodes {s}. Accordingly, step 702 of method 700 differs from step 308 of method 300, since the node selected is not based upon the polling load of that particular node. Rather, the node is randomly selected from all of the available unpolled nodes. The method 700 then proceeds to step 310, which is performed in the manner described above. That is, utilizing method 500 of
Once a poller ui has been selected and all of the unpolled nodes have been assigned to a poller ui without violating bandwidth constraints, the methods 300, 600, and 700 proceed to select additional pollers until there are longer any remaining unpolled nodes in the network 100. After each new poller is selected, then, at optional step 312, a technique is provided to overcome inefficiencies in bandwidth usage, where the technique (algorithm) is termed "Polleeshuffle."
The Polleeshuffle algorithm (G, S, λ, u, w, b) is expressed as:
1) sort all the pollees in the set V-S in decreasing demand;
2) for each v ε V-S,
3) if (ReduceBandWidth (G, v, u, w, b))
4) λ, (v)=u;
5) for each s ε S
6) if (NumPollees (s)=0 and CanAssign (Tu, u, s, w, b))
7) λ, (s)=u;
8) S=S-s
Referring to
At step 806, a determination is made as to whether a pollee may be reassigned to another (new) pollee. The determination of step 804 is performed for each pollee in the order provided in the sorted list. For example, node v8 was originally assigned to first poller v5 and requiring a bandwidth utilization of 6.6 (i.e., requires 3.3 from each of the links e76 and e65 ). The new poller v9 only requires a bandwidth utilization of 3.3 as node v7 has a direct link to v9.
If the determination of step 806 is affirmatively answered, then at step 808, the selected pollee is reassigned to the new poller. For example, since the pollee v8 illustratively uses less bandwidth utilization by being polled by the new poller v9 as compared to original poller v5 (i.e.,3.3<6.6), pollee v7 is reassigned to new poller v9. The method 800 then proceeds to step 810.
Further, if the determination of step 806 is negatively answered, then the method 800 also proceeds to step 810. At step 810, a query is made as to whether there are any unselected pollees from the sorted list remaining unchecked. If the query is negatively answered, then the method 800 proceeds to step 899 where the method ends. If the query is affirmatively answered, then the method 800 proceeds to step 804, and continues through steps 806 and 810, until all of the pollees in the sorted list have been checked in accordance with steps 806 through 810. It is noted that method 800 is utilized each time a new poller is added to the network. Referring to method 300 of
It is also noted that the PolleeShuffle algorithm may be augmented with additional mechanisms to reduce the number of pollers in the process. For example, if all the pollees of a particular poller (s) have been reassigned, then an attempt to try to reassign the particular poller (s) to the current poller and remove poller (s) if the reassignment complies with bandwidth constraints. Alternatively, the PolleeShuffle algorithm may be performed separately for each existing poller (s) and its pollees. This increases the chance that a poller is removed during the ShuffleAndReduce process. One skilled in the art will appreciate other variations may be used for shuffling node assignments.
Simulations of the three heuristic algorithms of methods 300, 600, and 700 have been performed over various networks of various sizes (e.g., 200, 400, and 800 nodes), where each link allocates a certain fraction ("LINKF") of their bandwidth for polling traffic based on the capacity constraint imposed for the link. Comparisons between the three heuristic algorithms 300, 600, and 700 are illustratively shown in Tables 1-9 of
Since the service provider network is inherently hierarchical with metro and core networks, hierarchical network topologies are generated. In typical service provider networks, there are three types of links: (1) intracore link; (2) intra-metro link; and (3) metro-to-core link. Referring to Table 1 of
It is assumed that each interface or MPLS tunnel requires a polling bandwidth of 4 kbps/sec. The number of MPLS tunnels per node is randomly chosen from the range of 1-1000, which is typical of service provider environments. Since the number of MPLS tunnels is expected to be large, for scalability reasons, the tunnels are only monitored at the source and destination nodes. Further, core nodes are not polled for MPLS specific information.
For each tier of service provider networks, five topologies are generated. Each link allocates a certain fraction ("LINKF") of their bandwidth for polling traffic based on the capacity constraint imposed for the link. This fraction is the same for all links in the simulation. The results presented are averaged over the different topologies. The performance metrics are (1) total number of pollers required, and (2) fraction of total bandwidth consumed for polling.
Table-2 compares the performance of the HmaxLoad, HmaxPollee, and HRandom algorithms. Each tuple in the Table-2 represents the average number of pollers used with the variance term and the fraction of bandwidth used for polling. From Table-2, the HmaxPollee algorithm 600 performs better than the other two heuristics 300 and 700 in terms of the number of polices required with some increase in polling bandwidth. For example, when LINKF=5%, HmaxPollee 600 needs only 6 pollers, whereas HmaxLoad 300 and Hrandom 700 respectively needs 9 and 7 additional pollers. When LINKF=10%, HmaxPollee 600 needs just 2 pollers, whereas HmaxLoad 300 and HRandom 700 need 5 and 4 additional pollers. Note that in each case there is a clear tradeoff between the number of pollers and the bandwidth consumed. Although HmaxPollee 600 requires fewer number of pollers, it consumes more bandwidth than the other two heuristics 300 and 700. The performance of the HmaxPollee 600 with respect to the HRandom heuristic 700 remains the same regardless of the capacity constraint. This implies that in order to reduce the number of pollers required, choosing a poller based on the ability to poll maximum number of nodes is the best scheme (note that HmaxPollee 600 and Hrandom 700 differ only at this step of picking the poller). However, the reduction in the number of pollers comes at the cost of bandwidth consumed.
Moreover, by increasing the capacity reserved (LINKF parameter) for polling, the number of pollers may be reduced regardless of the heuristics used. This further highlights the importance of the bandwidth constraint in the formulation of this problem.
Table-3 of
Tables 4 and 5 of
The trend on the number of pollers as a function of network size is shown in
An important goal is to minimize the set of pollers for a given network topology. In order to measure performance of the solution computed by the heuristic algorithms 300, 600 and 700, a comparison may be made from an optimal solution. Since the optimal solution to the Integer Programming formulation of the minPL is NP-hard and cannot be computed in a reasonable time, alternatively a comparison may be made between the heuristic solutions and some lower bound. In one embodiment, the solution from a Linear Programming (LP) relaxation model of the integer programming formulation is used as the lower bound on the optimal solution. Specifically, the LP relaxation gives the lower bound on the number of pollers required for a given topology.
To obtain the lower bound on the bandwidth consumption, an assumption is made that the number of pollers in the network is given. The total bandwidth consumed by the heuristic solution is compared to the minimum possible bandwidth consumption assuming a fixed number of pollers. This problem (referred to as the OptimalPolleeAssignment problem) is also NP-hard. The lower bound on bandwidth consumption is obtained by solving the LP relaxation for the following integer programming problem:
The HmaxPollee algorithm 600 is compared with the LP lower bound, since the HmaxPollee algorithm 600 performs the best among the three heuristics 300, 600, 700. The results presented on the topology gives the worst approximation ratio, where the approximation ratio is defined as the ratio between the number of pollers given by HMaxPollee and the best possible estimate of the lower bound. It is noted that a tie may be broken by using the largest fraction of bandwidth usage. Table-8 of
For the 200 node tier 2 network (note, the LP solver cannot solve the 400 node case in reasonable time), the lower bound on the number of pollers is 2 when LINKF=5%, and 1 when LINKF=10%. Given the number of pollers to be 7 and 2 for LINKF=5% and 10%, the lower bound on the fraction of bandwidth used is 0.52% and 1.24% which is very close to the bandwidth fraction (0.7% and 1.62%) required for the HmaxPoller heuristic.
The LP lower bound for enterprise networks is shown in Table 9 of
An important assumption is that in order to design good measurement in frastructure, it is necessary to have a scalable system at a reduced cost of deployment. The key feature of the hierarchical measurement architecture is to distribute the resource intensive tasks across the network. One such task is the polling of individual nodes. The number and choice of these pollers has a significant impact on the cost of the measurement infrastructure. The cost is due to both the deployment of the instrumentation as well as the bandwidth consumed by the measurement traffic. The simulations shown and discussed with regard to
The MaxPollee assignment scheme aggressively chooses the next poller with the intent of assigning all of the remaining nodes to the new poller. However, the reduction in the number of pollers comes at the cost of the bandwidth consumed. Further, by increasing the capacity reserved (LINKF parameter) for polling, the number of pollers may be reduced, regardless of the heuristics used. This further highlights the importance of the bandwidth constraint in the formulation of this problem. One other factor that affects the performance of the maxPollee algorithm is the degree of connectivity in the network. for enterprise network with high degree of connectivity, fewer pollers were required as compared to the service provider network (see Table 6 of
In the case of the service provider network, as well as the enterprise network, a poller set and a corresponding assignment scheme is easily identified without violating any bandwidth constraints. Only in 6% of the cases was it found necessary to use more than 90% of the allocated bandwidth. Such efficient use of bandwidth is attained by the ShuffleAndReduce algorithm 800, which was performed for every new additional poller chosen. Without the explicit consideration of bandwidth issues, it is highly likely that undesirable bandwidth bottlenecks would be created due to network measurements.
The distributed poller location scheme presented herein may be used in design phase and implementation of a network management system. For a network of about 200 nodes, the poller set and the assignment scheme is attainable in just a few minutes. Thus, with little effort the network operations center can identify the placement of their measurement instrumentation. When choosing pollers, it is assumed that the pollers have sufficient power to handle the polling load for the assigned pollees.
Although various embodiments that incorporate the teachings of the present invention have been shown and described in detail herein, those skilled in the art can readily devise many other varied embodiments that still incorporate these teachings.
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text:
Written on: 20/09/2012
Do not insure with these idiots! It has cost me my car after the dumb f$%ks stopped my insurance for no reason but still kept taking payments. I got stopped by the police for no insurance. Now i have no car posable points and conviction. They admit they are in the wrong but will do nothing about it. Theives!


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tarroo ushtey
In Manx folklore, a malevolent bull which lived in swamps and shallow pools. Occasionally it leaves its haunts to roam among the farm cattle. The tarroo ushtey is derived from the tarbh uisge of Scottish Gaelic tradition. See also .


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Partnership Schools | Kura Hourua information releases
Partnership Schools are a type of school in our education system, that bring together education, the business sector and community groups to provide new opportunities for students to achieve education success.
There is a high level of interest in decisions about Partnership Schools as shown by the number of official information requests received by the Minister and the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry is committed to proactively releasing information about Partnership Schools when appropriate to do so throughout the process. This encompasses key documents from the ongoing policy development, the Partnership Schools | Kura Hourua Working Group, the Indication of Interest phase the application and decision-making phase led by the Authorisation Board and the final decisions made by the Minister of Education.
For further information please contact us at email@example.com. Media queries should be directed to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Additional information releases
The Ministry will continue to release information as work on the establishment and implementation of Partnership Schools continues.
- Partnership Schools Policy Development
- Partnership Schools Working Group Phase
- Partnership Schools Advice to the Minister: Operations and Reporting
- Application Round 1 - Partnership Schools
- Application Round 2 - Partnership Schools
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text:
Greencore's giant tipped for the top since youth
AGRICULTURE Minister Simon Coveney is one of the stars of the cabinet, but for years it was his brother Patrick who was the star of the Coveney family.
The 6'7" Greencore chief executive, who took home some €1.7m last year, was a straight A student and an outstanding sportsman.
The 42-year-old was the top student at UCC in 1992 and went on to be a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, where he earned a PhD in management studies.
A talented rugby player, he played second row for London Irish and was good enough to play professionally, but preferred a career with management consultants McKinsey.
At McKinsey, Mr Coveney was a fast riser, spending time in the US and London before moving back to Dublin as country partner while still in his early 30s.
In his role with McKinsey he worked extensively with the food sector and joined Greencore as chief financial officer in 2005.
Clearly, he had been marked as CEO of the future and it was no surprise when he was tabbed for the top job in December 2007. At 37, he was one of the youngest heads of a public company.
Mr Coveney has led the firm into the "food to go" business to the point that it is now one of the biggest ready meals firms in Britain, and is the biggest supplier of sandwiches to Marks & Spencer.
Peter Flanagan
Irish Independent


text:
CEO Donald Vaccaro announced Tuesday he's taking an indefinite leave and will be succeeded by company managers. He said he does not want his actions to affect the company.
Vaccaro, of Glastonbury, faces a hate crime charge after police say he made a racial insult at the party. He said he is seeking counseling and alcohol treatment.
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text:
The cost of exposing cheating
This article investigates the relationship between international election observation, election fraud, and post-election violence. While international electoral missions could in principle mitigate the potential for violence by deterring election fraud, the ability of international observers to detect manipulation may in fact induce violent uprisings. Serious irregularities documented by international observers provide credible information on election quality, which draws attention to election outcomes and alleviates coordination problems faced by opposition parties and society. When elections are manipulated to deny citizens an opportunity for peaceful contestation and international observers publicize such manipulation, violent interactions between incumbents, opposition parties, and citizens can ensue. Consequently, the author expects that fraudulent elections monitored by international organizations will have an increased potential for subsequent violence. This expectation is evaluated empirically in an analysis of post-election conflict events for African elections in the 1997–2009 period. Using original data on electoral manipulation and reputable international election observation missions, findings show that the presence of election fraud and international observers increases the likelihood of post-election violence. Matching methods are employed to account for the possibility that international observers' decisions to monitor elections are endogenous to the occurrence of violence in the electoral process. Results for matched samples confirm the findings in the unmatched sample. A variety of robustness tests show that the results are not influenced by the operationalization of independent variables and influential observations.
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Volume (Year): 49 (2012)
Issue (Month): 4 (July)
Pages: 503-516
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While consumer confidence remains shaky, retail sales should see a modest increase through the holiday season, prodded by broadening growth in personal consumption, according to recent analysis by Kurt Salmon.
Specifically, Kurt Salmon expects personal consumption expenditures to grow between 2.1% and 2.6% for the final quarter of 2010. These findings are based on Kurt Salmon's proprietary analysis of historical consumer consumption figures and intent to spend data.
Since June 2009, the official end of the Great Recession, nondiscretionary consumer spending—in categories such as health care, housing and utilities—has buoyed a slow but steady recovery. However, in the last quarter, this balance shifted to discretionary categories, with clothing topping the list of high-growth categories. Kurt Salmon analysis shows spending on durable and nondurable goods will continue to outpace spending on services this holiday season.
"Now, a year and a half into the recovery, we are seeing discretionary spending picking up," said Todd Hooper, Kurt Salmon partner and retail expert. "While high unemployment is preventing some consumers from taking part in the emerging recovery, we still expect the improved discretionary spending to translate into modest year-on-year gains for retailers."
High unemployment continues to drag down consumer confidence, which remains below pre-recession levels and which declined slightly in August and September. Kurt Salmon's analysis also reveals that while consumers are ready to spend more, their new purchasing habits are not yet set.
"Consumers are still settling into their post-recession spending rhythm," Hooper said. "They know they have to adjust their spending, but they are still sorting out priorities. During this transition, they are not able to consistently anticipate how their spending will change for any given category."
17 November 2010


text:
1323/23 Ferny Avenue Surfers Paradise 4217 QLD
SOLD by Aaron Worrad
Luxury Three Bedroom Skyhome in Chevron Renaissance
This "P Style" floor plan is one of Chevrons largest and most sought after three bedroom styles, boasting 160sqm of designer fittings and luxury throughout. This 32nd floor apartment has been recently renovated and presents immaculately.
* 3 Bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 powder room and separate laundry
* Immaculate condition
* High floor 32nd
* Rarely available and highly sought after 'P Style' apartment
* Electric blinds fitted throughout
* Walk through wardrobe into oversized ensuite
* Electric Bidet installed in master bedrooms ensuite
* Offered fully furnished
* High yielding investment
Views: Ocean and City Skyline views
Size: 160 sqm
Floor: 32nd in a building of 39 floors
Returns: $75,000 gross
Body Corporate: $170 per week
Chevron Renaissance is located across from Surfers Paradise patrolled beaches and just metres from all of the attractions of Central Surfers Paradise. Unrivalled resort facilities including Indoor and Outdoor pools, Spa, Sauna, Gym, Function rooms and much more.
For all inspections and enquiries please call Aaron Worrad on 0402 368 070 or [email protected]
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text:
Tayo Sobola Sotayo: I Closed Down My Boutique In Lagos Because Of Debtors
January 2nd, 2016 – Tayo Sobola Sotayo: How Debtors Forced Me To Close Down My Boutique In Lagos
Fast-rising Nollywood actress Tayo Sobola told Saturday Beats over the week that she decided to shut down her clothing store in Ogba area of Lagos because she was having too many debtors who refused to pay her.
Hear what the CEO of Sotee Entertainment in Magodo Lagos said:
"I can never go into the beauty line again. I used to own a boutique but I ended up giving out half of the store's goods for free while people picked items they liked for free. I decided to close the shop and buy clothes only for myself. If I am tired of them, I would give them out. I don't really think it is the right line of business for me and besides, everybody is selling clothes because most ladies would buy clothes even if they are broke. It is impossible for someone to walk into my office and say she wants to do a photoshoot without paying. They would not meet me in the office. But it is possible to buy clothes from me and say you would pay later. The fashion industry is not the right line of business for me," .


text:
Microsoft's OneDrive announced they are increasing their cloud storage capacity, giving 15GB free for everyone from the previous 7GB. If you're an Office 365 subscriber, you may not need an external hard drive anymore as they are also upping their cloud storage to 1TB to upload not just their usual files and photos but even media files like videos and music.
They say that this is born out of their research that 3 out of 4 people nowadays store less than 15GB on their computers, meaning they are probably storing the rest of their files on a cloud somewhere. So they thought of providing additional storage to anyone who uses OneDrive, no strings attached. But of course for those who have a monthly subscription to Office 365 would get a much higher cloud storage at 1TB. So for as low as $6.99/mo (for Office 365 Personal), you can get all that storage plus access to the Office suite and apps for all your devices (laptop, tablet, phone). Other Office 365 subscriptions include Office 365 Home ($9.99/mo) and University ($79.99/4 years).
For those who are not content with just the free 15GB of storage, OneDrive is also reducing storage prices by as much as 70%. You can get 100GB of space for only $1.99/mo and 200GB for $3.99/mo. Those who are currently subscribed to the monthly storage fees will automatically get lower billing starting next month.
OneDrive needs to compete with other more popular cloud storage apps like Dropbox and Google Drive. Dropbox users can get as much as 50GB of free storage while Google Drive offers 15GB for Google users and 30GB for those who use Google Apps for work or school.
SOURCE: OneDrive


text:
i have a 4.2U sofmodded wii and i cant get wad manager to install any wad files first i was on wad manager 1.3 and get ret-2011, and then i went to wad man 1.5 and get error -1(cant find list).....ive been through it before and sent tealc my signkey and he said it looked right, i went repeated all the soft mod steps again.....but i cant fix it everything else on my softmodded wii works great (usb loader, emulators, etc...) is there any help for me?
Try a different SD card, non SDHC type.
Ensure the wads are in sd:\wad
Not really doing much Wii stuff these days.


text:
Financial Times
Published: September 18 2004
US officials said on Friday that Islamist fighters linked to militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are operating close to government headquarters in Baghdad.The admission came as a car bomb struck a police checkpoint in Rashid Street, the old commercial centre of the Iraqi capital, killing eight people. The toll would have been higher had it not been a Friday when many shops and businesses are closed.
A second car bomb in Baghdad was foiled when guards opened fire and killed the two men inside.
In an effort to stem the violence, Iraqi police and national guard units launched a crackdown on the Haifa street neighbourhood of Baghdad on Friday.
The area is about 2km north of the Green Zone, where the US and British embassies and interim Iraqi government are based.
"Iraqi police and national guard have got targetable intelligence. They are going after individuals that have known relationships to terrorist activitie s, to the Zarqawi network and to insurgents," a senior US officer said on Friday of Haifa street.
"We'll see by the end of the day and by tomorrow how effective it is at capturing some of these key folks," the officer said.
The comments will do little to deflect the view that Baghdad is a city increasingly under siege by militants determined to spread an insurgency which grips several mainly Sunni cities in northern and western Iraq.
Mr Zarqawi is thought to be the leader of one of several Islamist groups based in Falluja and is held responsible for the kidnap and execution of several foreigners.
Haifa Street, west of the Tigris river, is believed to have been used as the launch site for a heavy bombardment of the Green Zone last Sunday.
US forces subsequently killed at least a dozen people in the district after an armoured fighting vehicle was blown up. On Tuesday nearly 50 Iraqis, most of them potential police recruits, were killed when a car bomb struck a nearby police st ation apparently in retaliation.
Overnight on Thursday and on Friday, the US military mounted two air raids on Falluja, west of Baghdad, and killed up to 60 foreign insurgents.
The US military said the first of the air strikes had targeted a compound in the village of Qaryat al-Rufush, near Falluja, where up to 90 foreign militants were meeting to plan attacks. The Iraqi government and its US backers however provided little evidence for the presence of non-Iraqi fighters in the country.
The US military said it was embarked on a campaign to pacify areas of Iraq outside central government control, ahead of elections due in January. The UN has said the elections cannot go ahead unless the security situation improves.
⢠Iraq's national carrier, Iraqi Airways, will resume international flights on Saturday after 14 years grounded by war and sanctions, Reuters reports.
The airline will begin scheduled flights to Syria and Jordan twice a week.
"This is the first step for Iraqi Airways. We hope to expand our services to Dubai within weeks," an airline official said.
More international flights could help boost Iraq's reconstruction by providing more travel alternatives for businessmen and investors keen to avoid highways plagued by bandits and gunmen.
But with security deteriorating, and a wave of kidnappings of foreigners, many foreigners choose not to come. Until now there have only been a few daily commercial flights in and out of Baghdad, almost all to Amman.


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|BPI group's Executive Trends Report data is cited by the DCR Trendline, a publication that provides insights on the temporary workforce. Patricia Siderius, BPI group's Managing Director of Outplacement, shares her expertise on this new data. Read more here.
|The 6 critical questions you need to ask when building global leadership development programs—BPI group's Juan-Luis Goujon and Mike McGowan share their thoughts with CLO magazine. Read more here.
|Mary Herrmann, BPI group's Managing Director of Executive Coaching, estimates nearly 35 percent of BPI group's coaching assignments involve grit. Many of these executives exude too much grit, which gets in their way of obtaining bonuses or other incentives. Read about it here.
|Grit is great, but it's worthless without other valuable traits. BPI group's Mary Herrmann, Managing Director of Executive Coaching, comments on the 5 essential traits of leaders with true grit. Read more here.
|BPI group's Mary Herrmann, Managing Director of Executive Coaching, shares her insights with the Wall Street Journal on the role of grit in executive careers. Click here to read more.
|BPI group's Steve Spires, Managing Director of Outplacement, gives insight into why layoffs around Christmas are becoming more common, and advice to anyone who has been let go. Click here to read more.
All rights reserved © BPI group 2014


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Jeffrey W. Kroh
Principal, Groom Law Group, Adjunct Professor of Law
B.S., Bucknell; J.D., Villanova
Professor Kroh is a principal at Groom Law Group, Chartered and works in the firm's Executive Compensation and Plan Design and Taxation practice groups. His...Continue Reading
Professor Kroh is a principal at Groom Law Group, Chartered and works in the firm's Executive Compensation and Plan Design and Taxation practice groups. His practice focuses on counseling plan sponsors and financial institutions regarding the design and administration of executive deferred compensation plans, equity compensation plans, and qualified retirement plans for public and private companies. He joined Groom in 2005 and during the last several years, has worked extensively on executive and nonqualified deferred compensation issues, including the design of traditional deferred compensation plans, supplemental executive retirement plans, annual and long-term bonus plans, change in control and severance arrangements, employment agreements, and equity awards in compliance with Internal Revenue Code sections 162(m) and 409A, compliance with the TARP restrictions on executive compensation, and other "top-hat" plan and rabbi trust design and compliance issues. He is a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. Professor Kroh's recent publications include articles regarding an Overview of Document Correction Guidance under Section 409A and Design Flexibility and Potential Pitfalls in IRS Final Rules for Employee Stock. He has spoken at several educational conferences and webinars, including events sponsored by Plan Adviser, Plan Sponsor and the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.


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Close recording of a cricket in the Californian desert (in the Mojave Desert, close to Joshua Tree Park).
Sound has been slowned down from 96 to 48khz. (Half speed).
Original sound on freesound:
Sound recorded by a MS setup Schoeps CCM41+CCM8
Sound Devices 788T recorder with CL8
MS is encoded in STEREO Left-Right
recorded in september 2012
more sounds on http://www.felixblume.com
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All Eyes on India: The Future of Transportation Impacts?
While the North American International Auto Show in Detroit usually splashes the first big auto news in the new year, the lesson of 2008 may be: all eyes on India. The 9th Auto Expo in New Delhi draws attention one week ahead of NAIAS due to the unveiling of the cheapest car of all time, an undertaking many scoffed at when Tata first mooted the concept several years ago. How will a car everyone can afford, which is kept cheap partly at the expense of pollution control technologies standard in many countries, affect the environment? Is there an alternative? And whatever happened to the air-powered car?The Rs. 1 Lakh car ($3000 car) promised as the Tata People's Car will appear at the Indian Auto Expo. Currently Indians average only 8 autos for every 1000 people; in New Delhi, center of the booming Indian auto industry, every 12th Delhiite owns an auto. Could the Tata 1 Lakh car put an "auto in every garage" in this nation of over a billion people? Reactions vary on the impact which the Indian auto market will have on the environment and economy globally. (See for example: ZOOM author Vaitheeswaran, Thomas Friedman.) However, one thing remains clear: an auto that shortcuts pollution prevention is not the answer.
So what is the answer? In a nation where tourists marvel at families of four on a single scooter, and where multiple scooter trips often serve to transport a family, it has been said that automobiles are a form of mini-mass-transport. Nonetheless, two-wheelers will remain a primary source of transportation for many.
The emergence of electric vehicle technology in the cycle market is promising, with the merger of Hero Cycles and Ultra Motors in the forefront of interesting developments. The Hero-Ultra Velociti (pictured) is a pepped up scooter, but trades range for speed. The Optima will have a range of 70km (43 miles), compared with the Velociti's 50km (31 miles); Ultra is aiming to extend this to 100km. Top speed is still a modest 40 km per hour (25mph). Ultra Motors won a 2007 Red Herring Award as a company which will "lead the next wave of disruption and innovation."
A flash-in-the-pan in summer 2007 raised the prospect that Tata was ready to go into production on the mini-c.a.t. compressed air technology vehicle (pictured at top). A few minutes to "fuel" the vehicle with a tankfull of air at 4350 PSI or four hours to compress the air using on-board compressors powered electrically should drive the car up to 125 miles (200 km) at up to 68 mph (109 km per hour). 6000 of the vehicles developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI are supposed to be on the street in India in 2008...but there is no hint of news in the pages of Tata's website. Mini-c.a.t. where are you?
Via ::AutoExpo India
Image via ::Popular Mechanics


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[lin_video src=http://eplayer.clipsyndicate.com/embed/player.js?aspect_ratio=16×9&auto_next=1&auto_start=0&div_id=videoplayer-1366767951&height=480&page_count=5&pf_id=9624&pl_id=21958&show_title=1&va_id=4029635&width=620&windows=2 service=syndicaster width=620 height=480 div_id=videoplayer-1366767951 type=script]BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Last week the Birmingham Airport Authority released 880 pages of documents related to construction to the media. This week, they released thousands more.
After our CBS 42 team spent hours reviewing the documents, we still have many questions. The Authority, however, did not make itself available to answer them.
In the documents released, we noticed several references to a "daily log" required by the architecture firm, KPS. The daily logs would have included specific information about construction tasks completed each day and which teams were on site. The contract even goes on to require the social security numbers of every employee who steps foot on each construction site.
The daily logs were not a part of the documents released by the Birmingham Airport Authority. Also, we found no shop drawings of the Multi-User Flight Information Display Boards (MUFIDS).
Among the many unanswered questions surrounding the display board collapse, perhaps the biggest question is this: why did Luke Bresette have to die?
Our CBS 42 team is working to find out.
Copyright 2013 WIAT-TV CBS 42


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POSTURE PERFECTION By Andrew Getson, PGA
Better golfers know that to swing the club consistently on plane, the secret is to avoid having an address position that causes you to lift the club up at the top of your swing, only to then drop the club back down on the forwardswing. For instance, when golfers hunch down over the ball at address, they become more inclined to lift their entire body up vertically at the top of the swing. In fact, this is a common position for the beginner or high-handicapper to be in, since many of them feel that the golf swing isn't so much a circular move as it is an up-and-down motion. So what do they do? They lift straight up on the backswing, as you can see by these photos. And in case you're wondering, I don't have any chance of making a good swing from there.
The right way to swing is to always remember that the golf swing is, in fact, circular, and any instinct to dip or lift the body ought to be avoided. The key is in finding a neutral spine-angle position at address. (By the way, spine angle refers to how forward my upper body is leaning toward the ball.) As you can see by the lower photos, not only have I found a comfortable spine angle at address, but I'm also able to keep my angle the same at the top of my swing. No lifting, no dipping–just a steady rotation of the body led me there.
So practice your spine angle and see what angle is easiest for you to retain. Some golfers have greater spine angles than others, some less. Either way, the key is in staying consistent from the start of the swing to the top and, of course, at the impact position. Do that, and your ballstriking will improve in a hurry.
LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, no matter how much you invest in your new irons, if you're not hitting the green from the fairway, what's the point? Today's new irons are better than ever, with several new and very forgiving models to choose from. Oh, and by the way, in case you haven't noticed, the forged iron is back in a big way this year. Look for new models that aren't only geared for better players, but also have the perimeter-weighting and forgiveness most amateurs want. Just don't forget, when you find the right iron for your game, be sure to get properly fitted. It makes a huge difference.
Golf Tips Legend
Adams Idea a12 OS
Key Feature: This mixed set comes with three hybrids that have Velocity Slot Technology, two Trans-hybrids and three game-improvement short-iron designs. The "Truss Back" design of the Trans-hybrids stood out to us the most, helping to push the CG back low and deep. Who It's For: Seekers of maximum forgiveness! These clubs are primed to do two things: Hit straighter and longers shots with relative ease. Specs: Comes in 4-LW in a trio of designs (hybrid, Trans-hybrid, iron) with steel or graphite shafts. (LH available) adamsgolf.com | $599/$699 Adams Idea Pro a12
Key Feature: Forged of carbon steel, these irons are poised as a true player's set, so long as that player wants some added forgiveness in the mix. The heel-toe weighting is amplified in the longer irons for more forgiveness, and less differentiated in the shorter irons for more shotmaking capabilities. The face is triple-milled...whew! Who It's For: Good-to-better players who want the feel and look of forged irons with forgiveness in long irons. Specs: Available (4-GW) with KBS Smoke Tour Steel shafts or Mitsubishi JAVLN graphite shafts. adamsgolf.com | $799/$999 Adams Idea MB2
Key Feature: Who said muscle-back irons were dead? The new MB2 irons (already a hit with Aaron Baddeley) used brass weights for perfected CG locations and a unique, cold blue finish designed to rust over time. Who It's For: These babies scream Tour pro, but we suspect a few low-handicappers will appreciate the design and shaping of these irons for ultimate shotmaking capabilities. And frankly, they just look so darn cool. Specs: Available (3-GW) with KBS Smoke Tour Steel shafts or Mitsubishi JAVLN graphite shafts. adamsgolf.com | $999 Adams Redline
Key Feature:
So you want to integrate hybrids into a set without succumbing to game-improvement irons? The Redline incorporates up to three hybrids (you decide how many) with what Adams says are its longest irons yet. Each Redline iron has Velocity Slot Tech for a low and deep CG, resulting in higher, farther shots. Who It's For: Those who want to choose how many hybrids to mix in their __ber-long-hitting set. Specs: Comes with up to three hybrids through LW in steel or UST Attas graphite shafts. 2-hybrid also available. adamsgolf.com | $599/$699Boccieri Golf H-11 Heavy Irons
Key Feature: Heavier by about 8 grams in the head, each iron also features a backweighting system underneath the grip and a shorter overall club length. The result? A set of irons that are super easy to swing and that help smoothen even the jerkiest of swing tempos. Who It's For: Those who may wish to play shorter-length irons and who like the feel of a more balanced, heavier iron to swing with. Specs: Available in 3-PW in Dynamic Gold steel or Aldila NV graphite shafts. (We prefer the feel of graphite). boccierigolf.com | $749/$1,049 Bridgestone J40 Cavity Backs
Key Feature: Shhh...Bridgestone is quietly making some of the most beautiful forged irons on the market. The J40s have all the markings of a Tour player's club, with a high-face-progression design (The face is taller in shorter clubs), and a compact design that's ripe for shotmaking. Who It's For: Better players will love how good these irons look and feel. And surprise! They're actually quite long and forgiving! Shhh, that's our little secret... Specs: Comes in 5-PW with Project X steel shafts, custom options are available. (3- to 4-irons also available) bridgestonegolf.com | $699 Bridgestone J40 Dual Pocket
Key Feature: The J40 Dual Pocket Cavity irons have as the name implies: two pocket cavities behind the face to amplify the perimeter weighting. This means more forgiveness in an iron that retains its Tour-player-friendly good looks. Frankly, these look great, feel even better and perform exceptionally. 'Nuff said! Who It's For: Mid- to low-handicappers who want a player's iron with loads of forgiveness. Yes, you can have both. Specs: Comes in 5-PW with Project X steel shafts, custom options available. (3- and 4-irons also available) bridgestonegolf.com | $699 Callaway RAZR X Black
Key Feature: The remarkably low CG in the RAZR X Black irons means Callaway could make a traditional-looking iron function more like an iron with a wide-sole design. This means there's a ton of forgiveness in this game-improvement set, even though it has a conventional shape. It's all the forgiveness and versatility you'll need. Who It's For: Golfers who want big distance and forgiveness in a set that looks like it belongs in a Tour bag. Specs: Available in 3-LW in True Temper M-10 XP steel or RAZR X Black graphite shafts. LH available. callawaygolf.com | $799/$999 Callaway RAZR X HL
Key Feature: The RAZR back-cavity design means the CG can be placed lower and deeper than in a traditional iron, making the HL irons extremely forgiving. These irons also favor shots hit low on the face (where most golfers hit) and produces a high-launching trajectory. Again, Callaway has an iron set that's ridiculously easy to wield. Who It's For: Golfers who want ample forgiveness and boost in trajectory in their irons. There are hybrids, too. Specs: Comes in 3-LW in True Temper M-10 XP steel or RAZR X Black graphite shafts. Hybrids and LH available. callawaygolf.com | $699/$799 Callaway Prophet ICT
Key Feature: For the golfer who wants it all, here you go. These forged, multimaterial, game-improvement irons are designed with all the tech Callaway can put in a single iron. They're forgiving, long and, well, we'd be afraid to get them dirty, they look so good! We like the hybrids, too. Who It's For: Golfers who want an extremely forgiving set of forged irons that exude sports-car-like masculinity. Any easier to hit and they wouldn't be fair for everyone else. Specs: Comes in 3H-SW with True Temper steel or RAZR XF graphite shafts. callawaygolf.com | $1,299/$1,399 Cleveland CG Black
Key Feature: The stealthy CG Blacks employ a titanium face, a deep, undercut cavity, a Miyazaki C. Kua 59 graphite shaft and Lamkin Lite grip. Combined, you have a lightweight powerhouse of an iron that increases swing speed for greater distance. "Kaboom!"is how we prefer to put it. These babies are monstrously long and forgiving. Who It's For: Those who want instant power from lightweight irons, which happen to be very accurate, as well. Specs: Comes in 3-PW with aforementioned graphite; also in steel shafts. (LH available) clevelandgolf.com | $899/$999 Cleveland 588 Forged CB/MB Irons
Key Feature: The best-looking irons we've ever seen from Cleveland! Featuring soft, forged carbon steel and a shape that better players will salivate over, these irons are primed for shotmaking. The CBs (cavity-backs) have a more progressive design than the MBs (muscle-backs), but both feel like absolute butter in our hands. Wow. Superb. Who It's For: Better players who really want to get a gist of what forged irons are supposed to look, feel and perform like. Specs: Available in 2-PW in steel shafts. (LH available) clevelandgolf.com | $249 Cleveland Mashie Irons
Key Feature: The mixed Mashie set combines hybrids, cavity-backs and scoring short irons into one set for the player who wants forgiveness and shotmaking capabilities where it's most needed. The Gliderail sole design is awesome, and works wonders across the turf. Who It's For: Golfers with style! The Mashie looks cool in every way, and frankly, nothing looks cooler than scratching more pars and birdies on the score card. Great clubs! Specs: Available in a blend of hybrids (3-5), cavity-backs (6-9) and scoring irons (PW-SW) in steel or gr. shafts. (LH) clevelandgolf.com | $599/$649 Cobra AMP Irons
Key Feature: The multi-alloy structure helps position weight closer to the perimeter for enhanced forgiveness, while the V-Skid sole reduces drag. Hence, you have a very forgiving iron that's very long to boot. There's also a set that mixes in a couple hybrids. Cool, huh? We think so, and it's refreshing to see Cobra back in a big way. Who It's For: Players who want a set of irons that are both forgiving and versatile and, dare we say...colorful! Specs: Available in 3-LW with True Temper Dynalite steel shafts or Cobra AMP graphite shafts. (LH available) cobragolf.com | $699/$799 Cobra S3 Max
Key Feature: The S3 Max irons are designed to be forgiving and promote a high launch. That's exactly what they do! The Railed Powerback sole does wonders for adding stability off the turf, and shots off the sweet spot still fly high and straight thanks to some extreme perimeter weighting. You can also mix this set with hybrids, as well. Who It's For: Simply put, this is a set for golfers who want a lot of forgiveness and a higher trajectory. Specs: Available in 4-SW with S3 Max steel or UST Mamiya iHS graphite shafts. Nice price! (LH available) cobragolf.com | $399/$499 F2 SE Irons
Key Feature: A dogleg hosel that virtually eliminates any possibility of shanking the ball off the hosel of the club. But that's not all it does. This unique design helps enhance the sweet spot and reduces drag in the rough or sand, keeping the clubface square through the shot. Who It's For: Golfers willing to try an anti-shank iron that may look radical from in the back, actually looks really nice and pleasing to the eye from the address position. Specs: Available in 3-PW in Formosa/Femco steel or graphite shafts. (LH available) f2golf.com | $499/$599 Infinity Hot Spot
Key Feature: A very forgiving and deeply perimeter-weighted club that also has a high-bounce sole to prevent digging too much into the turf. Add some progressive offset and you have a high-launching set of irons that are forgiving and longer than you'd probably expect. Who It's For: The perimeter weighting is suited for high-handicappers, but the inventive, narrow, high-bounce sole is a feature than even middle handicappers will enjoy. Specs: Available in 4-SW in a variety of steel or graphite shaft options. infinitigolf.com | $512 Mizuno MP-59
Key Feature: The muscle-back area has a titanium section forged into it, effectively enhancing the perimeter weighting of the simple, gorgeous, new forged irons. Seriously, we don't know of any other mixed-metal iron that has ever felt or looked this good. And by the way, they perform as good as they look. Smooth like butter! Who It's For: Good to better players who want some added forgiveness in a spectacular set of irons. Specs: Available 3-PW with Dynamic Gold steel shafts, or in a custom option. (LH available) mizunogolf.com | $999 Mizuno MP-69
Key Feature: These butter knives are poised to win some big check on Tour, thanks to a 4D muscle-back design that optimizes the CG location in each club. The Grain Flow Forged carbon steel is as you'd expect: soft and responsive, just like a Tour player would want it. Who It's For: Better players who want total shotmaking and a buttery feel that can only come from a Grain Flow forged Mizuno iron. Specs: Comes in 3-PW with Dynamic Gold steel shafts, or in a variety of custom options. mizunogolf.com | $899 Mizuno JPX-800 HD
Key Feature: The super game-improvement JPX-800 HD irons integrate two hybrids into the set as well as a handful of high-COR, high-perimeter-weighted irons. The result is a set that's high-launching, easy to swing and ideal for the golfer looking to improve in a hurry. No really, these irons are almost too easy to hit. Are they legal? (Yes.) Who It's For: Golfers who want straighter, higher, farther iron shots and who prefer FLI-HI hybrids over long irons. Specs: Comes with two JPX FLI-HI hybrids (4-5) and 6-PW in iron designs. Steel or graphite shafts available.


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2001 was the first year that the FZ1 was produced. Models produced in the period 2001 to 2005 were known as FZS1000S (Fazer in Europe). They had a modified Yamaha YZF-R1 motor in a steel tubular frame. The FZ1 was carburated and produced around 140 horsepower. They were virtually unchanged over this period, except for different color options. In some European countries the 2005 model saw the introduction of an exhaust based catalytic converter, albeit of a rudimentary design.
The FZ1 has the same 998cc inline 4 cylinder motor found on the R1, but slightly detuned for street use. Considering the reduced compression ratio & milder cam shaft, the FZ1 still packs quite a punch throughout the transmission range. It delivers enough low/mid range torque to get the adrenaline pumping, and enough top range torque to make you scream in your helmet. The multiplate clutch allows for clean shifting through all 6 gears. However I wish it had a slipper clutch like the R1, in order to reduce the engine braking inherent in all 4-stroke engines. The exhaust system runs from 4 into 1, and uses an automatic EXUP system. This is basically an exhaust valve that is controlled by the throttle position. It works automatically to ensure optimum back pressure throughout the rev range. The single highly stylized muffler has built in heat shields, and is used to control both noise and emissions.


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Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist dug in on Thursday as they continued to exchange attacks in the increasingly combative Florida gubernatorial race.
Crist was scheduled to speak at the Council of 100s meeting in Orlando on Thursday morning but it was canceled at the last minute. Crist insisted Scott backers spiked the appearances and maintained the council was apparently afraid of the political ramifications of upsetting Rick Scott."
In his prepared remarks for the Council of 100, Crist went on the attack, hitting Scott on several fronts.
I am running for governor for one simple reason: Tallahassee is broken, and it is time to put the people back in charge, Crist said in the prepared speech. Quite simply, our state needs and deserves a governor who will wake up every day thinking about people like you, who will govern honestly and with the states collective best interests in mind, and who will make this economy more fair for hard-working business owners and taxpayers. And we need a governor who will refocus the state on things that are important to all Floridians: good schools, affordable health care, respect for our environment and dignity for our seniors.
Despite unemployment rocketing under his watch from 3.5 percent to more than 11 percent before declining under Scott, Crist attacked the Republican on the economy.
We have an economic plan led by Gov. Scott that consists of flying in his private plane to hold press conferences to tout job growth that he had literally nothing to do with, Crist said. It might be a good plan for getting re-elected, but its not a road map for long-term economic growth. And Floridas economy has suffered as a result.
Crist accused Scott of embracing the ideological fringes, taking care of his friends, bullying his opponents, hiding from the public and press and running from tough issues and who is trying to bully me by waving his $100 million checkbook and by running a daily smear campaign about my life and career.
The former governor attempted to explain away his recent party changes. Despite winning three statewide elections as a Republican, Crist left the GOP in 2010 after being caught by Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate primary. Continuing his Senate bid with no party affiliation, Crist placed a distant second to Rubio in the general election. After endorsing President Barack Obama for a second term, Crist joined the Democrats in December 2012.
We can go in a new direction that embraces common sense and optimism - and one that rejects the nasty tone of todays politics, Crist said. Yes, we can choose a direction that is inclusive, one where ideas trump money and power, one that says no one or no party has a monopoly on good ideas, and one that is willing to bring people together to find common-sense solutions to the problems we face.
We deserve a governor who will listen to his opponents, not demonize them, Crist added.
"Rick Scott, like this gang in Washington and here in Florida seem to think the only way to govern is from the fringes. That anyone who doesnt agree with them on everything is an enemy or worse yet, somehow less patriotic. That is why Washington is so dysfunctional and why state government here has lost its way. When the people give you the honor of being their governor you arent the governor of one party, youre the governor for all Floridians. No matter what they say, it is not a sin to reach across the aisle - it is your obligation.
So yes, I am running as a Democrat - proudly, Crist insisted despite making two party changes in the last four years. But to every independent and Republican who feels we are losing our way - please join us. We will not agree on everything - nor should we. But the principles that unite us as Americans and Floridians will always be more compelling than the issues that divide us. Rick Scott doesnt get that - but I know you do.
Speaking at Busch Gardens in Tampa to the media on tourism, Scott said he had nothing to do with the Council of 100 canceling Crists appearance. The Scott campaign also insisted they had nothing to do with the cancellation, and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Canterasaid the same thing during a conference call with the media on Thursday morning.
I don't have any knowledge of anything like that happening," Lopez-Cantera said. "Charlie is all talk, so if he wants to talk, he's welcome to talk.
All he is is talk, talk, talk, Lopez-Cantera added. He can talk out of both sides of his mouth like he always does, and he's welcome to it."
Lopez-Cantera spoke with the media on Thursday to showcase a new website from the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF). The new site -- CutAndRunCrist.com -- had been run by the Florida Democratic Party but they let the rights expire, allowing the RPOF to come in and swoop it up. This is the third old Democratic website the RPOF has relaunched. The site features quotes attacking Crist from leading Democrats.
When Florida lost over 830,000 jobs and saw its unemployment rate triple, thanks to Charlie Crists failed leadership, he didnt stick around to help Florida families, Lopez-Cantera said. "Instead, he tried to run away to Washington. And when he did, Florida Democrats aggressively reminded voters that Charlie Crist was only out for himself. By relaunching this website, were happy to let Democrats make the case against the man theyve now embraced as their partys choice for governor.
We hope Charlie Crist speaks in every corner of the state, said Greg Blair, a spokesman for the Scott campaign. "The more he speaks, the clearer it becomes that Crist is only focused on talk, while Rick Scott is focused on action. Crists record of failure is a great contrast with Gov. Scotts record of success.
Reach Kevin Derby at firstname.lastname@example.com.