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This easy and flavorful granola can bring crunch to any healthy breakfast, from Greek yogurt to the top of pancakes!
The 20 Best Cities for 20-Somethings: 2012 Edition
It's hard to pinpoint what qualities 20-somethings go for in picking the perfect city. Sustainability, efficient transit systems, cleanliness, and affordability may make the top of the list. Dig a bit further, and others may add walkability of streets, prevalence of gyms, and overall well-being. Number of happy hours, zoos, and places to booze may be factors, too. So running with that list (plus a few city-specific features we just couldn't resist considering) we bring you 20 of the best cities to enjoy your carefree twenties (or thirties). Note: they're presented in alphabetical order.
1. Albuquerque, NM
Average Temp (High, Low): 70, 43 Median Income: $44,594 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $646 Population: 529,872 Median Age: 35.1
Okay, we get that the desert isn't usually where most 20-somethings would think to look for their ideal locale, but Albuquerque was included in the list of top 10 U.S. destinations for value vacations, especially noted for it's affordable pricing. It's also the fifth cleanest city and one of the greenest cities, too. And thankfully, though the city is also considered the ballooning capital of the world, that does not mean balloon animals peruse the streets, but instead the city's skyline can often be found peppered with hot air balloons (especially during the International Balloon Fiesta, the world's largest hot air balloon festival). Albuquerque also has one of the top zoos in the country, the Albuquerque Biological Park (tickets are just $5 to $12 for a solid day's worth of fun). If ballooning doesn't fill your fresh air fix, Albuquerque has plenty of outdoor space with 28.1 percent parkland.
2. Austin, TX
Average Temp (High, Low): 80, 59 Median Income: $50,132 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $777 Population: 767,250 Median Age: 31
They say everything's bigger in Texas, but this cowboy boot wearin' city ranks fifth in the U.S. with the most gyms (38.5 gyms and fitness centers per million people in the area). And to tap out on vitamin D, Austin is the place — it gets an average of 300 days of sunshine each year. Austin is also home to some of the healthiest eaters according to the Healthiest Habitats list (based on factors like eating habits, BMI, and exercise habits) with residents eating an average of 33.6 servings of fruits and vegetables per week. Austin's also the best large metropolitan area in terms of getting a job — no wonder it's also in the top 10 cities for the best happy hours. And with more than 100 live music venues, it's known as the live music capital of the world. Photo: StuSeeger
3. Boston, MA
Average Temp (High, Low): 59, 41 Median Income: $55,979 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,327 Population: 617,594 Median Age: 30.8
Ranked third for its efficient public transit system, the city is also the fifth greenest in the U.S. with 65 percent of its residents participating in recycling programs. For a history lesson and to catch a game, there's Fenway Park (don't forget to pahk' ya cahh in Hahvad yahd). Known for their chowdah, Boston hosts an annual chowderfest, with all the New England style clam chowder (that's with cream — not tomatoes, manhattanites) you could ever dream of. Beantown's more than 100 colleges contribute greatly to the city's high proportion of 20-34 year olds (actually, the highest proportion among the country's top 25 major cities). But for those of you worried about the bars and restaurants crawling with underage college students, fear not — Boston is also vigilant about preventing underage drinking. Boston salaries are also about 34 percent higher than the nation's average (can't complain about that). Photo: Freephoto.com
4. Boulder, CO
Average Temp (High, Low): 64, 36 Median Income: $47,967 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $807 Population: 97,385 Median Age: 28.7
Full of fresh air enthusiasts, Boulder has the highest number of residents who walk to work, work from home, and drive with more than one person in the car, and ranks second for the amount of people who bike to the office (the city is so bike friendly, they sometimes plow the Boulder Creek bike path before the streets). Fun fact: 80 percent of residents visit a dentist at least once a year (more than anywhere else in the nation). And only 12.1 percent of Boulder's residents are obese (well below the national average of 26.1 percent). Boulder is also among the top cities in America for learning new and interesting things (could be because it's a major college city).
5. Burlington, VT
Average Temp (High, Low): 54, 35 Median Income: $39,296 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,164 Population: 42,417 Median Age: 26.5
Known for its hippy dippy rapport, this small city loves its local, organic, fresh food — especially down Burlington's Church Street Marketplace. The city is a hub for writers and artists and encourages all sorts of creativity. Check out Nectar's, the very spot where Phish got their start, for seven nights a week of cocktails, dancing, live blues, soul, and rock. While Burlington is the largest city in Vermont, it's notably smaller than most on this list. Despite it's size, the itty bitty city was rated the third best city for foodies, and (cough, cough) it's not too far from the Ben & Jerry's factory. Extra bonus: The unemployment rate here is 4.9 percent (well below the U.S. average of 9.1 percent).
6. Chicago, IL
Average Temp (High, Low): 59, 40 Median Income: $45,734 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,029 Population: 2,695,598 Median Age: 32.9
Hello, gentlemen. This one's for you. Chicago, affectionately called Chi-town by the locals, was rated the seventh manliest city in America (mainly due to a strong ranking in the manly occupations category). But for men, women, and children, Chicago is home to three of the top zoos and aquariums, and 36 annual parades. The first Ferris wheel made its debut in Chicago, and now a 15-story replica sits on Navy Pier, considered the city's lakefront playground. The Pier has a big beer garden, headlined by its signature Landshark Lager. Skip driving in Chi-town, because the city ranked sixth for public transit.
7. Cleveland, OH
Average Temp (High, Low): 59, 41 Median Income: $24,687 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $640 Population: 396,815 Median Age: 35.7
Named one of the best places for new college grads, Cleveland has plenty of job ops (heavy in manufacturing and engineering), and fun for after work. The city, called Beertown, U.S.A. by Draft Magazine, has some favorite breweries like Great Lakes Brewing Company, Thirsty Dog, and Willoughby Brewing. And did we mention it's the sixth best city for block parties? (We didn't know there was such a rating, either.) Once you're tuckered out from hitting all the pubs Cleveland's got to offer, keep in mind the city came in as the second best to get a good night's sleep. Photo: ifmuth
8. Dallas, TX
Average Temp (High, Low): 76, 55 Median Income: $39,829 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $731 Population: 1,197,816 Median Age: 31.8
Yeeeehaw! So this may sound odd, but this city is one of the top ten for Thanksgiving. Dallas residents showed high turkey consumption and a comparatively huge influx of flights into the area around the holiday. For the other days of the year, this city ranked in the top ten for employment rate (of the 65 largest metropolitan areas), and it's also made up of 13.4 percent parkland (so you can walk off all that turkey). And good news, compared to the rest of the country, Dallas's cost of living is 5.7 percent lower than the U.S. average.
9. Denver, CO
Average Temp (High, Low): 64, 36 Median Income: $46,410 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $807 Population: 600,158 Median Age: 33.7
All right, we're throwing this stat atchya first and foremost: Denver ranks number one in the nation for beer production per capita. Some area bars offer happy hours every day with longer peak hours than most cities (whew!). There's even an area called the Beer triangle. The triangle of happiness (located between the Colorado Rockies, Boulder, and Fort Collins) attained the nickname the "Napa Valley of Beer." Coors Brewery, the largest single brewery in the world, as well as over six-dozen other brewpubs and microbreweries reside in the triangle. The city also has the Denver Zoological Gardens, which is the most popular attraction in Colorado.
10. Honolulu, HI
Average Temp (High, Low): 84, 70 Median Income: $57,601 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,030 Population: 374,701 Median Age: 39.7
So we know it's not in the continental U.S., and Hawaii requires a little extra travel, but this city certainly makes up for it. Honolulu ranked as one of the top ten cities for well-being, and even ranked highest for emotional health. It was even rated the top "blues-proof" town. It's one of the most green cities, too, with lots of homes sporting solar panels. Honolulu also houses Waikiki Aquarium, though we're sure the beaches are worth a trip too. Photo: -shu-
11. Madison, WI
Average Temp (High, Low): 63, 33 Median Income: $49,595 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $782 Population: 233,209 Median Age: 30.9
Named the best city in America for young adults, this cheese-chompin' city simply had to make the list. Factors like cost of living, employment growth, residents' education levels, rental costs, and restaurant variety catapulted Madison to the top of the list. Of all large metro areas, Madison is the number one city for safety and security. But that doesn't mean it's a boring spot for old farts. Wisconsin's state capital is a tech-savvy city, and college-town thanks to the University of Wisconsin's whopping 42,595 students. Photo: alumroot
12. New York, NY
Average Temp (High, Low): 62, 47 Median Income: $50,033 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,560 Population: 8,175,133 Median Age: 35.5
After a visit with lady liberty, there are more places to go in the city than the day allows for — The Museum of Modern Art, Times Square, and for a reprieve, Central Park (just to name a few). But good news: The big apple is also the most walkable city in the U.S. (especially in Little Italy, SoHo, and the Flatiron District). While there's quite the variety of food at countless restaurants in the city, New York is also home to a massive caravan of food trucks to keep those appetites satisfied while walking the streets. With 61.8 percent recycling-conscious residents and 19.5 percent parkland, NYC also ranks as the greenest city. Photo: Loretin
13. Philadelphia, PA
Average Temp (High, Low): 63, 45 Median Income: $37,045 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,060 Population: 1,526,006 Median Age: 33.5
This city, deeply rooted in jazz and once the United States capital, is also home to the first public zoo in the U.S., the Philadelphia Zoo (Benny Franklin founded it). Of the top 40 cities in the states, Philly ranks fifth for most walkable neighborhoods. But if you're flying in, the city's also got the best airport for making a connection. To quell an appetite, pop by Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, with over one hundred different vendors. Oh, and we hear Philly's got some pretty bomb cheesesteaks. Photo: musical photo man
14. Portland, OR
Average Temp (High, Low): 63, 45 Median Income: $50,203 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $952 Population: 584, 776 Median Age: 35.8
While 14 states have their very own Portlands, we're talking about Oregon, here. This Portland boasts 16.1 percent parkland, and it's also in the top 10 greenest cities. And may we mention that it's also been ranked number one for happy hours — that's no small feat considering it's half the size of NYC, yet offers twice the amount of happy hour offerings per square mile! Guess an hour (or seven) of happiness a day pays off, because Portland also ranked fourth for cities on the edge of greatness. What makes it so great? This Portland is on the edge because of its huge indie music and arts presence, and high amount of alternative sports fans (mushball, anyone?). This city's residents aren't just into fun sports teams to stay fit. It ranked fourth for cities with the most gyms, with 38.6 of them per million people in the area. Photo: GregDawson
15. Sacramento, CA
Average Temp (High, Low): 74, 48 Median Income: $47,107 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $767 Population: 466, 488 Median Age: 33
If daily breakfast in bed and working in pajamas is enticing, we'll have you know that this city is number six for teleworking. Which is maybe why Sacramento is one of the top ten cities with most well-rested residents. With all that pent up energy, locals can sign up for the oldest modern triathlon — Eppie's Great Race, which has been around since 1974, and features running, cycling, and paddling (instead of the more common swimming). For late-night bites and beverages, some Sacramento bars stay open until 3 or 4 in the morning. For classy day boozing, hit up Sacramento Valley's vineyards, known for its zinfandels and petite sirahs. Photo: whsieh
16. San Diego, CA
Average Temp (High, Low): 71, 58 Median Income: $59,901 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,148 Population: 1,307,402 Median Age: 33.6
If you're wondering where in the world Carmen is, we can't promise you she's in San Diego. However, we can inform you that this city houses three of the top zoos and is ranked the third best city for quality (and quantity) of happy hours. San Diego has some solid nightlife establishments, especially in the Gaslamp Quarter — 16.5 blocks of happy hours galore, plus tons of clubs and live music venues. To pass the daytime hours, San Diego features 70 miles of beaches (mind you, it's the seventh largest city in the U.S.), and it's got some killer street art. Photo: sunkmanitu
17. San Jose, CA
Average Temp (High, Low): 63, 33 Median Income: $76,495 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,311 Population: 945,942 Median Age: 35.2
This Cali city, known for having the nation's best public safety record of any metropolitan area, is the most populated in the Bay Area. It ranked as the healthiest city, and gets props for providing people with safe places to exercise. And for tech-savvy 20-somethings, San Jose is home to the largest concentration of technology expertise in the world with more than 6,600 tech companies employing more than 254,000 people. For all the dog lovers out there, San Jose has got nine (count 'em) dog parks. Maybe that's how the city's residents pick up hot dates, because one Men's Health Poll ranked San Jose as the third best place in the U.S. to find a mate. Photo: the_tahoe_guy
18. Seattle, WA
Average Temp (High, Low): 60, 46 Median Income: $60,843 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $915 Population: 608,660 Median Age: 36.1
This city made the list because its people are allegedly sleepless (and lack of sleep equates to fun, right?). Seattle ranked fourth for number of happy hour-hosting establishments, and is well known for its coffee — it does have the first Starbucks location. For the bookworms out there, Seattle is the most literate city in the U.S. with the most bookstores and libraries per capita, and the most library cardholders too. For live music and performances, this city is second in the U.S. per capita. And as the first city to put cops on bikes, Seattle's locals bike to work more often than in any other city in the states. Photo: jarnott
19. Phoenix, AZ
Average Temp (High, Low): 86, 59 Median Income: $47,085 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $663 Population: 1,445,632 Median Age: 32.2
As the tenth most playful city, Phoenix is big on recreation with heaps of hiking trails and museums, sporting events (with franchises in all four major professional sports leagues), and playful hobbies (with more than 200 golf courses, and 200+ parks, trails, and gardens). Of all fifty metropolitan areas in the survey on playfulness, Phoenix residents ranked as the most satisfied with their lives. With all that playtime, it may come as a surprise that this city is also the tenth most fiscally fit. Photo: Al_hikesAZ
20. Washington, D.C
Average Temp (High, Low): 67, 49 Median Income: $59,290 Average Rent for 1-Bedroom Apt.: $1,317 Population: 601,723 Median Age: 33.8
Our nation's capital is the 10th greenest city in the U.S. and in the top ten cities for overall well-being. D.C.-ers might be in such good shape because there are 800 miles of bikeways, plus there's the Capital Bikeshare program, with bike pick-ups at over 150 stations in the area. It ranks second for happy hours, beating out even NYC. And with one of the top five transit systems, it's easy to make it to all those said happy hours. There's also roughly a bajillion college students with American, George Washington, and Georgetown Universities generating big numbers of 20-somethings. In fact, almost 30 percent of the city's population is between the ages of 20 and 34, according to the U.S. census.
How we ranked: We ran the cities through a lengthy ranking process to determine how we would define "best." As a team, we compiled a list of what we (as 20-somethings) desired in a city to visit or move to. We then scoured the web for stats, polls, and surveys about metropolitan areas from Gallup, Sperling, and tourism bureaus. Once entered into one master spreadsheet, we pulled the top 30 cities then searched for unique attractions and facts about each to narrow down to our final 20. Our ranking took into account everything from health and wellness (gyms, walkability of streets, obesity statistics), to sustainability (air quality, recycling practices), to fun and affordability (happy hours, breweries, employment). Not every city scored impeccably for each factor, but made the list for stand out stats in certain categories. And while the U.S. is made up of a ton of awesome cities, we chose to highlight these 20.
What cities did we miss? What else makes these cities the best? Tell us in the comments section below!
Comments Leave a comment
So you choose ice boxes and humid hot baths where staid is the new black going on 60 years, but you skip out on Los Angeles? For shame.
@MichaelZinshteyn Hi, Michael. L.A. was one of the top thirty contenders (check out the last paragraph where we explain our ranking system), but we went with these 20 for a lot of reasons. If it was a bigger list, L.A. definitely would have made the cut. Thanks for letting readers know!
@nicole1 @MichaelZinshteyn I suppose year-round perfect weather, state forests and deserts within city limits, beaches, the largest collection of farmers markets, a thriving bus and rail system that covers significant square mileage, etc, is not enough to bump the city past dullards like Beantown and Chocolate City. The rent in LA is cheaper, too. That's fine, Greatist can be my source for fitness and health; I'll leave the city pecking order to census data.
@nicole1 You guys did right - LA is a cesspool, and the only things it has going for it are its weather and a few perks. You can barely breathe, crime is out of control, and the only reason it has the perks it does is because it sprawls so much. It has tons of great *areas* and *neighborhoods*, but definitely doesn't belong on a top anything list. Good work!
@anonuser @nicole1 ...LA's murder rate is lower than New York City's: https://www.policymap.com/city-crime-rates/new-york-city-crime-statistic... VS. https://www.policymap.com/city-crime-rates/los-angeles-crime-statistics/... See FBI crime data for more: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/preliminary-a...
@anonuser@nicole1 Not to beat a dead horse, but using the FBI crime data, for 2011 LA's violent crime rate was
.52 percent, New York City's was .623 percent.
I think DC should be higher than just #20 -- having been here for all of my 20s so far, I'd say that this place positively caters to the post-college, young professional crowd. How many cities can claim to have giant Jenga, skeeball, and cornhole leagues as something to do after work? Either way - great list! I love most of the places up there.
@arcDC giant jenga?!?! Where do we sign up? Sounds awesome! The list is in no specifically ranked order... just our top 20 picks!
Um the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/Saint Paul?!?!?!) Geesh, based on your ranking process I would think it would be up there. Especially with the local music and art scene and the fact that it for the last few years has been listed the healthiest place to live. The cost of living isn't very high and I'm not sure what the median income is... but I'm shocked its not on there.
I'd be interested to see where Columbia, MO ranked on your list. Check out how awesome it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia,_Missouri =). We have some of the best parks in the nation, an awesome biking/running trail that runs right through the town and connects through the state of Missouri(MKT/Katy Trail). Lots of twenty somethings. Many festivals each and every year including True/False Film Festival and the Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival.
"Studies consistently rank Columbia as a top city in which to live for educational facilities, health care, technological savvy, economic growth, cultural opportunities and cost of living.[16] The city has been ranked as high as the second-best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine's annual list..."
Another cool feat, "Over half of Columbians possess a bachelor's degree[13] and over a quarter hold graduate degrees,[14] making it the thirteenth most highly educated municipality in the United States.[14]"
Well as a resident of ABQ who is in his 20's this is the most rediculious thing I have ever laid eyes on. I have been to almost every other city on the list and despite the higher costs of living they are leaps and bound better than ABQ (as much as I love it.) ABQ is much better for a middle aged partners looking to start a family.
@BillyTrabaudo as a 20-something who has been to ABQ, I must say I love it there! Cool culture, great food, fun atmosphere, really nice people.
How was the NYC average rent figured out? Did you include the boros other than Manhattan and the suburbs in that average? Because I live in Manhattan, and I can tell you that there is no way anyone can find a 1-bedroom for under $2500/month here. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/realestate/manhattan-the-city-of-sky-h...
@sharonrp Hi Sharon! The average rents were figured out using apartmentratings.com. Many towns were accounted for in the measurement, including all boroughs and connecting New Jersey and Long Island Cities. The rent stats for the other cities were equally broad in terms of area, so the prices are comparatively relevant.
Thirsty Dog's not in Cleveland; it's in Akron. But whatever...
@IamLaura did they mean the Happy Dog?
@DanMoulthrop I doubt it, because they were talking about breweries.
@IamLaura I'd guess most of these best this and best that lists are based on data that is, at best, at the regional level. More likely, it's based on other lists. Just check what they reference for Cleveland, a brewery list, a block party list, and a sleeping list. Pretty bizarre combination!
IMO, lists are created to drive traffic websites and publications. For better or worse, they contort public opinion.
Apparently the author has never been to San Francisco
@Bcroke San Francisco was one of our top contenders and scored well for walkability of its streets, an efficient transit system, sustainability, and lots of parkland. However with three other California cities that made the list, variety was also a contributing factor!
Agree that Minneapolis should have made the list, although I am from Cleveland.
There is a big difference between median and mean income.
I'd like to see some suburbs or smaller cities on this list. Plenty of crime in most of those places too.
Cleveland #7? And Pittsburgh not even ON the list??
I'd be really interested in seeing the polls and criteria used to make this list, because having lived in both cities (and being 25), it's not even a contest (in my opinion) that Pittsburgh has much more to offer.
How could you include San Jose and leave out San Francisco??!


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'Mixed performance' from KPNTuesday 23 October 2012 Both turnover and earnings were down at Telecom group KPN in the third quarter as 'difficult market conditions' continued to bite. Group earnings were down 6.5% at €3bn while net profit fell 32% to €250m. Both figures are worse than analysts had expected. One reason is that strong competition in the German growth market is counteracting sales growth from new subscription models, the company said. Challenges Chief executive Eelco Blok said in a statement: 'Against an uncertain and challenging macro environment, we have seen mixed performance across the group.' Nevertheless, KPN is on track in the Netherlands to reach its 2012 market share targets, he said. The company's plan to cut 4,000-5,000 jobs is also on target to be completed by the end of 2013.
© DutchNews.nl Readers' Comments As a current, but soon to be jobless, KPN employee, my advice to Carlos Slim: sell your stock in KPN ASAP! This sinking ship is going down fast! By 23 October 2012 10:56 AM | |
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Drools - The Business Logic integration Platform
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Drools and jBPM consist out of several projects:
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These projects have community releases from JBoss.org that come without support. Community releases focus on fast paced innovation to give you the latest and greatest, with releases every few months that include both features and fixes. JBoss BRMS is our enterprise product from JBoss.com for mission critical releases, with a multi year commitment for backport of fixes, based off a sanitised community release of Drools. A range of support packages are available including up to mission critical 24/7, as well as training and consultancy via our Global Professional Services unit. Email firstname.lastname@example.com for more details.
From the Drools & jBPM blog
- Construction Heuristics with multiple variables or multiple planning variables
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Improv Workshop with Anchorage Community Theatre!
0In conjunction with Anchorage Community Theatre Scared Scriptless presents our November workshop!
There are only 4 spots left in this workshop call 344-4713 to register now!
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1133 E. 70th Ave., Anchorage, Alaska
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Date: November 2nd and 9th
Time: 1-3pm
Cost: $40
Instructor: Jason Martin (Scared Scriptless Improv)
These are the same ideas improvisers all over the world use – including those from Saturday Night Live, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Chicago's Second City, LA's The Groundlings, Theatersports and Comedysportz and Alaska's longest running improv troupe, SCARED SCRIPTLESS!
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- January 24, 2013
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The Republican entries in the lie, cheat, and steal book are too numerous to mention---but the fact that you limit these activities to just Democrats just proves are narrow minded you are, and everything that you post must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, and probably a lot of prilosec.
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Artist DetailsAriadne DaskalakisCategory: Instrumentalists - StringsThe violin playing of Ariadne Daskalakis is characterised by its pure, warm sound, married to technical brilliance. She is a player that provokes a spine tingling reaction from the first stroke of her bow. The warmth of her playing is mirrored in her character, making her performance generous in a manner that draws the listener right into the soul of the music BiographyAriadne Daskalakis (violin) by Lundstrom-AM ...Striking athleticism, musical insight, expressive embellishment and elegiac lyricism. The Strad A unique violinist, Ariadne Daskalakis is a discerning musician with a profound understanding of musical language and a keen interest in its historical development. The flexibility and warmth of her tone are celebrated internationally by audiences and critics alike. BIOGRAPHY Highlights of her career include solo appearances with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the Stuttgart Philharmonic as well as recitals in venues such as the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie Berlin and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. She has also regularly directed concerts with the Ensemble Oriol Berlin.
ReviewsPERFORMANCES WITH ORCHESTRA: Bernstein Serenade : Philharmonic Orchestra Hahen : Stadthalle Hagen ...Ariadne Daskalakis, youngest Violin Professor in Cologne since 2000, was brilliant as the soloist. It was wonderful how she expressed enraptured intimacy in her playing. In the last movement 'typical Bernstein' flared up: jazz-influenced passion with rhythmic percussion episodes. Christoph Bingel, Westfälische Rundschau, February 12 2009 REVIEWS
Monika Willer, Westfalenpost, February 12, 2009
"...The first half of the concert was dominated by Beethoven's Violin Concerto, performed by Ariadne Daskalakis. Her sound was powerful and confident. The structural unity of the concerto was performed with clarity... The middle movement was performed with delicacy and sensitivity. Daskalakis' clear, round and tonally secure sound was especially appreciated. In the third movement... the violinist showed power and expression and concluded the concerto with success." Nikos Dontas, Kathimerini, January 18, 2009
Violin Concertos by Tartini and Haydn with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall MK, Cologne Stadtanzeiger, December 12, 2008
Matthias Corvin, Cologne Rundschau, December 9, 2008
Beethoven Violin Concerto: Polish Chamber Philharmonic, Cond. Wojciech Rajski "The highlight was Ludwig van Beethoven's famous Violin Concerto… [Ariadne Daskalakis] unfolded a soulful, intimate, melting tone, of which the bewitching beauty commanded the listeners' attention in spite of the open-air conditions... Ariadne Daskalakis came out strong with commanding form in the Rondo, an energetic movement which enchants with its voluptuously intoxicating sounds." Hanna Styrie, Kölner Rundschau, 20. August 2007
Frank-Uwe Orbons, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 20. August 2007
Musical Gems: Palace Concert with Helmut Müller-Brühl and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra Rhein-Erft-Rundschau, 13 June 2006
Dorothea Husslein, Münchner Merkur, 14 June 2004
Rüdiger Schwarz, Abendzeitung München, 14 June 2004
Nikolaus Frey, Fuldaer Zeitung, 7 April 2004
Antje Hintz, NDR (North German Radio), January 2006
Jan Brachmann, Berliner Zeitung, 22 April 2002
Coesfelder Nachrichten, 27 November 2001
Delmenhorster Kurier, 15 September 2000
Delmenhorster Kreisblatt, 15 September 2000
MRZ, 29 August 2000
Lippische Landeszeitung, May 2000
REVIEWS OF CHAMBER MUSIC PERFORMANCES Oberhessische Press, September 2006
(David Cleary, "new music connoisseur", June 2006)
Hanna Styrie, Rhein-Erft-Kreis Kurier, 5 January 2004
Emka Pirbauer, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 22 April 2003
Berliner Zeitung, December 1999
The Globe and Mail Toronto, February 1999
DiscographyAriadne Daskalakis' latest CD is Handel's Complete Violin Sonatas with Ensemble Vintage Koln, released on the Naxos label. - CD of the month in The Strad, January 2012: "Daskalakis makes her violin sing eloquently in the slow movements...her athletic fingers zip through Handel's lively fast movements" - Robin Stowell, The Strad -"[Daskalakis'] performance seems winningly energetic" - Robert Maxham, Fanfare, March 2012 -"Daskalakis takes their academic understanding of the scores and translate it into informed performances tahat glisten with vibrant, dynamic, effervescent playing" - Mike D. Brownell, allmusic.com, November 2011 -"Daskalakis' performances are far from bland...her left hand is very nimble, decoration added with such deft agility" - David Denton, October 2011 Ensemble Vintage Koln are Ariadne Daskalakis (violin), Rainer Zipperling (viola de gamba/cello) Gerald Hambitzer (harpsichord). Recorded at Hessischer Rundfunk, Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2009, released 2011. CATALOGUE 8.572245 DISCOGRAPHY ----------------------------------------- Ariadne Daskalakis' previous CD release is with pianist Miri Yampolsky and features the complete works for violin and piano by Lutoslawski. This CD is recorded on the Naxos label and also includes works by Szymanowski and Janacek. "…I warm to the polish in the playing and dynamic drama and tensions between passion and restraint, songful lyricism, playfulness and fervour." Dominy Clements - MusicWeb International, April 2009
David Denton – The Strad, July 2009
Guy Rickards – Gramophone, August 2009 "The ending, with its last few wisps of sound, is one of the most amazing things I have heard in ages. What a treat for the ears this album is!" The American Record Guide, July 2009 LUTOSLAWSKI, W.: Violin Music (Complete) SZYMANOWSKI, K.: Myths JANACEK, L: Violin Sonata Ariadne Daskalakis, Miri Yampolsky CATALOGUE No: 8.570987 | EAN-CODE: 0747313098774 "Daskalakis brings to these works striking athleticism, musical insight, expressive embellishment and elegiac lyricism." Robin Stowell – theStrad
Antje Hintz, NDR (North German Radio), Januar 2006
This CD featured as the Naxos CD of the month on it's release in Germany and, when released world wide, as the Concerto selection of the month in the June 2007 edition of "The Strad".
Further master works, recorded live. Upcoming EventsUpcoming concerts 22 December 2013 Bach - Concerto for Violin No 1 in A minor, DWV 1041 Cologne Chamber Orchestra ---- 26 December 2013 Recital with Nina Tichman (piano) Schloss Engers (Mainz) ---- 21 June 2014 Szymanowsky - Myths With Miri Yampolsky (piano) Potsdam ---- EVENTS Recent concerts June 7th 2012 Ariadne Daskalakis will perform with Ensemble Vintage Koln at WDR radio station, with a programme including Bach violin sonatas, and a Goldberg trio-sonata. ---- July 22nd - 29th 2012 Ariadne Daskalakis' will curate and direct her own small festival, the inaugural Music from Land's End festival at Wareham, Massachusetts, USA. ---- July 30th - August 8th 2012 Daskalakis will perform at the Music from Salem festival in Cambridge, New York. Programme includes George Onslow's Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 20 and Brahms - Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26 in Cambridge's Hubbard Hall. ---- September 7th - 8th Ariadne Daskalakis will perform as soloist with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin this winter in the project "4x4", featuring Vivaldi's Four Seasons. In a production where the whole orchestra is incorporated into the choreography of Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola.
LAM Newsletter |


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Flowers are a hot button issue in wedding planning. From their cost to the environmental aspect of them - many couples have struggled with an issue of doing something different to only end up booking a florist and going down the same beaten path.
But of course, it doesn't have to be this way. If you put as much thought and effort into your choice of flowers and florist as the other elements of your wedding - I guarantee - it will play out perfectly and it will be fun along the way.
As with any wedding component-figure out your budget, that will mostly depend on the size of your bridal party (the more bridesmaids and groomsmen, the more bouquets and boutonnieres) as well as the number of guests, or more precisely, number of tables and centerpieces that will go on them. The more guests, the more tables, and the more centerpieces.
Here are a few tricks to lower the overall wedding flowers cost:
- Go with what's in season. If your florist needs to order special flowers and they are being shipped from Belgium-it will cost you extra.
- Mass appeal flowers (think roses) vs. exotic flowers (think orchids) - you will pay more for the latter.
- Use large flowers as the base for your centerpieces (like hydrangeas), then add in more exotic and more expensive flowers to accentuate the design.
I always recommend using a professional florist experienced in designing wedding flowers. If you absolutely cannot afford one, buy the freshest flowers in bulk, store them in a very cold room and don't get too ambitious when trying to create centerpieces (and please don't arrange them yourself! Assign a person to do it for you, trust me - you will have no time nor patience for it on your wedding day!) From my experience this will only work if you are going for a very casual, relaxed look (like a barn or a tent wedding) and you don't need tall, elaborate centerpieces. Hand-arranged flowers in different size vases can create a simple, yet beautiful centerpiece.
Choose an experienced florist that operates out of a floral design studio. You might think that your local florist will be a more economical option, but a lot of times that's not the case. Since they don't buy in bulk like a large floral designer, their prices are not as competitive. Also their service is not as extensive as their larger competitors, they might charge you more for a delivery and a set up than the floral designer, because they don't have people on staff that usually do that.
And for those of you that don't feel like you can justify spending thousands of dollars on something that will wilt within a few days, there are other options out there - again - dictated by the choice of your venue.
For beach weddings, you can try doing tablescapes with sand, water in your wedding color and floating candles.
For masquerade and themed weddings, centerpieces created out of feathers, jewels and eclectic vases will look stunning.
For vineyard and outdoor weddings, arranging a few potted plants will do the trick.
To lower the overall cost, try mixing low centerpieces (cheaper) with high centerpieces (more expensive).
So as you can see, it's all in the attitude! Have fun with your flowers, use your favorite flowers in your wedding colors, add in your fiancée's and/or your mom's favorite blooms to honor them as well.
And select your florist wisely. Inspired and talented floral designer will "play" with your ideas, will "pull" flowers on the spot, arrange them in a vase, so you can see it with your own eyes.
In my next blog I will talk more about the wedding party flowers and the bride's flowers. In the meantime – happy wedding planning!


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Message from Dealer
MINI of Birmingham is one of the premier dealerships in the country. Our commitment to customer service is second to none! We offer one of the most comprehensive parts and service departments in the automotive industry.
Contact Information
2001 Tom Williams WayBirmingham, AL 35210
Mon-Fri 9a-7:30p Sat 9a-6p Sun CLOSED


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Ecology of Papua Part II is a definitive guide to the ecology and natural history of Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea. From the Ecology of Indonesia series, this title, along with Part I, contains essays by the world's leading experts on Papua's physical environment, flora, fauna, natural ecosystems, human interactions with nature and the conservation of natural resources.
Editore: Periplus Editions (26 Giugno 2012)
Format: EPUB
Numero di pagine: 766 pagine
Dimensioni del file: 25.4 MB
Protezione: DRM
Lingua: Inglese


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Price List 2013 At a glance: all of the COLUMBIA Rüsselsheim business hotel's current prices and terms at a glance... |
Package overview A successful combination: in Rüsselsheim, you can choose from innumerable, attractive holiday packages... |
Business & Meeting or Convention packagesSuccessful conferences: Our team will help you to boost your business! Whether you plan a seminar, congress or meeting- we will take care of the perfect implementation. |
General Terms and Conditions for Hotel Accommodation Contracts Would you like more detailed information? Our general commercial terms offer the answers of your questions... |
Here, you can find a selection of the most beautiful photographs of COLUMBIA Hotel Rüsselsheim.
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The most clicked stories from this week's #Sports e-newsletter include: how MLBAM is winning in digital media, Rupp Arena's social media marketing strategy, ESPN 's live sports experience, an interview with the man behind Manchester City's social media, and how social media is kick-starting American soccer.
For these stories and more, read below and subscribe to #Sports.
1. MLB Advanced Media's Bob Bowman Is Playing Digital Hardball. And He's Winning.
Major League Baseball Advanced Media–BAM, for short–is as technologically sophisticated as any company, anywhere. Here's how a winning and profitable strategy is being built by an online player that breaks all the rules…
2. Rupp Arena a leader in social media marketing
…"The strategy was to keep it active, but not so active that it was inundating people," Kenny said. Hooper said that with so many competing distractions for online users' time, Rupp has to provide value to those who follow it on social media. "You want them to feel that not only are they a fan, but that they are getting a benefit by clicking," he said…
3. ESPN Scores on the Power of the Live Sports Experience
…It all starts with the brand, regardless of what version of ESPN you're talking about. Whether it's a television network or what we do digitally or in mobile or in the magazine or in audio or on the ground or around the world, the brand stands for authority. It stands for personality. Those two things are why people are willing to invest at a premium level with ESPN…
4. Interview with the man behind Manchester City's Social Media
…Ayers explains that many of City's digital activities are not ROI based – the QR codes, the tunnel cam, the Google streetview within the stadium – it's all about providing for fans that want to feel closer to the club…
5. How Social Media Is Kick-starting American Soccer
…in developing the popularity of soccer, social media is rapidly propelling the American fan's attraction to the sport. Here's an analysis of American soccer's growth via social media. First, just take a look at how the MLS is using social media to increase viewership, drive ticket sales, create a heavy online following, and ultimately make the United States both a soccer haven for foreign players as well as a breeding ground for American talent…
Other articles that you may enjoy:
- New Sports Fan Social Media Network Page Launches
- NASCAR's Mark Martin to Race Under the Name of the Guy That Stole His Twitter Account
- FIFA Launches YouTube Channel
- FC Bayern Munich launches its own Facebook with myFCB
- Mobile and Tablet Advertisers Score During March Madness
- YouTube Sports Chief Rules Out Any Bid for Premier League Rights
- 13 NHL Twitter Accounts You Aren't Following (But Should Be)
- Major League Baseball Policy Endorses Use of Social Media
We are working to make the #Sports e-newsletter and community among the best in class in the sports marketing industry. If you have any feedback or constructive criticism that will improve the #Sports experience, share your thoughts with us in the comments below, and of course, please subscribe below if you haven't already!


text: At Beaches Chapel Church, our desire is to fulfill the call of God in our generation! We invite you to worship with us Sunday mornings at 9 AM for Sunday School, followed by our Morning Service at 10 AM & Wednesday nights at 7 PM! Please watch our PRAY. LOVE. SERVE. video to see what is going on at our church this season!


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The Ten Ten Players, a flexible company that has been resident at the Park Avenue Christian Church (1010 Park Avenue, at 85th Street) since 1955, presents everything from classic theater to contemporary satire, with occasional forays into musicals and light opera. Its current production, ''The Beggar's Opera,'' mixes several of those genres.
The production, directed by David Dunn Bauer, is an adroit, faithful staging of the 1728 John Gay comedy, with economical sets by Wendy Ponte, attractive costumes by Richard Guier and Baroque choreography by Alan Tjaarda Jones. There were some distinct deficits in the vocal department on Saturday evening. But the production affords considerable pleasure in most other ways. It is running weekends through May 26.
Gay wrote the work more as an anti-opera than an opera, one of its attractions to its 18th-century London public being its lampooning of the Italian opera style and the English public's fascination with it. Other more topical barbs - satirical references to the public corruption and private foibles of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, for example - have lost their pointedness. But if the work's specificity has faded, the character types are still familiar enough to have served Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill well in their transformation of the piece into ''The Threepenny Opera.''


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Today I sent an email to an official in the Virginia Department of Education stating that it was incorrect to assert that Fairfax County has a standard school day of 5 ½ hours a day. As previously reported, Richard A. Moniuszko, the deputy superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools, told me that Fairfax County did not have to worry about the section of the state regulations that requires a school day of at least 5 ½ instructional hours because that only applies if a school division chooses to use the 990 hour option to determine the length of the school year.
Knowing that he was mistaken, I asked for clarification from the Virginia Department of Education. Yesterday I received an email from Anne Wescott, assistant superintendent for policy and communications for VDOE. "I have reviewed the information you provided and I have spoken with Dr. Moniuszko about your questions," she wrote. "Fairfax County Public Schools has a school calendar of 183 instructional days, and a standard school day of 5 ½ hours a day, which is in compliance with the Standards of Accreditation."
I believe she was misinformed, so I sent an email attempting to explain the situation in Fairfax County. Here are excerpts from the three emails about my inquiry to the Virginia Department of Education: [Read more...]


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Innovation in Post-Launch Surveillance and Pharmaco-Vigilance
(Part Two)
These panelists describe struggling to transform their approach to drug safety, while acknowledging the need to regain public trust after troubling episodes involving drug side effects.
Névine Zariffa points out that "no clinical trial program known to man will ever help predict every single instance of ev
Innovation in Manufacturing and Distribution Systems (Part Three)
Genzyme is a leader in personalized medicine, as Mark Bamforth demonstrates. For instance, the company collects cartilage from a single patient, grows it in the lab, and sends it back securely to that same patient. The system, says Bamforth, tolerates "no mix ups." But the company also deals in drugs sen
Innovation in Bio-Safety Testing from Pre-Clinical to Product Launch
(Part Four)
"To me, systems biology is the religion you switch to when target-based drug discovery doesn't work," Noubar Afeyan states boldly. He claims that after losing billions of dollars, the pharmaceutical industry and academia are beginning to see the value in testing drugs by measuring outcomes in biological networks. He
Change Your Mind: Memory and Disease
How do we distinguish our friends from foes? How does dementia destroy memory? And how can past experience invade the present with destructive force? Scientists are closing in on the biochemical roots of these neurological puzzles.
Thomas Insel describes the profound impact of a small group of neuropeptides on
The Implications of Synthetic Biology
There's no mistaking Drew Endy's profession: "I like to make things -- that's what I do." From his engineer's perspective, the slow and painful methods of bioengineering demand a solution. Endy hopes to refine the tools necessary to move the field forward. "We're going from looking at the living world as only c
Biological Large Scale Integration
Though Stephen Quake's research is confined to the smallest of scales, his achievements have already made a large impact on the study of biology. Quake's area of microfluidics involves fabricating tiny devices akin to those a plumber uses, but useful on the molecular level. Quake modestly describes his "plumbing
Do-It-Yourself Biology
Inspired by the vast potential of bioengineering, ordinary people are seeking their inner Frankenstein -- doctor, not monster. Two speakers who know their way around Petri dish and beaker discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of do-it-yourself biology with an MIT Museum crowd.
Showing ads from a 1980 Omni magazine,
Inside the Tornado
This is an educational video about tornadoes from the National Geographic Channel. The video talks about tornadoes as well as the equipment needed to track tornadoes.
Pictures of Tornadoes
This is a video of various pictures of tornadoes. The slected music is strange. (06:17)
The Battle of Shiloh
After initial success, the Confederates are dealt a costly blow in Tennessee in April, 1862 at the battle of Shiloh. This video explains that Grant won the battle for the United States against the Confederacy and set the tone that the Union Army under Grant was willing to expend whatever manpower was necessary to win the war. A map of the area would help explain the positions and where the Hornet's Nest was. Some images may be too intense for students.
Ecole Européenne d'été 2009 VA - Post-traumatic handicap (video)
Presentation of P. Martre about post-traumatic handicap.
SCD Médecine.
Making sense of your management model Opportunities in emerging markets in the downturn Investing in long-term innovation under cost pressures Warren East GLS 2010 interview The Slave Trade Chapters in the Soil Jamestown Unearthed Southern Hospitality An Irish Christmas
Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategic and International Management,explains how organisations can do a better job of using a management model to enhance their competitiveness
Terry Rhodes, Co-Founder of CelTel, looks at the interesting and new opportunities which might be overlooked during this downturn
Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategic and International Management suggests ways to continue investing in long term innovation whilst under pressure to cut costs. Innovation is not just about new products but finding smarter ways to work
Warren East, CEO, ARM, on what we can learn from emerging markets
The slave trade touched the lives of people around the globe, explains Colonial Williamsburg's Educational Program Development director Bill White.
Staff Archaeologist Meredith Poole explains how each layer of soil yields subtle clues.
Portraying lesser-known historical figures gives Willie Balderson an opportunity to relate the experiences of the everyday man.
A gracious host, the Governor's Palace met the needs of nine governors and the Continental Army. Tom Spear details the venerable building's past.
In clear voice and high spirits, Kelly Kennedy sings Irish Christmas melodies.


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The MOST IMPORTANT ITEM you will ever read...Cancer Cure !Fri Oct 10, 2008 07:55126.96.36.199Ladies and Gentlemen:
How many people have skin or organ CANCER ? How many pets or people have skin cancers which we do not know how to cure ? A CURE HAS BEEN FOUND, TRIED AND WORKS. Please pass this on to every list Worldwide :
Dear Mr. President and others:
Today in America we use Chemo Therapy, Radiation, Surgical procedures, Liquid Nitrogen freezing of nodules of cancer on the skin when an Italian Doctor [Oncologist] Tullio Simoncini has discovered ALL CANCERS ARE A FUNGUS thus one can use Sodium Bicarbonate into tumors for curing same. Skin cancers are cured using 7% Iodine solution with 85 % Alcohol, 5% Sodium Iodine or Iodide plus the balance solution of perhaps 2 % deionized or distilled water. Imagine how many lives could be saved WORLDWIDE accepting what Dr. Bellini and Dr. Simoncini state to anyone who sends an e-mail with questions on Cancer.
FEMA has people in flood areas in Trailers FULL OF MOLD/MOULD getting sicker each day they stay in flood areas in trailers which often have been contaminated. Residences with showers or tubs have mold/mould growing inside Professionally as a State of Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC032631 we found only one product available "MOLD ARMOR" from http://www.moldarmor.com which is effective 100% killing any mold it is sprayed on as it also kills Mildew plus removes the stains. The solution contains Sodium Hypochloride as well as Sodium Hydroxide which should be sprayed in and outside of any Trailer or equipment then leave the area allowing no pets or humans to be inside while it works. Such a product made by DAMP RID is well worth government review and use, especially overseas to protect all American's and Illegal Aliens alike.
American or Foreign Corporations have workers or visitors going into Mold/Mould contaminated buildings/buildings/equipment, some in the Government itself PLUS our military and civilians are exposed to heavy toxic mould Worldwide. All vehicles flooded then resold should be treated for Mold/Mould before being sold to the unsuspecting public. Please have the Surgeon General and staff of all VA Medical Facilities/Government Building Professionals and Military and Civilian leadership TEST FOR MOLD/MOULD.
My skin cancer areas are being cured with CVS or Walgreens Iodine Tincture 2% since DEA restricts release of critical 7% Iodine Strong like from Humco in Texarkane Texas which has 1 OZ bottles and we have ordered our own shipment with formula 7 % Iodine, 85% Alcohol, 5% Sodium Iodine, 3% Deionized water solution to speed up the process. I lost my mother to Cancer not knowing of the Dr. Tullio Simoncini discovery and treatment. No one should EVER not be able to see this information NOR not be able to get even skin cancer cure materials without going through the DEA or a Doctor Licensed by the DEA who must account for every drop of 7% Iodine solutions used in America. I can fly to Rome tomorrow and get all of the solution necessary, return and treat myself rather than use 7% Triodine for Horses on my skin. When YOU get skin cancer go to Walter Reed and let them make up a proper solution.
Please have this message reviewed by everyone in every building occupied by military and civilians PLUS all housing in all bases and start saving lives TODAY !
Ralph Charles Whitley, Sr.
a Decorated American Veteran
4532 W. Kennedy Blvd. PMB-276
Tampa, FL 33609-2042 USA
Phone: 813-286-2333


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FHLBank Atlanta provides its members and housing associates with a reliable source of long-term, attractively priced funding to finance home mortgages, home equity loans, commercial real estate, small business loans, and other types of lending activity.
We offer flexible and innovative products that can help you manage interest-rate risk and meet your community investment needs. In addition, we provide a competitive secondary market alternative if you are funding residential mortgages.


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Characters Fridge Funny Headscratchers Heartwarming Laconic Main NightmareFuel Trivia VideoGame WMG YMMV main index Narrative
I'm living in the 21st century, doin' something mean to it Saints Row The Third, released between November 15 and December 16, 2011 on console and PC, is set a few years after The Third Street Saints managed to take Stilwater for their own. Having evolved from street gang to sellout celebrities and a brand name, the Saints soon find themselves apprehended in a failed bank heist; after a legendary criminal fraternity called The Syndicate then buys them out of jail, the Saints are given an ultimatum of handing over the majority of all future profits or their lives. The Syndicate's attempt to negotiate goes as well as you'd imagine, and the Saints soon find themselves stranded in Steelport, a city controlled by three color-coded gangs:Doin' better than anybody you ever seen do it Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it I guess every superhero need his theme music — Kanye West, "POWER"
Provides examples of: open/close all folders Tropes A-H
Tropes I-Q
Tropes R-Z


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The woman who reported she was bound and robbed while staying at Aroldis Chapman's Pittsburgh hotel room back on May 29 was charged with a count of false reports to law enforcement, a misdemeanor by the Pittsburgh police department today. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Claudia Manrique, 26, of Silver Spring, at first told Pittsburgh […]
Woman in Aroldis Chapman's Pittsburgh hotel room robbery charged
06/20/12 at 5:30pm by | Comments
Arroyo, Chapman do a song for MLB Fan Cave
06/19/12 at 12:57pm by | Comments
Reds fans already know that Bronson Arroyo is musically inclined, but did you know that Aroldis Chapman is as well? Well, maybe he isn't, but the 'Cuban Missile' and Arroyo did a song together this weekend while the Reds were in New York. The song is a take on an Adam Sandler tune, "Red Hooded […]
Aroldis Chapman being sued
05/18/12 at 2:18pm by | Comments
Aroldis Chapman is being sued for 18 million dollars. The lawsuit accuses the Reds relief pitcher of conspiracy to detain and torture the plaintiff. The fireballing left-handed relief pitcher is being sued for $18 million under the federal Alien Tort Claims Act and an anti-torture law. The suit, filed Friday in federal court in Miami, […]
Aroldis Chapman vs. Homer Bailey: State your case
04/10/12 at 11:21am by | Comments
There has been a lot of chatter from fans about which pitcher, Aroldis Chapman or Homer Bailey belongs in the starting rotation. We have heard strong arguments on both sides of the debate, and now want to hear what you have to say. Submit your case for either pitcher below.
Chapman's best game
04/27/11 at 6:45pm by John Fay | Comments
Aroldis Chapman lit up the radar gun Wednesday. But he did it completely under control. It was a glimpse into what the Reds might have with Chapman. Dusty Baker brought on Chapman to face Rickie Weeks, who had won Tuesday's game with a home run off of Logan Ondrusek. Baker ignored the book and set […]
Notes on Chapman, Bruce and more
04/13/11 at 5:06pm by John Fay | Comments
Aroldis Chapman probably had less velocity last night than he's had in any appearance as a Red. He hit 98 mph only once. Everything else was 94 or below. "He was throwing fastballs," Reds manager Dusty Baker said. "You don't have the same fastball everyday. You don't have the same nothing everyday. You don't have […]
Reds 3, Dodgers 1
03/03/11 at 11:55pm by John Fay | Comments
The arms: Travis Wood started and allowed one hit over two innings. He struck out two. Francisco Cordero allowed a hit, a walk and two stolen bases in his inning but escaped without damage. Matt Maloney went three innings, allowing a run on three hits. He struck out three. Aroldis Chapman worked a perfect seventh, […]
Reds lineup vs. Dodgers; updates with Bruce scratching (he's ill)
03/03/11 at 3:19pm by John Fay | Comments
Lineup for tonight's 9:05 ET game with the Los Angeles Dodgers: Drew Stubbs 8 Brandon Phillips 4 Joey Votto 3 Scott Rolen 5 Jonny Gomes 7 Danny Dorn rf Edger Renteria dh Ryan Hanigan 2 Paul Janish 6 Travis Wood p, followed by Francisco Cordero, Matt Maloney, Aroldis Chapman and Sam LeCure. That's pretty close […]
Four Reds on MLB Prospect Watches
01/22/11 at 11:12am by Dave Clark | Comments
MLB.com has been rolling out its lists of baseball's top 10 prospects at each position (leading up to its overall Top 50 Prospects list to be unveiled on Tuesday), and Aroldis Chapman tops the site's list of best left-handed pitchers. Here's Jonathan Mayo's blurb about Chapman: When news about his triple-digit fastball in the Minors […]
How Chapman Throws 105
10/10/10 at 11:29am by | Comments
Ever wonder how Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman throws so fast? Well, Sports Science from ESPN recently broke down the "Cuban Missle" to find out how.
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Ronald Nelson
GENESEO — Ronald W. Nelson, 57, of Geneseo passed away Monday, Sept. 23, 2013, at his home.
Ron was born on April 8, 1956, in Princeton, the son of Carl and Mabel (McAtee) Nelson. He graduated from Manlius High School in 1974 and went to the University of Illinois where he earned an agricultural engineering degree in 1978. He was united in marriage to Kelly K. Oloffson on June 11, 1977, in Manlius. Ron worked as an engineer for 33 years at John-Deere Harvester Works in East Moline.
He was a member of the First Lutheran Church in Geneseo. Ron was also a member of the Joyfull Hearts Worship and Praise Band at First Lutheran. He coached baseball and basketball teams for his sons in their youth. Ron also thoroughly enjoyed accompanying his daughter Tracie to her horse shows and would do all the grooming on the show days for her. Ron enjoyed playing guitar and spending time with his grandchildren.
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International Speculators as the Giants of Negative National Productivity
What if you ordered the people of a nation from the most productive to the least productive, going into the negative to the biggest destroyers of national productivity?
Introductory note by someone in Yakima, Washington:
This article by Scott Baker is exactly my kind of economics but for one small adjustment. To me the essential people in providing the goods we need are the engineer, the entrepreneur and the laborer. The essential environment includes land (natural resources) and credit (social resources of savings, know how and a token reinforcement system that permits market relations and establishes consumer sovereignty) . The unnecessary man is the monopolist of national credit by organized crime -- this person is called the financier, the capitalist or, as Bernard Baruch liked to be called, the speculator.) Libertarians like Ron Paul, Celente, and most of you confuse the speculator-capitalist with the entrepreneur. Nothing has killed entrepreneurship as much as credit manipulating, monopoly making international capitalism. Yet it is the speculators -- Jewish organized crime -- who are getting all of the bailout money. (Oh, yes, what about government? Government is part of national resources -- government is necessary to regulate the system to determines what kind of system it will be -- having socialism over a market economy is not a matter of goverment versus no-government. Both require government to set up the conditions, it is just that with a market-based social-credit system that allows for national household economic sovereignty the dials must be set one way and for debt-slavery economics by which the speculators thrive on war and klepastrophes the dials will be set another. When speculators gain control as they did after the US Civil War and especially with World War One and the Great Depression the Cold War and the War on Terror they obtain such tremendous monopoly and wealth accumulation power that they can set up an "obey me or starve" system whereby everyone is their slave, especially the representatives that can only be elected with the sayso of the money power. Under these conditions the dials of government will be set to war and kleptastrophe all the time.
Following the article by Baker I have attached a youtube URL for the video clip "A Very Profitable War" -- showing clearly how Iraq was just another corporation taken over Enron-style by the Money Power. This video shows exactly how that works, in case you never noticed.
Trying to save the world is like morphine -- it is the only thing that really reduces the pain. The secret ingredient, of course, is hope, however forelorn.
The Least Productive People
by Scott Baker
Productivity, as determined by labor output, has been measured for decades, or longer. But, while it's important to look at who, or what, is the most productive person or enterprise, shouldn't we also look at the least productive people, that is, the least effective laborers? Perhaps by understanding who the least productive people are, we can learn how to make them more productive. This would help them, and help society.
So, who are the least productive people?
Well, on the first take it might be tempting to look at those who don't labor at all, or those whose labor doesn't produce anything that satisfies human desires the ultimate goal of production. Let's exclude children and the very old or infirm from this tally. While it is true they are not productive, in the case of children, we expect great things from them in the future, and in the case of the every old, they may have produced a lot in the past. Finally, in the case of the infirm, there is only so much one can do when nature limits your abilities.
This would seem, at first, to leave the poor, or even the homeless. After all, the modern-day cold and calculating economists tell us, if those people were productive, than society would reward them for their labor.
So, is that it? Do we get to the zero line and say, "That's the bottom. That's the least productive people are capable of being"?
No. There is another class of human beings we've neglected, a group that exists below the zero line, sometimes reaching up to drag us down below with them or, at least, to take our money down with them. This, of course, is the criminal class, not just the robbers, burglars and muggers who directly take our money, but the ones whose labors injure us or our loved ones and make us incapable of producing ourselves, thereby adding a second minus to their own.
So, maybe that's it then. We just need to find the most heinous criminal; the one who's taken the most lives, or swindled the greatest amount of money out of productive people, and we have our candidate for the Most Unproductive Person, the winner of the Golden Unpro.
Let's see if we can think of a few individuals to nominate then.
How about Bernie Madoff? According to Wikipedia, the amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost $65 billion. However, the court appointed trustee estimated actual l(http://www.progress .org/2010/ barofsky. htm): losses to investors of $18 billion.
But, wait a minute. Henry George tells us that investor money is really "speculative money" and doesn't actually produce very much, if anything. That is, I may buy a stock from you, and you might make a profit while I eventually sell it at a loss, but nothing of value has been created between us. Your pile of money has simply grown while mine has shrunk. True, companies that are invested in are able to borrow money, using their investor's money as collateral as highly volatile and unreliable as that is, as we recently discovered during the Great Crash of 2008. But nothing is actually produced from investors' money. There is not much labor involved either which, of course, is what makes investing in the markets so attractive, at least until the bubble bursts. Yes, of course, the investor-speculator s will all say they polish their green eyeshades daily and scrutinize their investments mercilessly. But, when 95% of the money managers can't beat the dumb S&P index over 10 years, perhaps this is labor we can redirect to more productive uses. Or, as Michael Hudson stated in a recent article:
The wealthiest 10% lend out their surplus to become debts owed by the bottom 90%. By charging rent and interest and by shifting taxes off themselves onto workers, the wealthiest enjoy a rising share of gains.
This is not what Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations. This extraction is a form of overhead, not a technologically or economically necessary cost. It is a zero-sum game -- one party's gain (that of Wall Street usually) is another's loss.
Well, there is no doubt the legal system found the labor of Madoff to be counter-productive, or at least, wealth-destroying, since it sentenced him to 150 years in prison or more than 10 times the average sentence length for First Degree Murder in states without the death penalty. At least the courts have their priorities straight! Paper wealth, even if unlabored for, is legally worth far more than a human life.
But, we can do better in searching for the least productive people. Now that we know what pool to look into, let's go after some big fish. For example, according to Answers.com:
"When the U.S. economy fell into recession in 1990, Trump's highly leveraged business empire threatened to collapse. Entities of the Trump Organization, or Donald Trump personally, had incurred more than $5 billion in debt--$8.8 billion, according to one source--of which almost $1 billion had been drawn solely on Trump's personal guarantee. Big New York banks had financed $3.75 billion worth of debt. They reduced their risk and collected fees by syndicating the loans to some 70 other banks...Most of this money was recovered after subsequent restructurings, but some $600 million to $800 million may have been lost. Forbes magazine had estimated Trump's worth at $1.7 billion in 1989, making him the nation's 19th richest man. But two years later it assessed his worth at minus $900 million, making him a heavy contender in the world's poorest man category"
The "Donald,' as he is affectionately called, is an interesting case, wildly productive at times, and a negative producer at others (at least if one takes into balance the sucking out of capital to "resuscitate" his business enterprises, at the expense of other potential borrowers), much like the Real Estate market he speculates in. No surprise there, since we Georgists know that the true cause of economic busts is when Rent has been pushed beyond what labor and capital can pay, leading to a collapse and a stoppage of production"eventually. Of course, unlike the average foreclosed-upon homeowner, the Donald has rich creditors all over the world to fall back upon. Or, perhaps it is like that old saying: when you owe a bank a hundred thousand dollars, it is your creditor, when you owe them a billion, it is your partner. I won't go further than that because Trump also engages in another zero-sum game suing people he disagrees with. Make no mistake, however, I do want him to continue the productive business of erecting buildings! Moving on"
We need something more, someone who subtracted even more substantially from the commonwealth pot, even beyond being a active but unwitting pawn in what the fickle market removed. We need someone who labored hard, apparently, but who ultimately destroyed both capital and jobs (other people's ability to labor).
Well, we can start by looking at some of the top candidates for worst CEO of all time from CNBC.COM (http://www.cnbc. com/id/30502091/):
Vikram Pandit - Citigroup
Pandit didn't create the mess Citi is in, but"when Pandit took over, Citi was already on track to report write-downs and increased credit costs of $20 billion. Today, the banking supermarket is propped up by $45 billion in bailouts and is, in effect, owned by the U.S. government.
THE STAT: Although Pandit's currently earning $1 a year, his pay package was valued at $38.2 million for 2008, a year when taxpayers kept the firm in business.
Carly Fiorina Hewlett-Packard
A consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.
THE STAT: HP stock lost half its value during Fiorina's tenure.
Stanley O'Neal Merrill Lynch
Stanley O'Neal's abrasive personality and ruthless cost cutting earned him many enemies, but his push toward riskier bets and subprime exposure led to his ouster. After Merrill posted the biggest quarterly loss in its 93-year history--and O'Neal was caught approaching Wachovia about a merger without the board's approval--he was finally fired.
THE STAT: O'Neal walked out the door with $161.5 million in severance.
Gerald Levin Time-Warner
Levin's failure comes down to one colossal mistake: In his desperate eagerness to become a new-media CEO, he orchestrated a megamerger between Time Warner and a vastly overvalued AOL--one of the worst acquisition deals ever. "He had the largest midlife crisis in the history of American capitalism," one of our panelists quipped.
THE STAT: The AOL deal destroyed over $200 billion in Time Warner shareholder value.
Martin Sullivan American International Group
This is the guy who approved those "retention" bonuses that AIG tried to pay after sucking up nearly $200 billion from U.S. taxpayers. Sullivan was ousted before the bailout, but his inaction as CEO helped create AIG's mess. He brushed off the firm's subprime exposure as "manageable" while writedowns mounted and the firm recorded its two largest-ever quarterly losses.
THE STAT: Sullivan's severance package was $25.4 million, including $322,000 for private use of corporate aircraft.
John Sculley Apple Corp.
Sculley forced Steve Jobs out of Apple. Enough said. But let's continue: Though he was a brilliant marketer at Pepsi, he proved to be disastrous as the top manager of a tech company and unsophisticated about the technology field. His tenure was marred by infighting among top managers and expensive projects that flopped in the marketplace. (Remember the Apple Newton?) Sculley boosted the price of the Macintosh when personal computer prices were falling. The board ousted him in 1993, when Apple was slipping toward bankruptcy.
THE STAT: In 1987, Sculley was reported to be the highest-paid executive in Silicon Valley, earning a then-unheard- of $2.2 million.
Roger Smith General Motors
The CEO's job is often thankless, and no one was ever thanked less than Roger Smith, General Motors chairman from 1981 to 1990 and the unwitting stooge of Michael Moore's mockumentary Roger and Me.
He started his career at the company in 1949 as a green-eyeshade guy, a lowly accounting clerk. His 1984 reorganization attempted to streamline GM's back-of-the- house operations but was, in a word, a disaster. It sowed confusion and disorder that practically idled the automaker for months. Current CEO Rick Wagoner has said, "We've been 12 to 14 years digging out from that."
Al Dunlap Scott Paper/Sunbeam Corporation
Picked by the board of Scott Paper Co. as the man to turn the struggling company around, Dunlap earned his nickname "Chainsaw Al" by slicing 11,000 employees. When Scott merged with Kimberly-Clark, Dunlap's payoff was estimated at more than $100 million.
Dunlap's memoir/manifesto, Mean Business, roughly coincided with his next CEO star turn, which was also to be his last. Sunbeam's stock surged on the news that the Chainsaw was coming; massive workforce reductions and factory closures followed within months.
Unable to flip Sunbeam to a new buyer, as he'd done with Scott, Dunlap was stuck actually running the company. He failed spectacularly. Within two miserable years, the board fired him. The tactics he'd used to stave off losses--the company overstated its net income by $60 million, which was real money back (in 1998)--earned him a civil suit from the SEC and a class-action suit by shareholders. Dunlap eventually settled both and was barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company.
Bernie Ebbers - Worldcom
The ultimate corporate shopaholic, Ebbers bought an obscure telephone carrier in the 1980s and went on a 17-year acquisition binge that turned it into the world's largest telecom company. Alas, his passion for dealmaking didn't translate into the savvy necessary for running the complex business. When telecom stocks went south in 2000, the company's massive debt was exposed. Ebbers tried to disguise it through fraudulent accounting. In 2005, three years after WorldCom filed for bankruptcy, he was convicted of overseeing $11 billion worth of accounting fraud. He's now serving a 25-year prison term.
THE STAT: When Ebbers resigned, in 2002, WorldCom stock had fallen to $1.79 from a peak of $64.50 in 1999.
Ken Lay - Enron
When it comes to bad CEOs, Lay was the complete package: He was not only dishonest but disastrously inept as a manager as well. Lay, who founded Enron and turned it into a $70 billion energy company, was uninterested in the day-to-day tasks of running the business.
Consequently, he gave free rein to untrustworthy subordinates like Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow. He also signed off on a maze of convoluted transactions that formed the basis of a massive accounting fraud that would wipe out investors and bring down the corporation. Lay was convicted of securities fraud in 2006. If he hadn't died soon afterward, he would have faced as many as 30 years in prison.
THE STAT: Enron stock lost 99.7 percent of its value in 2001.
Angelo Mozilo - Countrywide
Meet the man who made subprime a household word. Once a symbol of self-made accomplishment- -a butcher's son who built the largest mortgage lender in the country--Mozilo became blinded by success and began going after the riskiest and most unsavory of borrowers to boost his company's market share. In doing so, he legitimized a sector that would ultimately bring down the economy.
THE STAT: Mozilo's once-secret, now-infamous "Friends of Angelo" program provided loans on favorable terms to politically influential borrowers, including Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd.
Dick Fuld Lehman Brothers
When your hubris triggers a national financial panic, you're a shoo-in for top prize. Fuld's reckless risk-taking may have been typical of Wall Street, but his refusal to acknowledge that his firm was in trouble--and take the steps necessary to save it--was beyond the pale. Since filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history ($613 billion in debts outstanding) , Fuld has been belligerent and unrepentant. Even Bernie Madoff said he was sorry.
Jay Gould (Railroad Magnate)
When it comes to unscrupulous behavior, Gould makes (Michael) Milken look like a sweetheart. A railroad developer and speculator, Gould sold out his associates, bribed legislators to get deals done, and even kidnapped a potential investor. He duped the U.S. Treasury, pushing up the price of gold and prompting a scare on Wall Street that depressed all stocks. After hiring strikebreakers during a railroad strike in 1886, he was reported to have said, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
THE STAT: When Gould died, his fortune was worth an estimated $67 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
It's difficult to pick the most unproductive corporate leader from the list above, but perhaps that is not the point. From this list of the unlucky 13 (out of 20 on CNBC's rogues gallery), only one Bernie Ebbers was ever punished with jail time (though Ken Lay was headed there before he died in 2006).
Jay Gould, perhaps the winner of the most Vicious CEO of all time award, and a contemporary of Henry George, was never punished at all, and was estimated to have personally, 1/185th of the nation's GDP at that time he died (http://money. cnn.com/gallerie s/2007/fortune/ 0702/gallery. richestamericans .fortune/ 9.html). Things have not gotten any better; in 2006, Bill Gates' personal fortune was estimated at 1/152nd of GDP that year (http://money. cnn.com/gallerie s/2007/fortune/ 0702/gallery. richestamericans .fortune/ 5.html). Quite apart from whether these men have contributed so much to society as to be personally worth a significant portion of the nation's wealth, compared to hundreds of millions of other workers, is the question of what might have been done with some of that money, if returned to the community. Of course some of them may say they gave enormously to charity, and that is true, but perhaps Americans would like to be under a system that is not so paternal, as well as one that is not so economically skewed. Can we not provide for ourselves, if given the chance? Also, these men have suppressed competition in their own far-reaching industries, thereby depriving us of who-knows-how- many new inventions or ways of doing things, so that is a negative to be subtracted from their production.
Finally, many of the corrupt business leaders, even when they were finally booted out, made off with tens, or even hundreds, of millions of dollars, while thousands of workers lost productive livelihoods and quite often, their life savings. In the most recent meltdown, finally triggered, according to many economists, by the $613 Billion (in debts) collapse of Lehman Brothers, CNBC's #1 worst CEO of all time, Dick Fuld, went both unrepentant and unpunished - and with nearly $72 million in total compensation. When Bob Nardelli was fired from Home Depot by an angry board of Directors, he received $210 million in severance (http://www.msnbc. msn.com/id/ 16451112/). Full Disclosure: when I was laid off (not fired) from my job as Manager of Information Systems when my department was phased out after 22 years, I received a severance package as well. It was somewhat less than $210 million.
Lesson Learned: If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly, and fail quickly.
If one looks over the list, one can't help but be struck by the number of wealth destroyers who made their fortunes in large part through speculation in the "Land' markets (by Land, I, of course, mean George's definition to include all of Earth's Natural Resources). Only John Sculley and Roger Smith could properly be said to have failed without the help of stock or resource market implosions. It's a bit understating things to merely say the other 11 candidates for the Golden Unpro would have done things differently if we had a true, Georgist, Land Value Tax and something equivalent for the Stock market (I am willing to admit the possibility that just a LVT may still be enough, even in this post-George, shadow-banking era) most likely there would have been different CEOs altogether for those companies, pursuing different ways of doing business. Workers at Hewlett-Packard and General Motors might not have been laid off by the thousands; Worldcom and Enron would have remained boring, but stable, utility companies providing a real service. Is it impossible to imagine a railroad company being made without the ruthlessness and gargantuan self-enrichment of Jay Gould, and instead paying the community for the land it used? Henry George, of course, did imagine just that.
CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner once said that billionaires competed against each other to see who would be the top billionaire. Well, is it so hard to imagine such titans could not be just as happy competing against one another to be merely the top millionaire, if millionaires were all that existed? Would society be lessened? Would output per CEO be reduced? Is it credible to say that Bill Gates, currently estimated to be the world's richest person, actually sat in his college dorm room in his younger days, contemplating dropping out of college to found Microsoft and asked himself, "Gee, I'd like to start a software company, but I really can't see the point unless I make at least $20 billion at it?" Or, did he just see an opportunity to do something game-changing and challenging, with, perhaps, some lucrative, but unspecified, reward down the road?
In fact, we now have ample empirical studies and social proof that excessive pay does NOT lead to superior performance, and may even lead to the opposite, by focusing executives labor on short-term, unproductive, activities. A summary of these findings (http://management. about.com/ cs/generalmanage ment/a/CEOsOverp aid.htm) tells us:
According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker.
"Pay for performance" , tying executive compensation to the financial success of their company, has become very popular in the past decade. In the face of the largest bull market ever, that isn't surprising. It also isn't realistic. What CEO honestly believes that all or most of the appreciation in value of their company is due to their own talent?
ZD Net's Total Compensation Vs. Total Return To Shareholders chart (no longer online), shows that total return to shareholders was higher for many companies whose CEO compensation was under $500,000 than for companies who paid their CEOs multi-million dollar compensation (emphasis added).
Virtually all of the organizations and pundits who talk about the egregious wealth-destroying actions of top executives and other controllers of money-mountains act as if the only things wrong were moral character and a few regulations. None of them get to the core of the problem, as George did.
Money goes to where it can get the greatest return, and right now, and especially in the last 30 years, that has been in the FIRE sector. While there have been innovations in computing, materials, manufacturing etc. that have created real wealth, it is harder to make that case for financial innovation, where piles of money (really, credit) are merely shifted around, without producing anything of lasting value, while siphoning both money and opportunity from the shrinking middle class. Indeed, ex-Federal Reserve Chairman and current Economic Council Head to the President, Paul Volker, has said that the most important financial innovation of the last couple of decades has been the automated teller machine. And, Danny Latham, head of infrastructure, First State Investments, said, "We [infrastructure investment teams] need more real engineers and fewer financial engineers." Ah yes, how true, but where will get the money to pay them? We will get it from the Land, George answered, in the age of Jay Gould, 130 years ago. But this cannot happen unless we rip the plant out by the root, merely trimming off a few bad branches will not do. Ordinary workers have no chance to produce positive wealth when the top 1% is producing negative wealth. Like matter and anti-matter, wealth created by labor acting upon the resources of the earth gets annihilated when confronted by credit-wealth (which is not wealth at all). Worse, since the size of credit implosions are only limited by the imagination of those who created the initial bubbles in the first place, unlike goods and services, which are created from true labor and finite land, there is no limit on the anti-wealth side of the equation, hence no limit to their destructive capacity. If this kind of reaction could be placed in a bomb, it would destroy the world which, in a different way, it threatens to do.
Looking for the winner of the Golden Unpro, or the"Lex Overpaid CEO" and "thief" Award presented to Dick Fuld by the Financial Times, misses the point. The blame for the creation of the Speculator Class belongs to the same place as the blame for the creation of the Poor Class: to the absence of a tax on the finite resources of the Earth and on the actions of speculation itself. As George said in Social Problems, what good does it do society for someone to become the world's richest pirate, if all he is doing is merely stealing from the average seagoer?
Oh, and the homeless person we passed by earlier on our race to below the bottom for the most unproductive citizen? He's more likely than not to have had a job producing something at some time in the past, quite likely he served in the military, and, contrary to popular belief, there's only a 25% chance or so he has a mental illness. In any case, he is unlikely to ever be as counter-productive as most of the richly rewarded failures listed above. To achieve that level of unproductivity, you really have to be a Star.
http://newthinking. blogspot. com/
Scott Baker is a Senior Editor and Writer at Op Ed News, a Writer for DailyKos, and is the author of Neitherworld - a two-volume novel blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, and government conspiracy. He is a recent graduate of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York City and has had an article published in the Georgist newsletter - Groundswell - put out by Common Ground. Scott is a modern-day Renaissance Man with interests in astronomy, history, natural sciences, psychology, philosophy, Native American culture, and all future-forward top
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While American citizens get no health care, no relief from foreclosures and NO jobs....see where all OUR MONEY WENT
A very profitable war
Privatized warfare
These four minutes from the documentary "Iraq for Sale" were specifically banned by from being shown during a Congressional hearing by concerted action from Republican politicians.
http://www.brassche cktv.com/ page/103. html


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Posted by marlene on Aug 7, 2012 | 0 comments
The adventuresome character from Mark Twain's famous classic stories "The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn". 14 year old Finn, brought up by his father, the town drunk, has a difficult time fitting into society. Leaving home he encounters many adventures along the Mississippi River, the mischievious boy always seeking adventure has delighted readers for many years.
17″ tall and carved from solid maple wood with 13 moveable ball & spring joints. His hand painted face and hair has captured the mischievous look of Huckeberry Finn. Dressed in blue jeans and a rustic shirt along with his straw hat and fishing rod he is off for a trip down the Mississippi River.
LE: 25 pieces
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