text:
This is a legitimate question. She had to have known that the 2019-2020 term was going to involve a lot of conflict with Trump and his cronies, which she so very clearly?does not want to be dealing with. So why deal with it? Nobody is indispensable and it's not like anybody would fault an 80 year old for deciding that her best days were behind her. Hell, if her last act had been to win back the House* and then hand it off to somebody else (somebody who is not Steny Hoyer), it would have made her legend all the greater. Instead the legend is basically in tatters now, as she's made it abundantly clear that there is no Trump crime so great that it will move the Democratic House to do anything, because what's important is trying to pass a bill about prescription drugs with Trump (!) that wouldn't make a goddamn bit of difference (I think 25 drugs should take care of one shelf of my local CVS) and that is dead on arrival at any rate. It's hard not to conclude that the 2018 midterms were about different things for us and for them: for us it was about finally fighting back against Trump, for them it was mainly about getting those fancy gavels back. Hope they enjoy them.
I really don't want Donald Trump to win another term, though the thought of Pelosi, Schumer, and the rest of those superannuated schmucks getting the blame for their useless "opposition" does make me happy. Obviously Biden would get some blame too but the downside of Trump losing in 2020 is that these people will again get a pass for being terrible.
* The fundamentals were what won the House, ultimately, but I wouldn't say the healthcare strategy hurt.
I'm not saying that they're all bad, but virtually all of them are. If your lifetime goal is being president (as opposed to, say, having a rewarding career that leads to great success and puts you in a position where that is an actual and sudden possibility), then what sort of career are you going to have? I mean the answer to that is obviously Joe Biden's: doing whatever the powerful want done with some occasional embellishments and fripperies for the 99% in the hopes that the big money people owe you when the time comes. But then when you run it's nothing but, "Hey, what about when you did this?" Seems as though that would get tiresome since the point of all that stuff wasn't for them. Also it's your whole life for years and you're probably not going to be the president, so it's most likely time wasted. I don't get it.
Out of the top five Dems, the ones who have been running for president forever are obviously Biden, Harris and Buttigieg. Just obvious. Warren was apolitical until the '90s and if Sanders had really had this as a lifelong goal, it wouldn't have happened when he was 74 years old with a half-assed campaign that started at the last possible minute. (I would argue that the experience of the 2016 campaign in many respects converted Sanders into the sort of person who runs for president his whole lifetime, but we've been over that.) Biden's obviously been trying for 31 years now and Buttigieg kept to the plan he made up when he was fifteen or something even though the great office from which he is running is a mid-sized college town mayoralty and the time is not right for another try at electing Gary Hart. The weirdest thing about this is how bad Harris is at doing the thing she has been wanting to do forever and I don't really have an answer for that. Sometimes you think you're FDR but you're really Jeb Bush, I guess.
Yeah, I'm being a little bit of a dick with this, and by all accounts he might actually be done this time. But I'll have to see it to believe it. I know enough about Israeli politics to know that various parties who insist they won't make a deal to join party X pretty often then make that deal later on and suffer few consequences. And, frankly, I have zero faith that any other Israeli government will do anything to fix the situation with the Palestinians. They'll make it worse less quickly, perhaps, but who even knows about that?
My own rooting interest here is in a) Trump's insane mutual defense pact idea falling flat with a Bibi loss, and b) the end of Bibi as the spewer of wild conspiracy theories every year at the AIPAC conference, and just his influence in American politics generally:
I've never understood why so many Democrats really value relationships with a man who is essentially a Republican operative, but they genuinely seem to. An end to that would be great! But who knows if that will happen.
I was absolutely positive that SNL hired Shane Gillis because of the hate speech. It made sense to me: after all, they did have Trump host after the campaign started, and it's been a good long while since SNL caused any buzz. The notion that any media interest would have any principled aversion to the alt-right is simply implausible to me at this point. Plus, this is a huge corporation we're dealing with and just missing stuff like that is not what they do. There's a certain sort of sloppiness that isn't plausible to me from that kind of an organization. That they just fired the guy gives me some pause in that theory but not all that much, I tend to think that they misjudged the reaction and panicked. All I can say is that I'm genuinely curious to see that audition tape when it leaks out. Could be interesting.
I will give the man credit for being classy about it, but given that he's just achieved a lifetime of well-compensated work as a "free speech warrior," I guess he has every reason to be happy.
Every time I've read or heard anything about him, he immediately reminds me of all the ideas and attitudes I find most repellent about Silicon Valley tech bros. It's kind of astonishing just how absolutely terrible this dude is. For one thing, if Trump were in decent shape, he would make boasts exactly like this, which is something to be grateful for I suppose. It makes me mad though because Yang said it and actually made me feel sorry for Donald motherfucking Trump?for being bullied over his appearance by some rich young fit macho dude. Honestly, that's enough to get me to hate both of them.?But the thing yesterday with giving ten randos $120k is so bizarre. This is being passed off as a "pilot program," which makes it sound like a legit public policy research activity, but I remember enough basic statistics from college to know that an n of 10 is much too small to draw any conclusions from, and ultimately, what conclusions are to be drawn? That it's great to have that much more money in your life? Hell yeah it would be. But is that a premise that needs to be proven? And there's actually quite a bit of research into how people process one-time windfalls at this point. Given the specified one-year duration of this "experiment," one would expect this money to mostly be saved or used to pay down debt. If this idea actually does go through and the money doesn't mysteriously wind up disappearing somewhere (perish the thought!), my guess is that this experiment will prove the conventional wisdom correct. Good use of campaign funds, though I suppose most campaign fundraising goes to advertising anyway, and he did get a fair amount of that for the price of $1.2 million. Pretty impressive to buy that amount of free media.
I can't speak to the legal aspects of this, you can go here for that. But let's be honest about this. All Yang has done here is to rebrand the idea of a raffle. If you donate to Andrew Yang, Esq., for President 2020, you get a raffle ticket that might get you $120,000. Put that way, it sounds pathetic and desperate. But he managed to put a cool, techie/political slant on it, and it created buzz and got people talking. It's the Techbro way! And it also deserves to be said that UBI itself is a complete grift on the part of capitalists who want to find some more money someplace for consumers to spend so that they can keep on posting EXPLOSIVE EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. God forbid they reach a sustainable equilibrium and just spend their time perfecting and improving what they offer the public. I guess the upside is that UBI will never, ever, ever happen due to political impossibility. Anyway, kudos to Yang for piling grift on top of grift in a way that seems new for this side of the aisle anyway. It will be some time before the Democrats catch up with Republicans on the possibilities of political grift, but Yang definitely gives us a strong start. Shame that the show Silicon Valley?is ending, they could have worked a Yang equivalent into the mix. Might have been funny.
I had a hunch as to why Biden does a bit better head to head versus Trump than other Democrats and after looking at some polling crosstabs my hunch was correct:
AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Biden 61% 53% 51% 53% 42% 56% 49% 84% 63% Trump 29 37 42 41 52 38 45 6 29 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - 2 1 - 2 - 1 1 1 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 4 3 1 1 2 2 2 5 3 DK/NA 5 4 4 4 3 4 4 3 4AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Sanders 64% 52% 50% 49% 39% 56% 48% 86% 62% Trump 28 37 44 43 54 38 46 6 29 SMONE ELSE(VOL) - 2 1 1 2 - 1 1 - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 3 4 2 3 2 2 2 3 7 DK/NA 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 4 2AGE IN YRS.............. WHITE..... 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Warren 60% 50% 51% 50% 37% 54% 46% 85% 65% Trump 32 40 45 43 54 41 48 6 27 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 2 1 - 2 1 1 2 - WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 3 3 1 3 3 1 2 5 2 DK/NA 4 5 2 3 3 3 3 1 6
Do you see it?
Biden has a twelve-point margin among seniors. Sanders and Warren have about half that. The other differences aren't nearly as meaningful. Admittedly this is that Quinnipiac poll that was branded as an outlier, though given later polls it doesn't seem much of one, and what's important is the overall pattern at any rate which mirrors other polls (polls which don't give you the good stuff in terms of crosstabs). And it makes intuitive sense. The same poll has a trial heat of the Democratic contenders and Biden barely gets to single-digits among 18-34 year old voters, but cleans up among seniors. I guess having a campaign that is about 95% "goddamn it, but things were better in my day" makes you irresistible to old people! (And makes young people indifferent toward you.) It's almost as though campaigns are about emotion and storytelling rather than the substance of policy proposals. And while these numbers would lend themselves to an argument that the unique fusion of candidate and message here puts a Repub-leaning group even more in play and creates real landslide potential, just always keep in mind that a Biden presidency would be politically disastrous. Hillary Clinton was mocked for levels of youth support much higher than Biden has, and it's not exactly unfair to call Biden the factional candidate of old Democrats. Oh, he'll win young people if he's the alternative to Trump in the election, but does he have the understanding of Millennials and Gen Z to motivate them as president? All signs point to no! Also, expecting Biden to replicate Obamian political themes without getting the resulting Obamian political apathy is…unlikely, particularly since Obama had incredible charisma and oratory and Biden, well, doesn't.
Also, this is interesting:
PARTYID..... AGE IN YRS.............. INCOME............. Dem DemLn 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ <50k 50-100 100k+ Biden 33% 28% 10% 34% 37% 48% 34% 28% 33% Sanders 13 21 31 13 12 4 20 16 9 O'Rourke 1 2 1 2 3 - 1 3 1 Harris 8 3 6 7 10 3 3 8 12 Warren 19 19 25 19 15 20 16 23 23
There's this side debate about whether Warren is just some bougie ripoff of Bernie's AUTHENTIC WORKING-CLASS REVOLUTION but she gets almost the same support from poor people that Bernie does. She just also gets more support from other income brackets also. One could almost theorize that Warren is just a better politician who can craft appeals to a wider swath of voters while offering an almost indistinguishable platform. But she's not a man and she doesn't inaccurately call herself a socialist, which is probably what this is all about.
The logic of impeachment is pretty inescapable: Democrats came in saying, hey, let's do some oversight. The White House said no, we will not cooperate with any oversight at all. So the only real responses to this are these: impeachment or nothing. In other words, they either say to Trump that you're violating the constitution by not allowing us to do oversight and therefore for this and many other reasons you ought to be removed from office, or they just shrug and become the equivalent of the Roman Senate during the imperial era: they show up and vote on things, but they have no power and don't much care to have any. That's pretty much the choice. Sure, you can fudge it a bit, file some lawsuits that a Trumpian SCOTUS will never allow to succeed even if they're correct on the merits, throw around some SCORCHING RHETORIC, eat up some time and hope that Trump has a coronary and they're freed from having to act, promise EXTREME VETTING that is impossible because of the aforementioned stonewalling, etc., but the steady movement of House Democrats toward impeachment isn't just to thrill the base, it's because there really isn't any other option other than irrelevance. And it's not like there's any other way that the House Dems can make themselves relevant: Nancy Pelosi's supergenius move to ensure that there wouldn't be a shutdown during an election year (gee, who would take the blame for that?) leaves Democrats with no levers to pull in trying to rein in Trump, if they even wanted to. The "arranging deck chairs on the Titanic" is a highly overused metaphor, but at least arranging them has an aesthetic function, if a pointless one in a crisis. Those Democrats that don't want Trump to distract them from their legislative agenda that won't become law, which is more like trying to come up with the perfect deck chair arrangement as the Titanic sinks. These people are nuts, and unfortunately, the speaker is among them.
I seem to recall about nine months ago that people were arguing that dumping Pelosi was madness because she was a master legislator and she is that, but I'll say it again: we didn't need a master legislator to manage gridlock, and we still don't. What we need is someone who can manage the conflict with Trump and take it where it needs to go. We don't have that.
Q: It's April of 2021 and you've just found your groove as president. Your attorney general meets with you about the prospect of bringing charges against former President Trump and he says that, while the evidence is more than sufficient to do so, in his estimation it would be hard to get a conviction because the jury will surely include some staunch Trump supporters, regardless of the jurisdiction. Do you tell him to do it anyway or to hold off on doing it, and why?
Latest Tweets
Why Didn't Nancy Pelosi Retire In 2018? / https://t.co/ilPapw7TS1 ^Lev #Healthcare #NancyPelosi
People Who Run For President Their Whole Lives / https://t.co/BZbLcBuRD5 ^Lev #2020Elections #Democrats
Has Bibi Won Yet? / https://t.co/IzwiSjO0Ti ^Lev #Israel
The Gillis Weekend, or, A Martyr Is Born / https://t.co/ZtFSDgWMtk ^Lev
Andrew Yang / https://t.co/yuZR7et6Vd ^Lev #AndrewYang #Grifters
Wine Labels2012 Election 2016 Election Abortion Barack Obama Bullshit Bush Christianity Congress Conservatives Democrats Donald Trump Economy Fail Foreign Policy Fox News Gay Marriage Hatred Health Care Ignorance Insanity Law LGBT Issues Libertarianism Lies Media Mitt Romney Movies Music Policy Polls Quotes Racism Recession Republicans Right Wing Sarah Palin Stupidity Teabaggers Torture Truth Video War War Crimes War on Drugs War on Terror
Esteemed Wineries
- Ars Technica
- Atheist Revolution
- Balloon Juice
- Crooks and Liars
- Daniel Larison
- Emily L. Hauser
- Ezra Klein
- FrumForum
- Glenn Greenwald
- Jonathan Chait
- Kevin Drum
- League of Ordinary Gentlemen
- Little Green Footballs
- Margaret and Helen
- Pharyngula
- Radley Balko
- Right Wing Watch
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The A.V. Club
- TPM Muckraker
- Washington Monthly
Recent Trackbacks
- JungleMediaGroup: And lo, did Kennedy reap a whirlwind upon the land and they perished forever and ever
- Mike's Blog Round Up – Liberal View News: 30;] Library Grape notes that there might be poetic justice in...
- That Which We Have Heard & Known: An Unpreached Sermon
- Talk About Marriage: Struggling with my so called "Conservative" stance...
- Ann Coulter's New Trump Book Is Even Worse Than You Imagined – PoliticusUSA – News Usa Online: 30;]...
- Fox News Has a First Amendment Right to Lie – Updated 18 views | 0 comments
- Obama's Commencement Speech at Notre Dame – Video 15 views | 0 comments
- Jack Welch Is An Asshole 10 views | 0 comments
- Quote of the Day: Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged 8 views | 0 comments
- Jesus Will Care For You, Unless You're A Dirty Slut 8 views | 0 comments
- Megan McArdle Loves to Stamp and Splutter; Scream and Shout and Whine and Mutter 7 views | 0 comments
- I Heart Freddy Rodriguez 7 views | 0 comments
- I Guess They Can Blame Obama For Anything 7 views | 0 comments
- Teachable Moment: What "Straw Man" Really Means 6 views | 0 comments
- Please Welcome Our New Guest Blogger: Rupert Psmith 6 views | 0 comments
The Grapevine
- Crumbs (1)
- A House Of Cards (2)
- Would Trump's Defeat In 2020 End The Worldwide Ultranationalist Movement? (2)
- The Classic Old Man's Lament (1)
- Trump Is A Self-Parody (2)
- The Mooch Isn't Going To Save Us (1)
Wine Cellar
- September 2019 (11)
- August 2019 (15)
- July 2019 (18)
- June 2019 (21)
- May 2019 (23)
- April 2019 (26)
- March 2019 (20)
- February 2019 (20)
- January 2019 (26)
- December 2018 (23)
- November 2018 (24)
- October 2018 (38)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (25)
- July 2018 (19)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (30)
- April 2018 (23)
- March 2018 (33)
- February 2018 (32)
- January 2018 (22)
- December 2017 (32)
- November 2017 (26)
- October 2017 (21)
- September 2017 (37)
- August 2017 (30)
- July 2017 (36)
- June 2017 (25)
- May 2017 (30)
- April 2017 (25)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (20)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (23)
- November 2016 (30)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (20)
- August 2016 (38)
- July 2016 (26)
- June 2016 (23)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (15)
- March 2016 (32)
- February 2016 (26)
- January 2016 (17)
- December 2015 (22)
- November 2015 (33)
- October 2015 (22)
- September 2015 (16)
- August 2015 (15)
- July 2015 (22)
- June 2015 (22)
- May 2015 (16)
- April 2015 (14)
- March 2015 (11)
- February 2015 (18)
- January 2015 (24)
- December 2014 (18)
- November 2014 (28)
- October 2014 (16)
- September 2014 (19)
- August 2014 (22)
- July 2014 (26)
- June 2014 (27)
- May 2014 (21)
- April 2014 (25)
- March 2014 (21)
- February 2014 (33)
- January 2014 (31)
- December 2013 (25)
- November 2013 (32)
- October 2013 (57)
- September 2013 (32)
- August 2013 (57)
- July 2013 (56)
- June 2013 (44)
- May 2013 (42)
- April 2013 (41)
- March 2013 (66)
- February 2013 (42)
- January 2013 (74)
- December 2012 (67)
- November 2012 (44)
- October 2012 (51)
- September 2012 (35)
- August 2012 (50)
- July 2012 (36)
- June 2012 (35)
- May 2012 (51)
- April 2012 (42)
- March 2012 (64)
- February 2012 (85)
- January 2012 (79)
- December 2011 (68)
- November 2011 (76)
- October 2011 (67)
- September 2011 (55)
- August 2011 (53)
- July 2011 (44)
- June 2011 (71)
- May 2011 (103)
- April 2011 (107)
- March 2011 (120)
- February 2011 (124)
- January 2011 (82)
- December 2010 (97)
- November 2010 (92)
- October 2010 (93)
- September 2010 (80)
- August 2010 (44)
- July 2010 (63)
- June 2010 (33)
- May 2010 (60)
- April 2010 (34)
- March 2010 (50)
- February 2010 (66)
- January 2010 (67)
- December 2009 (72)
- November 2009 (78)
- October 2009 (91)
- September 2009 (75)
- August 2009 (105)
- July 2009 (81)
- June 2009 (178)
- May 2009 (152)
- April 2009 (147)
- March 2009 (86)
- February 2009 (52)
- January 2009 (118)
- December 2008 (18)


text:
Lincoln Trust on Tuesday launched a free plan comparison tool that allows financial advisors to compare various cost components between different 401(k) plans. Users input data from the plan providers and the tool generates a side-by-side comparison, with a benchmark of other comparable plans.
Users can access the tool at Lincoln Trust's website, but can compare plans from any provider.
"With so many different fees attached to the typical 401(k) provided by mutual fund and insurance companies, it can be difficult to determine the total cost of maintaining a retirement plan," Tom Gonnella, executive vice president for Lincoln Trust, said in a statement. "This tool makes it easier to assess total costs and allows for at-a-glance comparisons of up to three providers."
Also launched Tuesday is a proposal generator where advisors can enter investment information and plan costs and generate a proposal in PDF form that displays the total cost of a plan, including revenue-sharing agreements.
The proposal generator is only available to authorized users.
"The goal of these two state-of-the-art services is to facilitate the delivery of a fully transparent cost analysis for any advisor to access so they can add more value to their clients and prospects than the average 401(k) advisor in the marketplace," Gonnella said. "The initial usage of these tools has far exceeded our expectations and proves there is a real need by advisors to have access to this information to stay relevant."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
You have no items in your bag.
- Description
The Louis De Poortere patchwork rugs are inspired by an eclectic mix of designs from the East, combined with original European archives of the 18th century. This beautiful combination of design gives a rich flavour of our historic past. The modern and rustic colours allow our rugs to be teamed with every possible interior style.
Over a century of skill and craftsmanship is woven into every rug we produce. Woven on jacquard Wilton looms in a combination of pure new wool and cotton chenille, each beautiful rug has multiple layers of texture, distressed areas and intricate stitching detail to give a true 'vintage' look.
Woven in a fashionable flat weave construction, all our rugs are hand finished with reinforced corners and an anti-slip layer for a secure fit. There is a superb choice of sizes available too, ensuring there is a size just right for every room in the home.
- Material: 85% Cotton & 15% Wool
- Type: Jacquard Flatweave
- Colour: Beige
- Rug Backing: Non Slip
- Depth: 3mm
- Design Code: Vintage Ghent Beige - Louis De Poortere
- Cleaning Advice: Professional clean only
- Returns
KukoonRugs.com offers a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee on all products sold on this website that have not been altered for sale & excludes items on sale or clearance.
We want you to be 100% satisfied with your purchase. This is why we offer a straight forward returns and refund policy. - Returns will be charged at £4.95 for anything under 150cm width and £9.95 for anything over 150cm width (width being the smaller of the two dimensions of your rug).
You may return an item within 30 days of receipt for any reason (some exceptions apply – see below).
- The return request must be notified to us within 30 days of receipt
- Products must be returned in the condition they were received
- Products must be returned in the packaging in which they were received or something of a similar standard
- Returns must be booked by us here at Kukoon Rugs to qualify for the £4.95/£9.95 return charge
- Paperwork stating your order number, name and address must be included with the return
- We don't accept items for refund which have been purchased on sale or via our sale page
- We do not accept returns on items which have been altered for sale
Collections are booked via a range of couriers including MyHermes, UPS and TNT. We reserve the right to use the courier deemed most suitable by us here at Kukoonrugs.com.
*Please note that collections are only available as standard Monday-Friday during normal business hours. Please contact us for further information.
*Please note if you book a return yourself without contacting us and receiving confirmation you will be liable for all return costs.
You can find more information on the Order and Returns Information page.


text:
Visitor to the British International Motor show got a chance to see the latest in homemade, absolutely pointless (in a good way) transportation in the BykaTryka SK8. Surely the concept vehicle — angel investors take note — will fill a yet-to be recognized niche market, say, among drag-racing groundskeepers or biker gangs of very small, very nervous people with a penchant for popping wheelies. Either way, we're in for a few bucks.
Trike Psych !: Piaggio's Three-wheeled, Backwards Scooter [internal]


text:
When he collapsed in his apartment on June 1, dead at the age of 66, his friends and many of his listeners from his old WCCO-AM radio sports show were still trying to figure him out.
He had three names -- Dark Star, George Chapple and George Baird -- a seemingly endless supply of money and possibly two ex-wives, though some thought there were three. He drove a Maserati, took the name Dark Star from the 1953 Kentucky Derby winner and once falsified a subpoena to scare a man into apologizing when he felt he had been insulted.
He convinced an insurance company to pay him $285,000 when he said his baseball card collection was stolen, and stretched a dental procedure into a three-month leave from work. His mother, Phyllis, lived in an apartment down the hall from him until her death in 2007, and, according to a close friend, she had the security cameras angled in the garage so she could see when her middle-aged son was in for the night. He had two memorial services, one at Canterbury Park, the other at Interlachen Country Club in Edina.
In the end, Dark Star was a last-of-an-era character to many, and more than a bit of a scam artist to many others -- a man who was admired in Minnesota for an off-beat radio show and an outsized personality. Until the day he died, his friends marveled at his pied piper's ability to get the famous and the not-so-famous to drop what they were doing whenever he called.
And as they gathered to remember him in the days after his death, many said it mattered little that much of what came out of Dark Star's mouth was fiction. "You knew, deep down, that probably three-quarters of it wasn't true," said Kevin Gorg, a longtime Dark Star fan and now a local sportscaster. "You just kind of went along with it."
He sat dissecting baseball games with Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew. Former Vikings coach Denny Green told his lawyer, Joe Friedberg, that Dark Star was the only media personality in the Twin Cities he trusted.
Tom Kelly, the former Twins manager, also was a friend and played golf with Dark Star just days before he died.
"He was really good in a lot of small dosages," Kelly said, but "if you got a week of" him, it might not be as fun.
Kelly said Dark Star would call him during the season to discuss strategy -- but he downplayed his baseball acumen. "He had a working knowledge of what was basically going on, but I wouldn't get too carried away," Kelly said.
In recalling a trip Dark Star made to New Orleans, Eric Halstrom told a crowd at a memorial service that "I took part in [what] may have some criminal activity" involved. The story, which drew hearty laughs and knowing nods, began with Dark Star impersonating a doctor when a customer collapsed in an antique store. The paramedics arrived and the customer was hauled out, and later a thankful store owner shipped a pricey coffee table to the "doctor" in appreciation for his help.
A caring side
But the depth of Dark Star's impact transcended the outrageous.
A hush fell over the crowd at Interlachen when Ryan Lefebvre, a former Gophers baseball star and now a broadcaster for the Kansas City Royals, spoke of the help that came from Dark Star as Lefebvre fought depression. "He would say, 'I love you, dude.' And I would say, 'I love you, too, Pops,'" Lefebvre said of their frequent phone talks.
When Lefebvre turned 40, Dark Star wrote and explained why he had bothered coming to the aid of a "cocky, look-at-me, look-at-me punk." Said Dark Star: "I saw all the things I did wrong."
Sarah Frakes was in her early 20s when she met Dark Star at Canterbury Park seven years ago. She said she became his best friend, accompanying him to Yankee Stadium and to Las Vegas, where he won $28,000 on a single bet. She became a weekend sports anchor in Duluth, and Dark Star had visions of being her agent as she ascended up the sports media ladder.
When that did not materialize, she settled for lazy dinners and long conversations with him at the Blue Point Restaurant in Wayzata, a favorite haunt. "Over the last several years, I would have to say that I was with Dark more than anybody else," said Frakes, who bristles at those who think they were romantically involved. "Dark knew how upsetting [the rumor] was to me. It just made me mad."
If anything, she said, he became a fretting father figure. When she began dating a police officer he became "absolutely livid," she said, thinking she had made a poor choice. On another occasion, she said, he had a custom-made baseball cap with the words "Team Michael" stitched on front -- a reminder to Frakes that Dark Star was solidly in the corner of a boyfriend named Michael.
In her eulogy at Canterbury Park, she told the gathering that Dark Star once tried to buy a giraffe. "I guess I never pictured that when I was 22 years old that a guy in his 60s could have so much in common with me," she said.
It was all part of what drove the legend, which Dark Star did not seem to mind creating for himself. When a startled woman saw a bug in her salad at a dinner party, he reached in and ate it. That story came from Mick Stenson, the president of Davanni's Inc. George Anastos, the man who handled Dark Star's finances, joked that "I was not his financial adviser, I was his ATM. All I could do is slow him down." Anastos said that when Dark Star's mother died, Dark Star handed him a $10,000 check in gratitude for helping his mother.
Anastos said he immediately ripped up the check. "I could lose my license," Anastos told Dark Star.
"I watched George become this public figure, shaking my head, going, 'Oh, my God, how do you do that?'" said Anastos, who remained a longtime family friend.
By most accounts, Dark Star lived off a series of on-air endorsements, an inheritance from his mother and his earnings and a buyout from WCCO Radio. He seemed to be always uncorking the next sure-fire deal that occasionally panned out.
Relationships and sports
Dark Star's most enduring relationship was with his mother. They were one another's only living relatives -- Dark Star had no siblings -- and it was at his urging that Phyllis moved into the same apartment complex, and the two almost always ended their day with a 15-minute conversation.
Bill Weinberg, a childhood friend, said Dark Star's mother once lamented that her son probably never would have a long-term girlfriend because of his addiction to sports and, she laughed, because "he drinks a lot, stays up all night and gambles."
Colleen Hitchcock, who dated Dark Star in the 1970s, said the problem for any woman was prying him away from sports. Once, she said, she arrived for a date -- and ended up watching wrestling. Dana Smith had this distinction: Dark Star dated not only Smith's mother but later a classmate of Smith's who was almost half his age. When Dark Star dated Smith's mother in the 1980s -- Smith was 14 -- she remembered him taking her to stock car races. "[It] was a lot of fun," she said, but added that "you could easily be turned off by him, if you don't 'get' him."
His hold on people was easy to see. Dark Star hired two young sisters to run errands and clean his Minnetonka apartment. The errands included once fetching six rotisserie chickens, and the chores included winding the four grandfather clocks he kept in his bedroom. "When George would call us to do anything, we would always jump," said one of the sisters, Sarah Scoville. "It was never work."
Friedberg, his occasional lawyer, remembered first meeting Dark Star in the betting line at Canterbury Park. He said he was stunned as he watched Dark Star make bets against the horses he had picked that morning in a handicapping column he wrote for a local newspaper. Friedberg said he confronted the handicapper, called him a "thief" and remembered thinking that, as a criminal attorney who represented swindlers and forgers, he was likely talking to a "potential client."
One of the state's pre-eminent defense attorneys and one of its pre-eminent characters became fast friends, gambling buddies and, finally, former gamblers when Friedberg said they both quit. In one bizarre episode, Friedberg said Dark Star gave a phoney legal subpoena to a man Dark Star claimed was insulting him. The shaken man came to Friedberg's office holding the subpoena and Friedberg -- unsure of the legality of what was happening -- told him all would be forgiven by writing Dark Star an apology.
"Joe provided adult supervision for Dark," said Eric Eskola, another longtime WCCO Radio personality and Dark Star friend.
Despite having little experience as a radio host, Dark Star pestered WCCO program director Jon Quick for a job in the mid-1980s, showing up at his home and ingratiating himself with Quick's mother-in-law by bringing her obscure memorabilia from the long-ago Seattle World's Fair.
"We just took a gamble with him," he said.
Wendy Paulson, another WCCO Radio program director, moved Dark Star's show from mornings to late night, pairing the station's off-beat personality with a more off-beat audience. "That was really more his playground," she said.
Then again, there was not much, including his radio gig, that was not Dark Star's playground.
Rocco Bonello, a producer at WCCO Radio for Dark Star, remembered when the host turned a dental procedure into a long leave and spent it at a lodge in northern Minnesota. "He took the summer off, and he would check in every now and then," said Bonello, who described the episode as one of Dark Star seeing "how much he could get away with."
How often did Dark Star get into trouble with management, leading to suspensions?
"Now, why do you have to ask that?" Paulson asked, before largely declining to answer. "Dark is getting the last laugh because of the things we don't know that he did."


text:
Gump File, And It Sure Sounds Like A Monday
Listen to today's gump stories and vote for your favorite. Could be worth 50,000 VIP bonus points and a certificate to the Bonefish Grill some free Bang Bang shrimp. We have three stories today that just might make the gump hall of fame, you listen and decide. Enjoy.


text:
Currency Displayed in
RCSS Nev'r Strip Grade-5 Deep Socket Titanium Button Head Screws V1 (M3x6mm) (Sold in Sets of 5 Screws Per Bag)
Rc Speed Secrets Nev'r Strip Screws - Grade 5 Titanium Deep Socket V1 Button Head Screws
Redistribute weight in style around your buggy, stadium truck or short course in style with these new high quality Grade 5 titanium deep socket screws sold in packets of "5 Screws Per/Package". These are ideal to replace original manufactures screws with Hi-Grade titanium with the Bling Factor!!! These screws are virtually Strip-Free (Using High-Quality Hex Wrenches Like The MIP 2mm Hex Wrench etc.) (choose from our eye catching finishes: Stealth Black or Bada' Bling)
*We Recommend - Pre-tap plastics with a steel M3 screw before installation*
This product hasn't received any reviews yet. Be the first to review this product!
All prices are in USD.


text:
Lyndon R. brauchte ein neues Logo Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 202 Designs von 72 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
I'm a blogger from Toronto, Canada. I'm currently starting a new photo blog.
If your looking at the brand name, it's not a typo, it's a play on words.
My favorite photographer, says that the ideal street photographer would be like a ghost. The Indian word for Ghost is Bhoot and when you combine it with photo, it kind of sounds like Photo booth. Stop looking at me like that, you try finding and registering unique domain name with the word Photo in it :)
People/Online Community interested in portrait, company/community events, street photography.
*Updated* This is what I'm looking for. A fun cartoonish logo featuring a ghost/spirit shooting a photo with a camera.
BUT, I noticed that I liked a few of the designs that didn't exactly follow what I was looking for. If you have a creative design that you'd like to submit. Feel free to do so!! I may still take it into consideration, when I make my final decision!
The logo will be used primarily for branding purposes e.g. website logo, business cards, letterhead, etc.
I still haven't come up with a tagline. Just use the standard "Tagline Text" in it's place and I'll edit it later when I come up with one I like!
As far as colors go. Ghost should be the typical white,black or grey, color. Maybe semi-transparent?? Not really sure, but it's an option you can consider.
You can be as creative or plain as you want when it comes to the text. It doesn't need to be spooky or ghost related. I'm open to any colors you want. But I'd like something bright and bold. Or warm and inviting. Nothing dull like a pastel or light color.
NO Stock Images or Clip Art. I'd like something original, if I wanted stock I wouldn't be holding a design contest on 99designs :)
Final files should be compatible with Adobe Photoshop and a minimum 300 dpi. Image and Text should be on separate layers. (If I decide to use them separately)
To Sum it all up. Photography Website/Business Cards, Cartoon Ghost/Spirit, Colorful Logo Text
Best of Luck, I look forward to seeing your designs!!
Finden Sie heraus, wie ein Designwettbewerb funktioniert, oder lernen Sie mehr über unsere Logo-Design-Angebote.


text:
Results 1 to 2 of 2
A Audio weed: 1975 Miami at Colts Fog Bowl
This is the key game of the 1975 Season. The Colts, who were coming off two horrible seasons, started the year off 1-4 and then caught fire. They had won seven games in a row and needed to beat the Dolphins to remain in the playoff hunt.
This tight, exciting battle is broadcast by HOF Chuck Thompson and "The dean" Vince Bagli.
I will make copies of this game on CD for the first TWO people who PM me, WITH the condition that you in turn will post and make copies for two other people who would want this, and so on.
Re: A Audio weed: 1975 Miami at Colts Fog Bowl
If I knew how to make CDs, I'd gladly comply! If you ever post the audio on the internet or can e-mail it, I would appreciate it.
I was so plastered by the time this game got into OT that I missed out on much of the OT action. I just kept blinking and it was another 3rd & long and Bert Jones would connect. I sat in the upper deck Section 41, so I saw Linhart's kick go true. Then everyone rushing the field to rip out the goalposts. And the C-O-L-T-S cheers at least 10-15 minutes after the game, instead of the typical mad dash to the exits. I cannot remember such an exciting finish to a game since, except possibly Ravens-Seattle (which had just a fraction of the fans in the stands as the fog game).In a 2003 BBC poll that asked Brits to name the "Greatest American Ever", Mr. T came in fourth, behind ML King (3rd), Abe Lincoln (2nd) and Homer Simpson (1st).


text:
I was recently in the northern African country of Tunisia, where I was invited to talk about the importance of government transparency. What was on the minds of many Tunisians has considerable bearing on lawmaking here in Connecticut and, for that matter, the lawmaking now all too common throughout the United States.
In 2011, popular demonstrations led to the ouster of longtime dictator Tunisian Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The so-called "Jasmine Revolution" inspired other Arab countries to do likewise in what became known as the "Arab Spring." Many Tunisians, however, fear that their revolution, organized and led primarily by secular civil society, will be hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists who dominate the interim government and who are writing a new constitution and laws behind closed doors.
In a democracy, transparency is essential in lawmaking. It increases the public accountability of the lawmakers. It raises the public's confidence that all voices are heard. And it helps ensure that the laws are rational and in the public interest.
Transparent lawmaking means the public knows what's happening at each stage of the process — not just at lengthy hearings, where speakers get a few minutes each to comment on complex subjects, or at a choreographed floor debate after the real debate was held in closed party caucuses. Good lawmaking contemplates an open and robust discussion in the House and Senate chambers, as well as in the news media, and now over the Internet. It's the converse of the closed process that characterizes non-democratic governments.
Before Connecticut enacted laws in response to the tragedy in Newtown, there were many opportunities for members of the public to express their views. Indeed, vastly differing viewpoints were expressed. But before the legislature voted on two important bills, the process stopped being transparent and became closed and highly secretive.
There's an axiom in lawmaking that "the devil is in the details." The details of Connecticut's recently enacted gun bill, for example, comprise 84 pages in 99 separate sections. The contents were negotiated in secret by a few key leaders, ostensibly to promote bipartisanship — although how secrecy promotes bipartisanship is elusive.
Among the bill's provisions is one that creates a registry of people convicted of gun-related crimes. The registry, however, is not public. It's available only to law enforcement.
Connecticut has a sex offender registry that's publicly available online. So when people were finally able to read the gun bill, many wondered why the gun offender registry wasn't also public. If we have the right to know whether a neighbor was convicted of a sex crime, why shouldn't we know whether a neighbor was convicted of a crime involving a firearm?
Similarly, the legislature is considering a bill that would create a "special act" significantly curtailing public access to information about the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders. Among other things, the bill would cut off access to death certificates, 911 recordings, and photographs and videos — all of which are generally available in other cases. The proposed special act was negotiated and drafted in secret and became known only after an email came to the attention of an alert reporter.
The premise for negotiating and writing legislation in secret seems to be that it's easier to get things done without the public watching. In effect, the argument is that the end (getting a bill passed) justifies the means (secret lawmaking).
But does it? Or is the cost to democracy too high when a small group dictates the details of important legislation by co-opting a process that proclaims transparency, but in reality is closed and opaque at the most critical times?
As in Tunisia, Americans should fear that the lawmaking process is being hijacked. In our case, there are groups of government leaders who, for whatever reasons, take it upon themselves to forego transparency in an attempt to craft — or block — legislation. They make deals in secret. They include "rats" or "earmarks" — special interest provisions that often have not even been vetted in public hearings — hidden within the verbiage of complicated bills, such as essential budget implementers, that must be enacted into law. They sacrifice — at the most important stages of lawmaking — the open and robust public debate that democracy requires.
If this unfortunate trend continues unabated, we'll not only have more laws passed that are not in the public interest, we may also find ourselves living in a state and country that are democratic in name only.
Mitchell W. Pearlman is the author of the book "Piercing the Veil of Secrecy: Lessons in the Fight for Freedom of Information." He is former executive director of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission and teaches media law at the University of Connecticut.


text:
It's finally here! I can't wait to kick off this party. Today I will be sharing the full tutorial for my project. I just wanted to take a second to remind you of what will be happening this week...
Monday (March 7th) - full tutorial of my project.
Tuesday through Thursday- Guest posts from the other three blogs sharing their take on the craft.
Friday- Link party opens so you can share your creation too.
The link party will be open through the following week to give everyone time to get their craft done.
Following Sunday- Feature post from the link party and a sneak peak of next months craft. There is also a prize!
So....would you like to craft up my project?!!! Let's get started!
Materials needed:
- 1/4 inch thick MDF Board. I cut mine at 18x18.
- Vinyl decal Pattern (some subs for this are paint, rub-ons or cut out paper on cricut)
- Vinyl decal numbers
- 6x6 castine (Middle wood square...You can find these at Home Depot/Lowes fence section)
- Spray paint
- Black ink pad
- Ribbon
- Gorilla Glue
Pick out a design. I went to http://www.dafont.com/ and used one of their dingbats called Free Tiles. Check it out there are tons of other great designs.
I did a little more sanding, inking and added vinyl with my house number. Glue the castine to your board with gorilla glue. I decided to hang my sign by ribbon. This project would look great on your front porch...


text:
Precious few Americans can recall a time not consumed by crisis, whether the Great Depression, World War II, the cold war, oil and financial shocks, or – now – terrorism and global warming. In the modern 24/7 media age, we also ingest a steady diet of lesser emergencies du jour. Most of us grew up with the concept of "The Button" – the fear that our president may be obliged to push it at any moment, in the time it takes to swat a fly, which would destroy our enemies – and very likely ourselves, as well.
In such a relentlessly scary world, it was inevitable that the powers of the US presidency would grow. After all, how many fingers can fit on the top of a button – surely not 535? In his latest book, Bomb Power, Garry Wills argues persuasively that this concentration of power, and the concomitant expansion and secrecy of our national security state, began with the development of the atom and hydrogen bombs, and found its apogee during the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Our empire, Wills writes, is unlike previous historical examples and has been shaped by the exigencies of the atom and hydrogen bombs, which were deemed crucial to keeping the Soviet Union at bay: "America ... needed secure places and ships carrying nuclear weapons, and secure regimes providing storage facilities and launching pads for our missiles."
The idea of war by presidential fiat – which seemed to make sense in a nuclear age – soon would be applied to conventional conflicts and even third-world dust-ups, as well as to tangential areas of government authority. In advancing the power of their office, presidents kept secrets from Congress (even from their own cabinets), created off-the-books budgets for covert operations that included assassinations of foreign leaders, and usurped congressional power where they could. For example, presidents increasingly have taken to approving bills passed by Congress with accompanying "signing statements" that express the executive's views on, or objections to all or parts of the new law, with the clear implication that he may not enforce it rigorously, or will do so only as he sees fit.
George W. Bush holds the record, of course, objecting to 1,400 sections of bills he signed. Nowadays the executive wants to have the last word.
The Bush-Cheney administration broke new ground when it created military tribunals outside the existing court systems to try enemy combatants. In addition to bestowing the power to declare war on the Congress, the US Constitution gives the legislative branch the authority to establish and manage courts, Wills points out. One wonders: Where are the strict constructionists when we need them? In times of unending crisis, it is the president, not the nattering House and Senate, who steps into the breach and decides whether, for example, the nation should honor its commitment to the Geneva Convention, which Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under George W. Bush, termed "quaint" and "obsolete" when it came to the treatment of prisoners of war.
What Bush had wrought by 2008, according to Wills, began with the Manhattan Project, which Franklin D. Roosevelt set in motion in 1939. The atomic bomb was pursued under the assumptions that Germany was madly working on it, too (its less ambitious program began to peter out in 1942) and that it would be dropped in Europe. But the Nazis were defeated months before the bomb was ready. The Manhattan Project entailed unprecedented secrecy and was conducted way off the books. Vice President Harry Truman, the man who would order the bomb to be used on Japan, only learned of its existence upon Roosevelt's death.
Presidents ever since, Wills maintains, have reasoned that what was good for making the bomb could be applied to other endeavors, like the Central Intelligence Agency and its covert activities. The author cites an accounting by a New York Times reporter that America has overthrown 114 governments in the past 100 years, among them Iran and Guatemala (Eisenhower), South Vietnam (Kennedy), Grenada (Reagan), Panama and Haiti (George H.W. Bush), and Iraq and Afghanistan (George W. Bush).
The book also documents the way that secrecy required for legitimate national security purposes can metastasize to cover up governmental incompetence or malfeasance. President Nixon kept Americans in the dark about his secret bombing of Cambodia for political, rather than military, reasons; the Cambodians knew all about it the minute the first one exploded.
And what Americans don't know can hurt them, according to Wills, who argues that President Kennedy was so obsessed with bumping off Fidel Castro after the Bay of Pigs fiasco that secret, bungled assassination attempts induced the Cuban leader to seek missiles from the Soviets to deter America. Wills goes so far as to assert that the Cuban Missile Crisis, and our brush with thermonuclear war, was all Kennedy's fault.
While his book sometimes seems like a never-ending op-ed piece, Wills knows how to marshal his arguments, usually grounding them in the factual record. The reader also learns delectable tidbits of historical information throughout. For example, by the mid-1950s the United States had already built more bombs than it could ever use, the equivalent in destructive power of 192,000 Hiroshimas. Among other side effects, the effort consumed 6.2 percent of the nation's electrical power.
David Holahan is a freelance writer based in East Haddam, Conn.


text:
By using rectangular windows instead of circular windows, the demountable cell becomes a semi demountable cell. The semi-demountable cell can be used either as a demountable cell or as a sealed cell for high-viscosity liquids or mull samples.
Item(s) added to cart.
Please enter valid quantity
Please log in to add favorites.
The Semi-Demountable Cell can be used either as a demountable cell or as a sealed cell for high-viscosity liquids or mull samples. Combining two different requirements into one cell allows a myriad of different sampling applications. Two cells in one- Demountable and Sealed Cell. Easily disassembled for cleaning. For Liquid Samples: After assembling the cell, you can introduce the liquid sample through injection ports that are part of the top plate. The windows and spacers are not cemented together, allowing you to disassemble the cell easily. The Semi- Demountable Cell is ideal for samples that are hard to clean or for unknown liquids which may contain moisture and attack hygroscopic window materials. For Mull Samples: Liquid cells can also be used if your sample is a Nujol™ mull or a capillary film, just use two undrilled windows and use the cell as a straight demountable cell. Select from a wide variety of window materials to meet your analytical needs. To order a Semi-Demountable Cell, order the Universal Demountable Cell and your choice of windows and spacers. A thickness- compensating spacer is required for 2mm thick windows. Alternatively, the complete kit can be ordered preassembled.
|Calcium Fluoride
|Product Group
|Rectangular Cell


text:
NORMI necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 37 diseños de 15 diseñadores freelance.
EnviroScreening.com is the website, EnviroScreening Lab is the name of the lab
Enviroscreening is a certified environmental labatory which exists to provide very affordable lab screening services. We are apart of a bigger network of professionals who care deeply about the health issues people are experiencing due to poorly built homes and buildings.
Enviroscreening exists to support a network of trained professional indoor air quality inspectors who have been certified in areas of mold, mold remediation, indoor air quality, drinking water contaminants, and a host of other health issues associated with contaminated buildings. We are also wanting to provide a retail front for homeowners wishing for do-it-yourself testing for indoor air quality.
We are looking for a clean and simple logo that communicates professionalism. The products that we sell promote the "green" environmental movement but that color doesn't necessarily have to be used. Attached is a logo that shows an example of a "green" environmental look we're hoping for. Busy logos with too many fonts are bad. Clean and simple, yet creative. Have at it!
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
§1316. National standards of performance
(a) Definitions
For purposes of this section:
(1) The term "standard of performance" means a standard for the control of the discharge of pollutants which reflects the greatest degree of effluent reduction which the Administrator determines to be achievable through application of the best available demonstrated control technology, processes, operating methods, or other alternatives, including, where practicable, a standard permitting no discharge of pollutants.
(2) The term "new source" means any source, the construction of which is commenced after the publication of proposed regulations prescribing a standard of performance under this section which will be applicable to such source, if such standard is thereafter promulgated in accordance with this section.
(3) The term "source" means any building, structure, facility, or installation from which there is or may be the discharge of pollutants.
(4) The term "owner or operator" means any person who owns, leases, operates, controls, or supervises a source.
(5) The term "construction" means any placement, assembly, or installation of facilities or equipment (including contractual obligations to purchase such facilities or equipment) at the premises where such equipment will be used, including preparation work at such premises.
(b) Categories of sources; Federal standards of performance for new sources
(1)(A) The Administrator shall, within ninety days after October 18, 1972, publish (and from time to time thereafter shall revise) a list of categories of sources, which shall, at the minimum, include:
pulp and paper mills;
paperboard, builders paper and board mills;
meat product and rendering processing;
dairy product processing;
grain mills;
canned and preserved fruits and vegetables processing;
canned and preserved seafood processing;
sugar processing;
textile mills;
cement manufacturing;
organic chemicals manufacturing;
inorganic chemicals manufacturing;
plastic and synthetic materials manufacturing;
soap and detergent manufacturing;
fertilizer manufacturing;
petroleum refining;
iron and steel manufacturing;
nonferrous metals manufacturing;
phosphate manufacturing;
steam electric powerplants;
ferroalloy manufacturing;
leather tanning and finishing;
glass and asbestos manufacturing;
rubber processing; and
timber products processing.
(B) As soon as practicable, but in no case more than one year, after a category of sources is included in a list under subparagraph (A) of this paragraph, the Administrator shall propose and publish regulations establishing Federal standards of performance for new sources within such category. The Administrator shall afford interested persons an opportunity for written comment on such proposed regulations. After considering such comments, he shall promulgate, within one hundred and twenty days after publication of such proposed regulations, such standards with such adjustments as he deems appropriate. The Administrator shall, from time to time, as technology and alternatives change, revise such standards following the procedure required by this subsection for promulgation of such standards. Standards of performance, or revisions thereof, shall become effective upon promulgation. In establishing or revising Federal standards of performance for new sources under this section, the Administrator shall take into consideration the cost of achieving such effluent reduction, and any non-water quality, environmental impact and energy requirements.
(2) The Administrator may distinguish among classes, types, and sizes within categories of new sources for the purpose of establishing such standards and shall consider the type of process employed (including whether batch or continuous).
(3) The provisions of this section shall apply to any new source owned or operated by the United States.
(c) State enforcement of standards of performance
Each State may develop and submit to the Administrator a procedure under State law for applying and enforcing standards of performance for new sources located in such State. If the Administrator finds that the procedure and the law of any State require the application and enforcement of standards of performance to at least the same extent as required by this section, such State is authorized to apply and enforce such standards of performance (except with respect to new sources owned or operated by the United States).
(d) Protection from more stringent standards
Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, any point source the construction of which is commenced after October 18, 1972, and which is so constructed as to meet all applicable standards of performance shall not be subject to any more stringent standard of performance during a ten-year period beginning on the date of completion of such construction or during the period of depreciation or amortization of such facility for the purposes of section 167 or 169 (or both) of title 26 whichever period ends first.
(e) Illegality of operation of new sources in violation of applicable standards of performance
After the effective date of standards of performance promulgated under this section, it shall be unlawful for any owner or operator of any new source to operate such source in violation of any standard of performance applicable to such source.
(June 30, 1948, ch. 758, title III, §306, as added
Discharges From Point Sources in United States Virgin Islands Attributable to Manufacture of Rum; Exemption; Conditions
Discharges from point sources in the United States Virgin Islands in existence on Aug. 5, 1983, attributable to the manufacture of rum not to be subject to the requirements of this section under certain conditions, see section 214(g) of


text:
The line between man and machine is being obliterated. Forget everything you thought you knew, and consider this: electronic telekinesis and telepathy are now possible. Keyboards and mice are about to become obsolete. Simply think your command, and your computer responds. Are you in a noisy crowd or private meeting? Simply pick up your phone and subvocalize your conversation.
Sound impossible? Not according to Todd Coleman, electrical engineer at the University of California, San Diego, and high tech startup MC10. In an interview with txchnologist, Mr. Coleman states these tattoos placed on the throat, for example, can detect the electrical impulses within the muscles of our throat, allowing you to communicate just with thought.
How is this even possible? A company called MC10 manufactures circuitry into a 100 micron thin layer of ultra flexible polyester, essentially creating a temporary tattoo. Wrap your eyes around this:
These devices allow for a wide array of applications. A visit to the MC10 website shows they have a lot of irons in the fire, ingeniously using them for applications such as: Sports impact indicator, hydration sensor, heart rate & activity wristband, baby temperature monitor, remote heart monitoring, interventional catheters and electrophysiology, industrial and defense, and the rage of applications goes far beyond this.
Even Cosmetics. MC10 calls them ""cosmetic stickers" that give you control of your beauty regimen." Their goal is to implement them "so products are so smart, they can alert you via phone when it's time to reapply sunscreen. From measuring your skin's properties while you sleep, to recommending the perfect moisturizer…"
Who is MC10? In 2008, founder Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign came up with something that would change our lives – stretchable circuits. They have taken Rogers' brilliant stretchable electronics platform out of the lab and into commercial product development. They state that their goal is "To redefine the interface between electronics and the human body. In other words – make humans more superhuman."
What this means for you, is in 5-10 years from now, this will be implemented into full production devices and gadgets. Slap on a temporary electronic tattoo and you become one with your technology. The applications this can potentially be implemented into are truly vast.
J. D. Redmond ~ "Dr. Tech" ~ http://www.DrTech.co


text:
I was still at my corporate job , living in total conflict with my core values, and still denying the reality of the situation. It took a simple phrase to snap me out of my coma and help me see how I had created my own agony: By denying who I am.
And for what? So I could go on being someone else to impress people I don't care about for reasons that don't matter? It isn't worth living a lie and being untrue to who you are, no matter how crazy, how eccentric, how uncommon, how different you may be.
You are who you are. The earlier in life you accept this and get on with it, the easier and sweeter you shall live out your days.
Let's start embracing it instead of hiding it under the covers.
As for me, when the lie became so blatantly obvious, I accepted who I am , quit my cushy job, started my online business, created my dream lifestyle and have never looked back.
A secret I didn't even know : You won't miss the lie you are living, because living true to yourself is the real paradise.
This kickstarted the beginning of a self-discovery journey that I share with you here: How to get to know yourself and how to have the courage to live life as exactly who you were meant to be, being true to your core values, and coming to peace with it all.


text:
In order to help the Amazing Spider-Man save the future, Spider-Man 2099 has to save the past. That's the kind of convoluted story you get when you start messing with temporal physics, but who cares when it looks this good?
Activision and developer Beenox of Shattered Dimensions fame showed off Spidey's latest time-twisted adventure this weekend at WonderCon in San Francisco, and now we get a chance to see what we've missed. Looking at the trailer and the screens, it looks as if the game is looking to play around a bit with 2099 continuity. What if the Alchemax corporation wasn't supposed to be in complete control of 2099 New York? What if that entire dark storyline was the result of some terrible event in the past?
It seems a bit sketchy, fiddling about with established continuity like that, but they do have Spider-Man 2099 co-creator Peter David handling writing duties, so I'm sure he won't do anything foolish. Well, nothing too foolish, at least.
We'll find out the full extent of his foolishness this fall, when Activision releases Spider-Man: Edge of Time.


text:
By executing the Four Corners Alliance Group Independent Business Owner Agreement ("IBO Agreement"), you apply for legal authorization to become a Four Corners Alliance Group business owner and enter into contract with Cornerstone Alliance Group, LLC, hereinafter "Four Corners Alliance Group". You acknowledge that prior to signing you have received, read and understood the Four Corners Alliance Group Income Disclosure Statement, that you have read and understood the Four Corners Alliance Group Policies and Procedures, which are incorporated into this Agreement and made part of it as if restated in full, as posted on www.FourCornersAllianceGroup.com, and that you have read and agree to all terms set forth in this Agreement. Four Corners Alliance Group reserves the right to reject any application for any reason within 30 days of receipt.
The term of the IBO Agreement is month to month from the date of its acceptance by Four Corners Alliance Group and shall automatically renew for successive terms unless either party terminates the agreement. If you fail to keep your Four Corners Alliance Group business in good standing due to disciplinary sanctions, you understand that you will permanently lose all rights as an IBO. You shall not be eligible to sell Four Corners Alliance Group services nor shall you be eligible to receive royalties, bonuses, or other income resulting from the activities of your former downline sales organization. In the event of cancellation, termination or non renewal, you waive all rights you have, including but not limited to property rights, to your former downline organization and to any bonuses, commissions or other remuneration derived through the sales and other activities of your former downline organization. Four Corners Alliance Group reserves the right to terminate all IBO Agreements upon 30 days notice if the Company elects to: (1) cease business operations; (2) dissolve as a business entity; or (3) terminate distribution of its services via direct selling channels. IBO may cancel this Agreement at any time, and for any reason, upon written notice to Four Corners Alliance Group at its principal business address. Four Corners Alliance Group may cancel this Agreement for any reason upon 30 days advance written notice to IBO. Four Corners Alliance Group may also take actions short of termination of the Agreement, if the Four Corners Alliance Group IBO breaches any of its provisions.
You agree this authorization does not make you an employee, agent, or legal representative of Four Corners Alliance Group or your Sponsoring IBO. As a self-employed independent contractor, you will be operating your own independent business, buying and selling services available through FourCornersAllianceGroup.com on your own account. You have complete freedom in determining the number of hours that you will devote to your business, and you have the sole discretion of scheduling such hours. You will receive IRS Form 1099-MISC reflecting the amount of income paid to you during the calendar year. It will be your sole responsibility to account for such income on your individual income tax returns.
You agree when presenting the Four Corners Alliance Group Compensation Plan to present it in its entirety as outlined in official Four Corners Alliance Group materials, emphasizing that sales to end consumers are required to receive compensation in the form of bonuses on downline volume. In presenting the plan to prospects, you agree not to utilize any literature, materials or aids not produced or specifically authorized in writing by Four Corners Alliance Group. You agree to instruct all prospective IBOs to review the Four Corners Alliance Group Income Disclosure Statement.
You agree to make no representations or claims about any of the services beyond those shown in official Four Corners Alliance Group literature. You further agree to sell services available through Four Corners Alliance Group only in authorized territories.
You recognize and agree that, as further set forth in the Policies and Procedures, information compiled by or maintained by Four Corners Alliance Group, including Line of Sponsorship (LOS) information (i.e., information that discloses or relates to all or part of the specific arrangement of sponsorship within the Four Corners Alliance Group business including, without limitation, IBO lists, sponsorship trees, and all Four Corners Alliance Group IBO information generated therefrom, in its present or future forms), constitutes a commercially advantageous, unique and proprietary trade secret of Four Corners Alliance Group, which it keeps as proprietary and confidential and treats as a trade secret. During the term of your contract with Four Corners Alliance Group, Four Corners Alliance Group grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable right to use trade secret, confidential, and proprietary business information (Proprietary Information), which includes, without limitation, LOS information, business reports, manufacturing and service developments, and IBO sales, earnings and other financial reports to facilitate your Four Corners Alliance Group business.
In accordance with the Policies and Procedures, you agree that during the period while you are an IBO, and for one calendar year following resignation, non-renewal, or termination of your business, you will not encourage, solicit, or otherwise attempt to recruit or persuade any other Four Corners Alliance Group IBO to compete with the business of Four Corners Alliance Group.
You agree to permit Four Corners Alliance Group to obtain photographs, videos, and other recorded media of you or your likeness. You acknowledge and agree to allow any such recorded media to be used by Four Corners Alliance Group for any lawful purpose, and without compensation.
The terms of this Agreement may be modified as specified in Rule 1 in the Policies and Procedures.
The formation, construction, interpretation, and enforceability of your contract with Four Corners Alliance Group as set forth in this IBO Agreement and any incorporated documents shall be governed by and interpreted in all respects under the laws of the State of Nevada without regard to conflict of law provisions. Louisiana residents: notwithstanding the foregoing, Louisiana residents may bring an action against Cornerstone Alliance Group, LLC with jurisdiction and venue as provided by Louisiana law.
A faxed copy of the Agreement shall be treated as an original in all respects.
All disputes and claims relating to Four Corners Alliance Group, its services, the rights and obligations of an IBO and Four Corners Alliance Group, or any other claims or causes of action relating to the performance of either an IBO or Four Corners Alliance Group under the Agreement or the Four Corners Alliance Group Policies and Procedures shall be settled totally and finally by arbitration as enumerated in the Policies and Procedures in Las Vegas, Nevada, or such other location as Four Corners Alliance Group prescribes, in accordance with the Federal Arbitration Act and the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association, except that all parties shall be entitled to discovery rights allowed under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Additionally, you agree not to initiate or participate in any class action proceeding against Four Corners Alliance Group, whether in a judicial or mediation or arbitration proceeding, and you waive all rights to become a member of any certified class in any lawsuit or proceeding. This agreement to arbitrate shall survive any termination or expiration of the Agreement. Nothing in the Agreement shall prevent Four Corners Alliance Group from applying to and obtaining from any court having jurisdiction a writ of attachment, garnishment, temporary injunction, preliminary injunction, permanent injunction or other equitable relief available to safeguard and protect its interest prior to, during or following the filing of any arbitration or other proceeding or pending the rendition of a decision or award in connection with any arbitration or other proceeding.
If an IBO wishes to bring an action against Four Corners Alliance Group for any act or omission relating to or arising from the Agreement, such action must be brought within one year from the date of the alleged conduct giving rise to the cause of action. IBO waives all claims that any other statutes of limitations apply.
You understand and agree that the monthly administrative fees are nonrefundable. The digital nature of the service and the immediacy of the benefit make any possibility for a refund commercially impractical. However, we do offer a three day refund on all enrollment fees and initial monthly fees.
If any provision of the Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the balance of the Agreement will remain in full force and effect. This Agreement may be executed in any number of counterparts, each of which shall be deemed an original, but all of which together shall constitute one instrument. The provisions of this Agreement, including all documents incorporated herein by reference, embody the whole agreement between you and Four Corners Alliance Group and supersedes any prior agreements, understandings and obligations between you and Four Corners Alliance Group concerning the subject matter of your contract with Four Corners Alliance Group.
A Montana resident may cancel his or her IBO Agreement within 15 days from the date of enrollment
You may request a refund on your enrollment fee if it's done within three business days from the date of enrollment. If you cancel, any enrollment fees paid will be returned within THREE BUSINESS DAYS following receipt by the seller of your cancellation notice. To cancel this transaction, mail or deliver a signed and dated copy of this Cancellation Notice, or any other written notice, to Cornerstone Alliance Group LLC. 5550 Painted Mirage Road, Suite 320, Las Vegas NV 89149 U.S.A., or by email attachment to support [at] fourcornersalliancegroup.com, no later than midnight of the third business day following the date of this Agreement.
Under penalty of perjury, I certify that (1) the number shown on this form is my correct taxpayer identification number (or I am waiting for a number to be issued to me), and (2), I am not subject to backup withholding because: (a) I am exempt from backup withholding, or (b) I have not been notified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that I am subject to backup withholding as a result of a failure to report all interest or dividends, or (c) the IRS has notified me that I am no longer subject to backup withholding, and (3) I am a U.S. Citizen or other U.S. person.
The Four Corners Alliance Group - Powerful, Affordable, Fast!
Join the financial revolution which is sweeping the four corners of the world...
©2020 Four Corners Alliance Group. All rights reserved.


text:
Send in The CloudBy Tony Kontzer
Send in The Cloud
It's hard for a CIO to go 10 minutes without hearing about how cloud computing is going to transform IT sooner rather than later. Online user groups and blogs are afire with talk of the cloud and its implications. Business news outlets can't seem to write enough about the cloud's potential impact. And employees are putting it to use one way or another--with or without the company's blessing.
But no matter how much hype is behind it, or how transformative its potential, cloud computing--in which a company pays for access to a service provider's infrastructure or application as if it were a utility--today carries with it a perception of risk. In fact, there's enough perceived risk that CIOs who adopt even the cloud's most common incarnation, software as a service (SaaS), qualify as pioneers who have a lot to teach other CIOs.
We set out to ask IT executives why and how they decided to jump into the cloud. In some cases, the decision was forced by a deadline for switching to new IT systems. Some companies insisted on certain concessions from vendors before they'd entrust them with their data. Others were driven by the fact that SaaS lets them respond faster to changes in the market.
While cloud computing is several years away from becoming a widely adopted IT strategy, it's starting to shed its novelty status and is becoming an increasingly accepted alternative to traditional IT architectures. What follows are examples of five organizations that use cloud computing to varying degrees, and how they went about taking the plunge or, in one case, how they have attempted to correct a premature commitment to cloud computing.
Inteva Products
For Dennis Hodges, adopting a cloud-intensive IT strategy was a matter of timing and simple math. Hodges took over the CIO post at Delphi Corp.'s Global Interiors and Closures unit in September 2007, just six months before the business was to be spun off as an independent private company. The resulting concern, Inteva Products LLC (a $1 billion-a-year maker of instrument panels, cockpits, latches and other automotive interior components), was given 15 months to extract itself from Delphi's IT environment--a very tall order.
The first concern was e-mail communication, which proved to be the easy part. Hodges contracted with USA.NET to establish a cloud-based e-mail service for the new company's 3,400 worldwide employees, and within a week after the spinoff occurred last March, the system was up and running. USA.NET provides all the storage, guarantees a minimum uptime and handles all software updates.
The decision allowed Hodges to turn his attention to the larger matter of choosing a new ERP system. It's also saving Inteva a lot of money, though he wouldn't specify how much. "It's been perfect for us," says Hodges. "We're trying to keep our IT staff as small as possible, and I want the people we do have to work on business support issues, not infrastructure."
Though many CIOs could imagine outsourcing their e-mail system to a service provider, most would probably wince at the thought of entrusting their ERP environment to a third party. And, in fact, Hodges evaluated several ERP products--both cloud-based and on-premises--before settling on Plexus Systems' on-demand ERP service.
Like any CIO considering cloud technologies, Hodges entered his ERP evaluation with overriding concerns about whether an SaaS offering could deliver the level of security and availability needed for a mission-critical environment that would manage everything from product development to the supply chain. He asked the competing vendors hard questions: How did they get their first customer over the security hump? What were their schemes for addressing security, storage, availability and disaster recovery? Essentially, they were the same questions Hodges said he'd have asked himself and his IT staff had they chosen to deploy something themselves.
Once he was convinced Plexus could address his concerns better than Inteva ever could in supporting access from remote locations, he started crunching the numbers, and the case for the cloud became more compelling. He estimated Plexus' system would cost Inteva 75 percent less than something comparable to the SAP ERP system Delphi runs, and it would drive Inteva's IT costs down from 2.5 percent to 1 percent of revenue--a figure that would provide competitive advantage by outpacing the company's rivals.
Then there was the matter of timing: Plexus would allow him to get Inteva running on its own ERP system well within the 15-month timeframe Delphi laid out. Hodges expects to have Inteva's European Plexus site up by the end of the year, and employees in the rest of the world will get access by May 1, 2009.
And that won't be the end of Inteva's foray into the cloud. Hodges is so encouraged by the success of the e-mail migration and the progress on the ERP front that he sounds ready to make the cloud a de facto standard for the company.
"Let's get rid of everything we don't have to do and focus on making a better business," he says. "You can provide value as an IT organization by working as a business transformation organization and becoming business process owners."
Author Solutions
Author Solutions
As rapidly as Inteva has adopted the cloud, Author Solutions moved even quicker. Granted, the online book self-publishing company has the advantage of being about one-twentieth the size of Inteva, but, even so, its decision to replace a mishmash of disparate systems with a single on-demand environment built on Salesforce.com's Force.com SaaS platform was aggressive by any standard.
The company's move toward the cloud began when Kevin Weiss assumed the CEO post last December. Having come from an IT background that featured multiple large-scale deployments of Siebel Systems' mammoth CRM application, Weiss started his tenure by taking stock of his IT environment, which was a mess.
Despite being a company of just 400 employees, it was relying on two databases, two e-commerce systems and three workflow systems to support its three brands. Weiss decreed that the company, which depends on technology for its existence, would consolidate on one platform.
Naturally, the IT department saw that as an invitation to roll up its sleeves, and it diagrammed a home-grown solution that was doomed from the get-go. "I didn't doubt that they could do it, but we're a company that wanted to move very quickly," Weiss says.
He and the IT leadership evaluated Salesforce.com and a handful of other software-as-a-service options before Weiss determined--despite IT's desire to take a crack at building a platform--that Salesforce.com made the most sense. His decision was immediately, and eerily, validated. "The morning we made our decision, our IT system went down for four hours," Weiss recalls. "Somebody was telling me we were doing the right thing."
In truth, several factors swayed Weiss toward SaaS. He wanted to establish an IT platform that would last, and he believed that the ability to constantly reconfigure apps built on Salesforce.com, as well as benefiting from the service's constant improvements, made it the better long-term choice. That config-urability would also give Author Solutions the much-needed ability to make quick workflow changes or add new services, such as letting authors tap into marketing services from third-party partners. Additionally, by going with SaaS, the company did not have to seek out new IT talent, which can be a challenge for a company located in Bloomington, Minn.
And, like just about every company that turns to cloud computing, Author Solutions was drawn to the cost savings that come from not having to maintain and manage a data center and application environment. The company estimates savings of up to 75 percent. For instance, workflow modifications that once took 30 to 120 hours (and cost between $1,500 and $6,000) now take just one-fourth the time. Also, with the old system, adding a new product for authors required 120 to 240 hours ($6,000 to $12,000); that has been reduced by 75 percent.
Weiss reached his decision in March, and by late August, the company was running on what is effectively a new publishing ERP system. Almost everything moves through that system--lead tracking, handling of editorial submissions, management of manuscripts, corrections and even applying XML tags.
Of course, the migration to the Salesforce.com platform wasn't without issues. For instance, a snag occurred when the structure of the company's existing data didn't match up with Salesforce.com as expected. However, in its first weeks of use, the platform was handling 30 percent more work volume than the old disparate environment, and the system provides the company's author-clients with greater visibility into the handling of their manuscripts than ever before.
Essentially, Author Solutions processes more work with the same number of people, so the company realizes substantial efficiency gains. It can schedule work more proficiently, lets authors be more self-sufficient and will eventually yield a bottom-line impact by making it easier to do business with them.
ESPN Digital Medias
ESPN Digital Media
Use of the cloud at ESPN Digital Media started as it has at so many other large companies: small. In fact, it's been championed by one man, Ed Davis, vice president of product development for ESPN Digital Media's community unit, a fast-growing ESPN arm that's responsible for development of ESPN.com's popular Fan Profiles app, its exhaustive inventory of widgets and a handful of Facebook apps.
After Davis learned about cloud computing last year, he saw an opportunity to experiment with using it to host ESPN's online communities and evaluate the impact on performance, usage and a host of other measurable indicators. He also deduced that relying on cloud computing resources would allow his group to become more entrepreneurial, because their efforts wouldn't create drag on the performance of other systems.
"You may have a real good handle on your users," Davis says, "but the one time you don't anticipate the adoption of your product, it's nice to be able to create support instances to react to unexpected traffic."
Davis also figured that because ESPN's community offerings are all relatively new, venturing into the cloud wouldn't require a big migration project. But before he could take the plunge, Davis had to be certain the cloud--in this case, Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) offerings, which provide metered, on-demand computing power and data storage, respectively--would conform to ESPN's culture of "responsible risk-taking."
That meant a healthy dose of due diligence. Davis talked with a lot of people who had worked with cloud-based environments and felt comfortable with the security and availability they'd experienced. He also grilled Amazon about its backup strategy in an effort to effectively mitigate the risk of data loss.
Once his concerns were adequately addressed, Davis' team moved ESPN's community products to the Amazon environment. Development, quality assurance and production environments started running on EC2, and static content was stored in S3.
While using Amazon brought the customary efficiencies cloud computing is revered for--such as hardware cost savings, reduced complexity and anytime, anywhere access--the biggest benefit was one that no one had mentioned to Davis: Development and quality assurance shared the same environment as production. As a result, new products don't have to be migrated from one environment to another once they've been tested adequately.
"Your engineers can develop and actually deploy code in an environment that is exactly how it will be when you eventually offer it to users," he says. That ability to develop, test and run apps in a single environment has Davis planning to use Amazon's platform to host additional apps, though he couldn't provide any details at press time.
Pulte Homes
Pulte Homes
Make no mistake: Not everyone has a good early experience with the cloud. The most common problems CIOs encounter come when they discover that they've entrusted the maintenance and management of their software to people who lack the industry expertise needed to run a mission-critical application. This is precisely the realization Jerry Batt has come to about the software-as-a-service arena, and now he wishes he'd had a clearer idea of what factors to consider before he leapt into the cloud.
The CIO of homebuilder Pulte Homes entered the SaaS fray several years ago, when he started moving some of his company's less important systems to on-demand alternatives. Initial experiences with cloud-based applications for managing payroll, human resources, treasury and bond holdings, and third-party legal expenses provided no indication of the minefield he would walk into two years ago, when Batt opted for a large-scale subscription to a well-known customer-service-relationship automation service to manage its relationships with potential home buyers and those in contract. (Batt asked that the vendor's identity not be disclosed.)
At first, everything seemed to go as expected. All the needed features and functions were in place, and those that weren't often were added by the vendor at Batt's request. But Batt says he fell into the same trap he sees other CIOs falling into: He focused too much on those features and functions and how they matched up with business needs, when he should have been looking more closely at how the system would perform during periods of high demand or when the vendor was updating the application.
What resulted were occasional outages that Batt found maddening. "When I have a two-hour outage in a mission-critical application, I can't accept an answer from the provider that's an 'oops,'" he says. "If I ran my shop the way they run this application, I would have been fired."
Batt was so disturbed by this performance that he showed up at the vendor's annual user group conference for some reconnaissance. That's typically the kind of mission CIOs assign to underlings, but he needed to hear first-hand if other customers were having the same issues. They were, but, oddly, they weren't voicing their complaints.
"I said, 'Why aren't you squealing your heads off?'" Batt recalls. "To which they said, 'Well, we haven't put it in front of revenue-producing people.' That told me I might be the only dummy on the block putting a mission-critical application on software as a service."
To make matters worse, Batt's team had built integrations with several in-house applications, including Pulte's contact management system. Subsequently, any downtime in the salesforce automation service also brought down whatever apps were tied to it.
Batt couldn't find anyone to commiserate with on that front. All the customers he talked to said they wouldn't trust the vendor's technology enough to undertake any integration efforts for fear of their in-house applications being held hostage by outages.
Ultimately, Batt decided to have his staff deploy a sort of light switch for its integrations that lets them be decoupled temporarily when the vendor is making changes to its service or Pulte has peak processing needs, such as when it's heavily promoting a group of properties over a weekend. But when it comes to Batt's view of the cloud, the damage has been done. "I've lost confidence in software as a service," he says, "and it's going to take something [major] for me to get it back."
Batt has some words of advice that he hopes will prevent other CIOs from duplicating his experience. Beyond looking at a vendor's functionality match, he says, look under the covers and make sure you're confident they can run the application to your standards. Other tips: Visit the vendor's data center, and talk to other customers to find out what the real service experience has been.
Florida Department of Management Services
Florida Department of Management Services
Unlike Batt, some IT executives who have their first taste of cloud computing can't get enough. Count
Joe Wright, CIO of the Florida Department of Management Services, among that group.
Wright came to the cloud more by happenstance than by design. He never made a decision to adopt a cloud strategy; rather, he simply started looking at SaaS alternatives whenever his staff had processing needs that his existing resources couldn't accommodate, or if he saw an opportunity to significantly cut application-related costs.
More often than not, the SaaS option made more sense than any other choice. "If anything," Wright says, "speed to market drove it initially, and then the recognition of the much more manageable costs has driven it further."
Whereas a company like Author Solutions chose to standardize on a SaaS platform, Wright is taking a best-of-breed approach, finding niche service offerings that meet specific needs. So far, he's adopted two such offerings: A knowledge base and customer service tool from RightNow Technologies is powering the "Get Answers" application on the state's MyFlorida.com portal, and another service, Chrome Systems' Carbook Fleet Edition, manages the state's vehicle procurement.
Wright is looking into SaaS options for a variety of other processes, too, such as citizen request-and-response tracking, e-mail and calendaring, learning management and asset management.
"As we talk about vendors that have systems available," Wright says, "the first question I ask is, 'Do you have a hosted version available?' We're not making large investments in software if we don't have to." Wright also is interested in cloud infrastructure offerings, such as Amazon's EC2 and S3 services.
Once Wright identifies a service he's interested in, he performs some due diligence. He works with the vendor to verify that the security of data--at rest and in transfer--is sufficient.
Wright looks for services that have built-in redundancy and strong disaster recovery processes, an important consideration in hurricane country. He also makes sure access to data is guaranteed around the clock, and he checks on the location of data storage to make sure citizen records don't end up on overseas servers.
"It first has to meet the criteria of the business," Wright says. "Once it does, it's a matter of making sure it meets our other criteria and that we're comfortable with the solution."
No system under Wright's purview is safe. Even if it's working fine, if it's associated with higher costs, it's fair game. Given that his evaluations have shown that the cost of an SaaS product can be as little as one-fortieth the cost of an internally deployed application, his strategy appears to make sense.
Not surprisingly, Wright believes any CIO who hasn't taken a hard look at cloud computing should. He suggests following the example of ESPN's Davis and talking to other IT execs who have used SaaS products to find out what challenges have arisen for them. He also strongly urges CIOs to shift their focus from infrastructure and application management to future needs and evolving business strategy.
Wright believes that all CIOs will eventually come to the same conclusion he has: that by freeing themselves from the shackles of data center management and staff oversight, they'll find themselves spending a lot more time on automation and business process enablement.


text:
Unbiased Variety Performance Tests Under Arkansas Conditions
Choosing which varieties to plant is a cornerstone of all crop production systems. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's Variety Testing Program provides unbiased information about the adaptability and performance of varieties in Arkansas' diverse environments, thereby allowing producers to make informed decisions. The Division of Agriculture is uniquely positioned in terms of expertise, infrastructure and credibility to accomplish this objective.
The Variety Testing Program conducts replicated field trials at multiple locations representing the major production regions in Arkansas each year. In addition to yield, and depending on the crop and specific test, other information that may be reported includes reaction to pests (diseases and insects), and other agronomic characteristics such as crop quality, date of maturity and lodging and shattering resistance.
For additional information about crop production, please visit your county Extension Service office or the Cooperative Extension Service web site at http://www.uaex.edu.


text:
Ingrams Flooring and Concrete Coatings is located at 4523 S. Western has been a locally owned business in Amarillo, Texas for 50 years. Our staff and family know carpet, tile, and flooring and we love our jobs!
Ingrams does not only specailize in carpeting and tile, and is also the panhandles premiere source of wood flooring, laminate flooring, vinyl plank flooring, and rugs as well. We have the largest selection in town coupled with the friendliest staff and the best prices. Feel free to shop around, but we are quite comfortable in the fact that your search will end in our showroom with a smile and a handshake.