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Terry Hutchinson Clinches Yet Another Major Yachting Title, 2008 Melges 24 North American Championship
At the end of four days of racing and with a total of eleven races sailed in the widest possible range of conditions, Terry Hutchinson and his crew aboard USA 751 Quantum Racing, are the new at the 2008 Melges 24 North American Champions. After crossing the finish line in fourth place in the second of two extremely nervy races in Annapolis today, a delighted Hutchinson immediately praised the performance of his crew which comprised tactician Scott Nixon, Brian Janney, George Peet and Amy Ironmonger.
"Seriously, you cannot underestimate the significance of the team effort that has gone on here this regatta. I have been the weak link on the boat and these guys have pulled us through."
The other two podium places were a European affair with Gabrio Zandona ITA 777 Joe Fly, owned by Giovanni Maspero, holding on to second and fellow Italian Flavio Favini, helming SUI 521 Blu Moon for Franco Rossini, moving up into third place overall. After a difficult middle section to the regatta, 2007 World Champion Dave Ullman USA 505 Pegasus 505, rallied today and by winning the final race secured fourth overall ahead of Annapolis resident Chris Larson USA 655 West Marine Rigging/New England Ropes.
The Corinthian division for the all amateur crews competing at the championship was dominated by Othmar von Blumencron USA 679 Gannet. A delighted von Blumencron who finished in tenth overall and adds the Corinthian North American Championship to his 2007 Corinthian World Championship victory, commented that racing in familiar waters had helped his team's performance.
"The conditions this week have been typical of what we are used to in Annapolis and I have had some local sailors on board which helped a lot at times."
Second Corinthian here in Annapolis was David Dabney on USA-626 Wireless who finished in twelfth place overall ahead of Alex Shafer who came home in twentieth place overall.
Principal Race Officer Jeff Borland looked to have a real challenge on his hands this morning when for a long time the wind on the racecourse refused to break the five knot barrier. Borland and his race team held their nerve however and were eventually rewarded with just enough wind to run two championship races. Borland said afterwards, "We have experienced the full range of conditions that are typical in Annapolis in the Fall. Between the high winds and chilly temperatures of the first day to the warm, light and shifty conditions we saw today, the crews have been fully tested this week."
Race one saw Morgan Reeser at the helm for Neil Sullivan on USA-750 M-fatic make the best of a left favoured first beat to round the first mark ahead of the pack and go on to win convincingly. Flavio Favini rounded in second and despite prolonged pressure from both Alan Field USA 587 WTF and Gabrio Zandona he managed to hang on to the finish. Field came home third and Zandona fourth. Hutchinson was engaged in a full on battle for fifth place with Ullman for the whole race, which was resolved in favour of Ullman, only on the final run.
At this stage in the championship Hutchinson still held a fifteen point lead, but had to survive one final race to confirm his victory. At the start of race eleven Hutchinson started down at the pin but mistimed his approach and was over early. Quickly gybing around the end of the line, he came away on port tack and hit the right hand side of the beat hard. Meanwhile his main competitor Zandona was leading the fleet up the first beat and looked to be leading the race. Happily for Hutchinson, a major right shift at the top of the leg, slammed the door on the left hand side boats and enabled a relieved Hutchinson to round in third place with a despondent Zandona limping around in twelfth place. At the front of the fleet Ullman sailed a confident race to take the win ahead of Field in second and John Kolius USA 776 KO Sailing, in third.
With Zandona back in tenth, Hutchinson's fourth place was good enough to confirm his 2008 Melges 24 North American Championship title, by a margin of twenty one points. The other two overall podium places were filled by Gabrio Zandona at the helm of Giovanni Maspero's Joe Fly in second and Flavio Favini steering Franco Rossini's Blu Moon in third.
The IMCA is grateful for the hard work and support of the East Port Yacht Club and its members for running a great championship. In particular thanks must go to all the volunteers who gave up so much of their time to make this event possible.
Thanks must also go to the event's outstanding sponsors whose support has made the regatta possible including Pusser's Rum, Pusser's Caribbean Grille, Coral Reef Sailing Apparel, Gill, Melges Performance Sailboats, North Sails, Velocitek, Annapolis Wireless Internet (AWI), Harken, Sail 22, Quantum Sails, Westin Annapolis, Atlantic Yacht Rigging and Stuart Simpson's Team Barbarians.
Bringing the event to a complete close, the NAC is also the last event on the 2008 USMCA Northeast District Championship for the year. Congratulations to USMCA Southeast District Governor Steve Kopf from Charleston, S.C. as he is the 2008 Northeast District Champion. Steve sailed all four qualifying events as did second placed Jim Golden from Annapolis, Md. In third, was lady helm Kristen Lane from San Francisco, Calif.
The International Melges 24 Class Association was very proud to bring you all the action, full-on and live from the race course. A special thanks to everyone who tuned in to watch and experience the 2008 NAC. Relive the action and excitement by visiting the official Melges 24 blog at http://blog.melges24.com.
TOP TEN RESULTS (Final)
1.) Terry Hutchinson, Quantum Racing - 4, 2, 4, [9], 2, 6, 1,4, 1, 6, 4 = 35
2.) Gabrio Zandona/Giovanni Maspero, Joe Fly - 9, 6, 2, 1, [12], 8, 1, 3, 12, 4, 10 = 56
3.) Flavio Favini/Franco Rossini, Blu Moon - 2, 7, 1,2, 29, 3, [50/DNF], 7, 4, 2, 9 = 66
4.) Dave Ullman, Pegasus 505 - 1, 3, 3, 12, 4, 17, [50/DCS], 21, 5, 5, 1= 72
5.) Chris Larson, West Marine Rigging/NE Ropes - 8, 8, 7, 6, 1, 7, 6, 9 [24], 7, 16 = 75
6.) Morgan Reeser/Neil Sullivan, M-fatic - 10, 4, 17, 8, 15, 12, [50/OCS], 2, 3, 1, 8 = 80
7.) Bruce Ayres, Monsoon - 5, 9, 8, 4, 10, [15], 5, 6, 15, 8, 14 = 84
8.) Brian Porter, Full Throttle - 6, 10, 6, 10, 5, 24, [25], 1, 2, 9, 18 = 91
9.) Alan Field, WTF - 18, [21], 5, 15, 9, 21, 9, 10, 11, 3, 2 = 103.00
10.) Othmar Blumencron, Gannet - 13, 12, 9, 7, 3, [14], 10, 12, 16, [21], 13 = 109


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I found this article last night, and decided to post it here. I thought it seemed quite interesting, and seems to be a bit like Qube, but more advanced.
This is just a small paragraph, to read more go hereAthene is an object based operating system that is being developed for use in PC's and embedded systems. It has been designed to work in almost any software and hardware environment and can be reconfigured to suit the requirements of the target system, as well as individual users. The user interface is completely rewriteable and is capable of emulating other interfaces such as the Microsoft Windows and Amiga desktop environments.

subset: commoncrawl


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Accurate maps of Tibet have long been conspicuous by their absence. Travellers in remote areas of the plateau may still experience that unsettling feeling of realizing their map is wrong, while scholars, particularly those working on historical texts, are often unable to precisely locate places mentioned in their sources. The impediments to toponymical precision are many. They include the propensity for places to have names in three or four different languages at any one time and for toponyms to shift with migrating social and ethnic groups. In addition, the boundaries of political units have shifted over time, and in the case of many historical frontiers imprecision in definition has been diplomatically valuable under traditional mandala or "ritual state" systems. Political and cultural considerations have hindered scientific mapping, as has the rugged terrain, and to those difficulties the use of different transcription systems in rendering toponyms into European languages has further confused the reading of such maps. While the cartographical output of certain scholars has been of considerable value—one thinks of Guntrum Hazard on Yarlung dynasty sites and John Bellezza on archaeological sites in Ngari, for example—in general cartography has lagged far behind other areas of Tibetan studies.
We can, therefore, welcome the publication of Karl Ryavec's A Historical Atlas of Tibet, a reference work that any scholar in the field will want to have at hand. It includes a total of forty-nine maps of political, cultural, and religious sites across most of the Tibetan Buddhist world, including sites in Mongolia and Manchuria, along with maps of such aspects as major Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in Beijing in the Yuan and Ming periods, language and population distribution, natural resources, and land cover patterns. The maps are annotated with relevant details and accompanied by an explanatory text that effectively serves as a concise and well-balanced history of Tibet. This work is clearly a labor of love and the author has also ventured beyond the cartographic and historical remit, with agreeable, if not original digressions into areas such as Tibetan currency, caterpillar fungus (yartsa gunbu), cultural artefacts, and longdistance trade items. It includes a variety of historical and contemporary photographs that mean the work will also appeal to the "coffee table" market, and there is a good general index, although understandably it does not include all of the sites indicated on the maps, and cannot avoid the transcription issue.
There is a good regional balance in the maps between western, central, and eastern Tibet, and it is organized into sections on the prehistoric and ancient periods, the imperial period (ca. 600–900 CE), the "period of Disunion" (900–1642), and the Ganden Podrang Period. In general the maps are clear, with A4 size pages and paper quality enhancing that clarity. A word of caution, however, to those contemplating purchasing the electronic edition; it may prove impossible to read much of the map detail in that format.
There are few obvious errors, at least in the sections this reviewer is qualified to comment upon. Ngari does not include the source of the Ganges (as stated on page 14); maps eighteen and thirty-one show a Hindu temple at Gangotri for which there is no evidence in the relevant periods; and the formal Tibetan toponym of Mount Kailas(h) is Tise (Ti se) rather than the more colloquial Gangs Rinpoche given here. In addition, given the political implications, the statement that the tar "roughly" equates to the area of traditional Tibet (4) might have been better replaced by a map showing the actual differences.
Given the pioneering nature of this work, there are naturally some reservations concerning its scope and contents. The author notes (120) that a revised and expanded edition is intended in the future, and this should include resort to the British-Indian maps in the Oriental and India Office Collection of the British Library, which the author does not appear to have directly utilized. These shed considerable light on southern Tibet at least, and would enable the provision of more detailed large-scale maps of those areas. In addition, maps of historically relevant areas of the greater Tibetan cultural world to the south and west of the plateau—Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan, and so on—might be added, and consideration given to the inclusion of some examples of indigenous cartographical representations.
Despite such reservations, this is a reference work that will repay detailed study. The author's modest hope that it will be of "some value" is more than fulfilled.


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As we move towards the end of the year, like all news sources, we fall back on that classic space filler – the list story. So without further ado, here is the official Behind the Headlines' Top Five of Top Fives stories of the year.
We can often get bogged down in pointing out dodgy sub-group analyses, spurious extrapolations of samples sizes containing just four men and a dog and RCTs pointing out the benefits of chocolate on blood pressure that turned out to be funded by a chocolate-making conglomerate. So it's important not to lose sight of the fact that there are many hard-working researchers, producing invaluable work, framed in the best traditions of evidence-based medicine, that does make the world a better place.
Here's our top five of the year:
Just a single cigarette a day 'linked' to sudden death
These researchers were in it for the long-haul. Over 100,000 women followed over the course of 30 years showed us that there is no such thing as a healthy level of smoking, however the tobacco companies try to spin their brands.
Sunbeds 'killing hundreds each year'
This impressive study, involving thousands of people across Europe, provided conclusive evidence that the tanning industry (worth billions) is causing hundreds of preventable deaths every year – all in the name of vanity. Maybe something should be done?
If 'drugs don't work' for depression, CBT may
A useful piece of research, produced by a large team of experts, which provided compelling evidence of the benefits of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in treating depression. CBT is inexpensive, has minimal side-effects, and it works. What's not to love?
International medical collaboration at its finest. Over 50 geneticists working across the globe, coming together to produce a new "encyclopaedia" detailing how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents, with the hope it could lead to personalised cancer treatments.
Half of medical reporting 'is subject to spin'
Unlike some types of complementary and alternative medicine (CAMs), practitioners of evidence-based medicine are more than willing to discuss its flaws and air their dirty washing in public. This intriguing piece of research highlights PR spin, arguably distorting the evidence, which is occurring at all levels – from research teams, to university public relations departments, to mainstream journalists.
All medical research is valuable. It's just that some of it is less valuable than others. And to be honest, we cannot see any of the researchers involved in the following studies picking up the Nobel Prize for Medicine anytime soon.
Stressed men 'crave curvier women'
While this is a well-conducted study, we are unclear what pratical application the information that stressed-out men pefer the larger lady, could have.
'A glance may show if someone is gay'
A US study made the case that 'gaydar' existed. But only in the lab conditions. And for women. And it only worked 65% of the time.
People 'more likely to die on their birthday'
A Swiss study found that people were 14% more likely to die on their birthdays. So we wouldn't recommend booking your next birthday bash in Zurich.
Jaw-dropping moments 'make people nicer'
Californian researchers (who else) found that people exposed to a 60-second advert, containing supposedly 'awe-inspiring' imagery, were slightly more likely to score higher on a niceness survey (but not to donate more money to charity).
Possibly we are jaded – we work in London so our access to awe-inspiring moments is limited.
We look at a lot of health journalism. Some of it excellent, some of it good, some of it downright terrible. Here are our top five examples of the latter:
'Designer vagina' ops for kids on the NHS?
'Girls as young as nine are asking for vaginal cosmetic surgery on the NHS – driven by a trend in "pornstar chic",' Metro has reported. An entirely baseless claim with no evidence to support it.
'NICE nanny state' parking cost claims are untrue
"Raise cost of parking to force motorists to walk! Nanny watchdog's plan to get Britain fit" the Daily Mail thundered about NICE guidelines on promoting walking and cycling. Except, NICE only made a suggestion about parking charges and have no legal powers to raise the charges.
'Oral sex helps women fight depression' claim
"Oral sex is good for women's health and helps fight depression," was the Daily Mail's lurid headline. Except the 'news' is based on a 10-year-old study looking at condom use not oral sex.
iPad use and depression link questioned
Using an iPad at night 'could trigger depression', The Daily Telegraph has reported on a study that, er, did not involve iPads, or, er, humans.
Eating egg yolks as 'bad as smoking'
"Eating egg yolks is as bad as smoking in speeding up coronary heart disease," the Daily Mail says – possibly, but you are only at any risk in the fairly unlikely event you eat more than 200 egg yolks a year.
Scientists are cool and the science they practice is even cooler. Here are our five coolest stories of the year:
'Spray-on-skin' treatment for leg ulcers
Skin from a can – sweet.
'Bionic eye' implant restores men's sight
Exciting, proof-of-concept work that may lead to more wide-ranging treatments for vision loss.
Humans have 'super spidey sense' for danger claim
Research suggesting humans may have a superhero-like sixth-sense for danger.
Pioneering work in robotics that may eventually transform care for amputees.
Endangered species found in Chinese medicines
Using clever DNA detective work, an Australian researcher claimed that many Chinese medicines contained substances taken from endangered species.
Does the G-spot exist? – (not sure)
Should we really fear 'new flesh-eating bacteria'?* *– (no)
Is ice cream really 'addictive like drugs'? – (no)
Is 'cuddle chemical' really the new Viagra? – (without Phase 3 trials, nobody has the faintest idea)
Have scientists learned to read minds? – (no)


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Who Made The Spring by Tom Chapman
The Earth tilts down and the world rejoices
Babies are born, more and more voices
The sun warms the surface and mocking birds sing
It was God Himself who made the Spring!
Most knew Winter and it will forever get old
But I was sun bathing while they were cold
Riding the motorcycle along warm ocean breezes
I hate to say it, but they can have their sneezes!
But now it's Spring and everyone's delight
Lovers will kiss instead of a fight
Farmers will plant and travelers will go
To anywhere that does not have the snow.
And I will rejoice in God's creation
Even a fool should see He has no limitation
Spring wipes away all the doom and gloom
Now if only men's hearts would also bloom!
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CORVALLIS, Ore. - An invasion of American beach grass is under way along the Oregon coast, threatening to change dune ecology and reduce the ability of dunes to protect roads, property and towns from coastal storms.
Scientists at Oregon State University have documented a slow but steady takeover by this beach grass, an invasive species. They found that protective "foredunes" covered by the new grass species are only about half as high as those created by the European species of grass that were formerly dominant.
This phenomenon has already occurred from Long Beach, Wash., to Pacific City, Ore., and is continuing to spread, the researchers say.
"This decrease in dune height may translate into a significant decrease in coastal protection from storms and tsunamis," said Eric Seabloom, an OSU assistant professor of zoology.
In continuing studies, scientists plan to use oceanographic models to show just how much protection is lost when European beach grass is replaced by American beach grass.
The European grass – also an invasive species – has been dominant since it was first introduced to the area around the turn of the 20th century, to help stabilize blowing sand on the coast.
"It did its job extremely well," said Sally Hacker, an OSU associate professor of zoology and expert on marine and estuarine communities. "Without it, the sand would cover towns and roads."
The European beach grass did so well that by the 1930s it had spread along the entire Oregon coast, and created an extensive "foredune" system, large protective sand hills found in front of almost every sandy beach in Oregon. These dunes can provide significant protection for homes, roads, towns and other infrastructure, and serve as a barrier against flooding during major storm surges and perhaps even tsunamis.
But the second invasion by the American beach grass species had gone practically undetected. Introduced near the mouth of the Columbia River in the mid-1930s, also to stabilize beaches, American beach grass tends to out-compete its European cousin. The status of this beach grass variety went unnoticed for more than 50 years, until Seabloom and a colleague discovered it had crept as far south as Tillamook Head and as far north as the Olympic Peninsula.
Surveys of the entire Oregon coast have determined that the current range of domination of American beach grass extends from Long Beach, Wash., to Pacific City, Ore. But even beyond that, from Pacific City south, most of the beach grass is the American beach grass, with just a few pockets of European beach grass.
"Lower dune heights, increasing wave heights that have been observed over the last 50 years, and global climate change could create a scenario in which the dunes no longer serve a coastal protection function," Hacker said.
Beyond the protection concerns, there are other ecological issues in play as well.
While the foredune system created by European beach grass is good for coastal landowners, it is not so good for endangered beach plant species and the federally-threatened Western snowy plover, scientists say. As more sand accumulates in growing stands of beach grass, the land behind the dune tends to get "terrestrialized," or turned into wetlands and forest habitats.
"The willows and other trees and larger shrubs you often see behind the dunes are an indication that wetlands are being formed in the mini-valley behind the dunes," Hacker said.
As that process advances, beach habitat disappears, taking with it the plovers' critical nesting grounds. The southward march of the American beach grass species could reverse the terrestrialization trend, as the American variety creates a much smaller foredune.
Hacker and Seabloom have received funding from Oregon Sea Grant to study the impacts and interactions of these invasive grasses on the Oregon coast. They are also working with Peter Ruggiero, a geomorphologist in the Department of Geosciences at OSU, to understand the coastal protection capabilities of dunes along the coast.
Sally Hacker,
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Watch the Live Meeting Here!
2024 business license tax filings and, if applicable, payments, are due on or before March 1, 2024, 11:59 PM EST. All returns should be filed online through the Customer Assessment & Payment Portal (CAPP).
As a victim of crime, you can write a "Victim Impact Statement" for the judge to read before sentencing the defendant in your case.
This is a chance to tell the Court about any changes that may have happened to you and/or your family as a result of the crime. It is not a "re-telling" of the facts: but rather an explanation in your own words of how the crime has affected you.
Victim Impact Statements may be difficult to write, but they are a very important part of letting your voice be heard.
A Victim Impact Statement can simply be a letter to the judge. As you write this letter, please consider the following:
Your letter/Victim Impact Statement should be signed; please do NOT include your address or phone number. MAIL or DELIVER your letter to your Victim Specialist.
If a Presentence Investigation (PSI) Report is being prepared in this case, your Victim Specialist can make sure the Probation Officer includes it with the PSI.
The judge, Commonwealth's Attorney, defense attorney, and the defendant in your case will read the PSI. After sentencing, the PSI will become a sealed part of the court records.
Circuit Court General District Court Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court Judicial Center Security – Prohibited Items Drug Court Office of the Magistrate Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney Walter T. McCarthy Law Library Office of the Sheriff
Victim/Witness Program Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund Rights and Responsibilities Victim/Witness Services Victim Impact Statement Victim Impact Notification


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Canon 5D Mark III Raw Image Quality
We used to convert raw files used for comparison crops with dcraw, an excellent freeware raw converter. Unfortunately, dcraw's author has not been providing timely updates lately, so we have switched to using Adobe Camera Raw with its noise reduction and sharpening sliders set to zero. We've found conversions made with ACR to be almost identical to dcraw, when dcraw's demosaicing option is set to match ACR's method.
Below are crops from Canon 5D Mark III raw files compared to raw files from other high-resolution full-frame SLRs:
Here, we can raw noise performance has been improved compared to the 5D Mark II, but not by as much as you'd think by just looking at in-camera JPEGs. The 5D Mark III's JPEG processing has improved as well. The Canon 5D Mark III appears to do well against the Nikon D800 at the pixel level, but keep in mind the D800's significantly higher resolution means that when printed at the same size, the D800 does better giving the Nikon the edge in high ISO performance. The Canon 5D Mark III performs better than the Sony A99, with the latter likely handicapped by its translucent mirror in the optical path.
Overall, an impressive performance from the Canon 5D Mark III. Noise is higher in very deep shadows, though, which is why dynamic range scores aren't as good as the Nikon or Sony's.


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Nandita's Weekend Breakfast Blogging challenge this month was "Baking for Breakfast". The whole idea was to use your baking skills to devise an exciting breakfast option to share with the rest of the WBB bloggers.
A few weekends ago I made this recipe for muffins baked with ricotta and choc-chips. The idea came from Bar Cupola, a café in my office building, who used to bake their own tall, wonderfully moist muffins using chunks of fresh fruit and creamy ricotta.
Here I came up with my own replication so I could enjoy the muffins at home on the weekends. They came out perfectly: the ricotta and fruit adding extra moisture.
Ricotta, Strawberry & Choc-Chip Muffins
Anna's very own recipe. Makes 12 large or 24 small muffins.
1½ cups self raising flour
½ cup plain flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
1 cup dark chocolate bits
1 cup diced strawberries
250g ricotta
1 teaspoon honey
1. Preheat oven to 200'C. Grease muffin tin.
2. Combine honey and ricotta and pack firmly into a ramekin or small baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes or until slightly golden on top and almost firm to touch.
4. In a large bowl, sift flours, sugar and cinnamon from a height to aerate as much as possible.
5. In a separate bowl, beat egg, oil and milk together.
6. Pour wet ingredients onto dry. Add choc-chips and strawberries.
7. Stir mixture with a fork until moistened and just combined. Mixture may seem lumpy but do not beat or over stir. The less you stir the softer your muffins will be.
8. Half fill each muffin hole with mixture. Be sure to include strawberries and choc-chips in each muffin.
9. Divide baked ricotta between muffins. Top ricotta with remaining muffin mixture then, using a teaspoon, swirl mixture and ricotta slightly.
10. Bake muffins in oven for approximately 15 – 20 minutes or until risen and slightly golden.
11. Remove from oven. Rest for 1 minute then turn out. Serve warm.
Variation: instead of strawberries, you can use banana, pear, peach, apricot or any kind of berry.
Be sure to visit Nandita's round up so you can discover other baked breakfast beauties.
Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend breakfast blogging wbb breakfast muffins strawberry ricotta chocolate choc-chip
Tuesday 21 November 2006
ricotta, strawberry & choc-chip muffins
3 comments:
- AnonymousWednesday, 13 December, 2006
did you notice that you dont have step 3. in method?
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What are the responsibilities of my Quinceanera court?
As members of your court, there are certain expectations and responsibilities they should be able to fulfill. First off your court will most likely have to learn the Waltz for your reception which will require they attend dance rehearsals for several weeks. They will also probably be expected to wear special dresses and tuxes that you choose for your event. Other possible duties include addressing invitations, putting together party favors, and running any other errands. Make sure you let your court members know up front what is expected of them before they agree to join.


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Smoke alarms need to be installed in every sleeping area/bedroom and on every level of your home. Carbon monoxide detectors need to be installed on every floor of the home and within 10 feet of sleeping areas/bedrooms.
Show All Answers
We offer a range of Fire-related permits online. These include:
Grilling with charcoal, propane or other grills that produce an open flame is not permitted on the decks of multi-housing buildings or within 15 feet of the building. Electric grills are permitted, but the Fire Department would like everyone to use caution even when using an electric grill. A deck fire can extend to the building's surface quickly and travel to other decks and building openings
An annual permit is required for any resident wanting to have a recreational fire at their residence. The permit is free of charge and states the requirements for recreational fires. Please call the Recreational Burning Hotline at 952-895-4666 prior to starting the fire. There may be a temporary burning ban in place if conditions warrant.
Ambulances are staffed by two firefighter/paramedics and during critical medical emergencies it is necessary to have more than two personnel respond in order to accomplish important medical treatments and tasks. Fire engines are staffed with two to three firefighter/paramedics and they respond to critical medical emergencies to assist the ambulance personnel.
Watch this Public Safety Minute to learn more
The Burnsville Fire Department offers FREE Heart Restart classes that teach compression-only CPR. To find upcoming classes visit the City events calendar or the Fire Department's page.


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"Many customers understand the benefits an SSD can bring to an aging laptop but they also feel anxious about performing an upgrade by themselves," said Philippe Willams, director of product marketing, SanDisk. "The SanDisk SSD Concierge Service's step-by-step live support will give consumers the confidence to install an SSD and enjoy the benefits of speed, performance and reliability."
Upgrading an aging laptop with an SSD can greatly improve performance and is more cost effective than purchasing a new one. With advanced flash memory storage and significantly faster speeds, SSDs outpace traditional hard-disk drives (HDDs) in every performance category2. In addition, SSDs run cooler, create less noise, and use less power, which helps extend laptop battery life, and reduce the strain on limited system resources.
Through the SanDisk SSD Concierge Service, consumers will have all of the tools required to upgrade their laptop successfully. This includes the hardware and software necessary to migrate data as well as install the new SSD3. Once data has been successfully migrated, consumers will have the ability to schedule a video conference via mobile device with a SanDisk technician, who will walk them through the final steps of removing the existing storage device and installing their new SSD. The SanDisk SSD Concierge Service will support all SanDisk consumer SSDs.
Pricing and Availability
The SanDisk SSD Concierge Service is available through Amazon and TigerDirect at $39.991.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is a global leader in flash storage solutions. For more than 27 years, SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry. Today, SanDisk's quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smartphones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk's consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.
1 SSD not included; sold separately.
2 As compared to 7200 PRM SATA 2.5" hard drive. Based on published specifications and internal benchmarking.
3 For use with SanDisk SSDs and Windows® 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 operating systems only. Back up all your data to a separate storage source before receiving the service.
© 2015 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. SanDisk is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.
SanDisk Corporation
Joanna Andrade, 408-801-1792


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I suspect that this sleep drama is the result of the
changing season and political campaign anxiety. I always have this problem in the final 2 weeks of political
frenzification…tis the worst!
Anyoo...shall we?
I'm beyond excited that a certain Brother Rob Thurman is
coming to town for a visit!
Longtime readers know that Rob gave me this blog as a birthday present
damn near 8 years ago…and that he is a treasured friend plus co-founder of the
United Church of Bitchitude and Latter Day Drunks.
I'm lucky to have a fantabulous chosen family of friends who
are as dear to me as the family I was born into.
But…well…clearly some folk are using a different definition
of "friend" than I'm working with.
And the choir asked… "What do you mean? Of whom do you speak?"
And a bitch replied… "Settle down and listen, damn
I woke up to the news that John Sununu, being interviewed by
Piers Morgan (ugh), responded to news of Colin Powell's endorsement of President Obama with…
Sununu: "Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder if that's an endorsement based on issues, or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama?"
Morgan: "What reason would that be?"
Sununu: "Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being President of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him."
Oh, I
know…I've heard it all…I get it that it is a lot easier to ignore the reason's
Powell gave for his endorsement than spit at his feet and pivot to some "black people
have to support black politicians because it is required for renewal of our
Race Card" bullshit.
I'm not surprised that Sununu went there. He's an ass. What struck me was that,
when issuing the predictable "I didn't mean it like that" statement, Sununu said he and Powell are friends.
Sununu: "Colin Powell is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president's policies. Piers Morgan's question was whether Colin Powell should leave the party, and I don't think he should."
I call bullshit!
Race baiting isn't respect.
Sununu made it clear when he race baited that he thinks
Powell's decision was motivated on some sort of race loyalty.
If Morgan was asking whether Powell should leave the GOP
then Sununu's answer was so fucking off topic he should have his hearing
And friendship is based on respect…and that's something
Sununu clearly doesn't have for Powell.
That brings me to the unfortunate reality this Sununu insult
shines light on.
Sununu is clearly a graduate of The School of Tolerance,
where he learned to tolerate Powell's blackness by focusing on his decades of
loyalty to the GOP.
The problem is that The School of Tolerance enables bullshit.
The School of Tolerance is a weak foundation for relationships
and it shits out people who can smile in your face, eat at your table, joke
with you and golf with you and maybe even vacation with you…
…and, when pressed by a weak ass follow-up question that should
have elicited the response Sununu came up with hours later for his "I didn't
mean it like that!" statement, shit all over you.
Pause…sip coffee…continue.
I will, however, give Sununu points for demonstrating in one
clumsy verbal malfunction why the GOP struggles to gain the support of minority
Well done!
***slow hand clap***


text:
The 'Troubled Families' programme launched by the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles on 11th June 2012 is the latest attempt to respond to a persistent question, 'Why do people become disconnected from mainstream society?' 'Troubled Families' identifies 120,000 'troubled families' whom Eric Pickles argues are, '... ruining their own lives... their children's lives, and the lives of their neighbours.' David Cameron, speaking in Birmingham in December 2011 suggested that 'Troubled Families' aims to stimulate a 'revolution in responsibility' in order to 'heal the scars of a broken society'. The Prime Minister tellingly summarised what he perceived to be the problem, 'kids leaving sink schools without qualifications... parents never getting a job and choosing to live on the dole... teenagers rampaging around the neighbourhood before turning to crime'. So what is a 'troubled family'? The Programme handbook identifies a 'troubled family' as one which is 'involved in crime and anti-social behaviour; has children not in school; an adult on out-of-work benefits; causes high costs to the public purse'. The scheme will commit £448,000,000 and a 'Family Worker' to 'turn around' the lives of 'troubled families' in key measurable areas (education, anti-social behaviour, youth offending and unemployment).
A glance through the list of numbers of 'troubled families' in different local councils makes it clear that the greatest concentration of 'troubled families' is found in the poorest areas of the country. Whilst reductionist correlations between economic poverty and 'troubled families' strip people of their agency, the lack of any serious analysis of structural social exclusion raises significant question marks over the likely success of the 'troubled families' initiative. In a 2012 report entitled, 'There may be trouble ahead' the sociologist Ruth Levitas pithily notes, 'No mention of ill-health, poverty, poor housing... Cameron blames the imputed condition of such families on state failure... excessive benefits... and a weak criminal justice system'.
It is unwise to infer the motivation behind this initiative. It might be a serious attempt to tackle a serious social problem or a means of cutting welfare spending – we do not know. However 'Troubled Families' is on shaky ground for several reasons. First, it ignores the contexts within which most 'troubled families' live, focusing instead on behaviour and the family unit alone as if these are not deeply influenced by structures of inequality. Second, 'troubled families' are implicitly judged on a moral basis which takes little account of the alienation that can result from ongoing social exclusion. Third, the programme stigmatises poor communities.
An example drawn from my own research alongside unemployed young men over the last two years illustrates this point... The Bromford estate in Birmingham is amongst the 2% most multiply deprived neighbourhoods in England, and currently the second highest unemployment figures in the country. Life expectancy is lower than that for almost every other part of Birmingham and more people die young than elsewhere in the city. Two-thirds of families have no access to a car, making travel to decent food shops and work in the city's gleaming Bullring a real problem. Many of the young men I work alongside are 'N.E.E.T' (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). And yet some have started their own recording studio, begun forging a music career, are training to be youth workers (with the help of the Worth Unlimited youth organisation), established a social enterprise fixing and selling broken bicycles or are studying for A-Levels with a view to applying to study at the University of Birmingham. Most wear 'hoodies' but all resist the 'broken Britain' stereotype. They know that their community is depicted as 'the slum'. However, they resist the demonising of their neighbourhood and their depiction as inarticulate 'Chavs'. The recent 'Bromford Dreams' graffiti art project, which I developed as part of my work as a Research Fellow in Urban Theology at the University of Birmingham, bursts the myth that apparently undergirds the 'troubled families' programme. During February 2012 these young men explored the impact that social exclusion has on the way they think about identity, meaning, truth and the future. Working together they designed and painted the articulate and provocative 'Bromford Dreams' cube which is now on display at the centre of the green campus of the University of Birmingham and has formed the basis for a conference and concert. The 'Bromford Dreams' project perhaps needs to be studied by the authors of 'Troubled Families' programme for it subverts the stigmatising stereotypes that the initiative falls prey to and appears to perpetuate.
Dr Chris Shannahan
Research Fellow in Urban Theology
University of Birmingham


text:
Benefit from the political and economic relationship, Russia and China always keep good communication in various fields. So do the enterprises. SHM, the Chinese famous mining equipments manufacturer that has lots of clients in Russia, already helped almost one thousand investors build crushing plants and grinding plants since 2005. Good public praise successfully assists SHM open the local market. In 2013, one 300 TPH cobble crushing plant with the help of SHM is built in
The customer first met us in the CTT, 2012 and had simple communication with us. After the fair, we warmly invited him come to our Shanghai head office and had deeply communication about the project. Finally we signed the contract by many rounds of talks. Eight months later, the production line start to run and no machine defects showed up during the acceptance tests.


text: 1 Working In Batches If Necessary, Cook The Bacon Slices On Medium Low Heat In A Large Frying Pan, Until Only About Halfway Cooked, But Not Crispy. You Need To Pre-Cook The Bacon A Bit Or Else When You Cook Them With The Oysters The Oysters Will Be Overcooked By The Time The Bacon Is Crispy. Set The Bacon Aside To Cool. 2 Get A Grill Or Broiler Good And Hot While You Wrap The Oysters. 3 To Make An Angel On Horseback, You Wrap 1/2 A Piece Of Bacon Around The Small Oyster And Secure It With The Toothpick. Overlap The Edges Of The Bacon By About An Inch If You Can. 4 Grill Or Broil Over High Heat To Cook The Oyster And Crisp The Bacon, About 5-6 Minutes On The First Side, Another 2-4 Once You Turn Them Over. You Will Need To Turn Them Once Or Twice To Get A Good Crispiness On All Sides. 5 As Soon As They Come Off The Heat, Squirt With The Lemon Or Lime Juice And Serve Hot.


text:
This article is more than 1 year old
Russia says no more space tourists after 2009
ISS too crowded for layabouts
Russia's space agency chief said there's no more room for space tourists in the International Space Station after this year because of plans to double the full-time crew at the orbiting outpost
Roskosmos top brass Anatoly Perminov told the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in an interview published today that the last commercial flights will be made by Vladimir Gruzdev, a cosmonaut from the ex-Soviet republic sometime in Fall 2009, and by US software designer Charles Simonyi in March.
Hungarian-born Simonyi made is fortune as lead designer on Microsoft Word and Excel and will be making his second visit to the ISS courtesy of the Russian space tourism program.
Perminov told the newspaper that "there won't be any possibility for making tourist flights to the station after 2009."
This year, the ISS plans to double its resident crew from three to six people. NASA's Endeavour mission STS-126 equipped the low-orbit outpost with additional quarters and equipment for the additional members, yet sadly neglected to haul up a guest wing for paying visitors.
So far, six space tourists have joined the ISS crew, each paying around $25m for the trip. ISS special guests include Ubuntu guru Mark Shuttleworth, video game pioneer Richard Garriot (AKA Lord British), and US millionaire Gregory Olsen.
Perminov's 2009 cut-off date would seem to dash the starchild dreams Google founder Sergey Brin, who has already put down $5m to ride aboard a Russian rocket in 2011.
Alas, billionaires hoping for the ultimate view of Earth may need to settle for the sub-orbital machinations of Virgin Galactic and its fleet of rocketplanes still under development. ®


text:
SGL Entertainment is pleased to announce the release of the new Jezebeth (Special Edition) DVD. This is the debut release of Jezebeth as a stand alone DVD. This Special Edition DVD, complete with a Motion Menu is loaded with Bonus Features like, a Video of Bree Michaels (Jezebeth) performing the Demonic Guitar Solo in her Panties and Bra, The Official Full Length Movie Trailer, and a Special Appearance and Autograph Signing by the Girls of Jezebeth at a Hot Topic Store.
The DVD packaging and Artwork is Amazing including a Wicked Pentagram on the DVD Disc. This is a must have for Fans of the Jezebeth movie Franchise. The movie Jezebeth has become a cult classic phenomenon since it's debut release on a number of VOD services, including iTunes Movies, YouTube Rentals, Amazon Video On Demand and Google Play for which the movie ranked high on the charts. With all the press Jezebeth was getting, the movie was soon picked up by R-Squared Films and released on Blu-Ray as well as the leading film on a DVD 4 pack called "Super Pack Vampires" which includes four killer vampire movies. And coming soon from the movie franchise is Jezebeth 2 Hour of the Gun, Jezebeth 3 The Guns of El Diablo, and "Jezebeth" a Novel by SE Campbell. The Jezebeth movies are all Written, Directed and Produced by Damien Dante and Co Produced by Jeffrey A. Swanson. Damien Dante and Jeffrey A. Swanson are Creators and Partners in the Jezebeth Movie Franchise, and it looks as though there is no stopping Jezebeth's Wicked Reign, Because, There Is No God, There Is Only Jezebeth.
Get the New Jezebeth (Special Edition) DVD Here:


text:
By David Kocieniewski
Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.
General Electric, the nation's largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.'s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world's best tax law firm. Indeed, the company's slogan "Imagination at Work" fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.
While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.
In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company's nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.
Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation's tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.
Yet many companies say the current level is so high it hobbles them in competing with foreign rivals. Even as the government faces a mounting budget deficit, the talk in Washington is about lower rates. President Obama has said he is considering an overhaul of the corporate tax system, with an eye to lowering the top rate, ending some tax subsidies and loopholes and generating the same amount of revenue. He has designated G.E.'s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and it is expected to discuss corporate taxes.
"He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy," Mr. Obama said of Mr. Immelt, on his appointment in January, after touring a G.E. factory in upstate New York that makes turbines and generators for sale around the world.
A review of company filings and Congressional records shows that one of the most striking advantages of General Electric is its ability to lobby for, win and take advantage of tax breaks.
Over the last decade, G.E. has spent tens of millions of dollars to push for changes in tax law, from more generous depreciation schedules on jet engines to "green energy" credits for its wind turbines. But the most lucrative of these measures allows G.E. to operate a vast leasing and lending business abroad with profits that face little foreign taxes and no American taxes as long as the money remains overseas.
Company officials say that these measures are necessary for G.E. to compete against global rivals and that they are acting as responsible citizens. "G.E. is committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations," said Anne Eisele, a spokeswoman. "We are committed to complying with tax rules and paying all legally obliged taxes. At the same time, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to legally minimize our costs."
The assortment of tax breaks G.E. has won in Washington has provided a significant short-term gain for the company's executives and shareholders. While the financial crisis led G.E. to post a loss in the United States in 2009, regulatory filings show that in the last five years, G.E. has accumulated $26 billion in American profits, and received a net tax benefit from the I.R.S. of $4.1 billion.
But critics say the use of so many shelters amounts to corporate welfare, allowing G.E. not just to avoid taxes on profitable overseas lending but also to amass tax credits and write-offs that can be used to reduce taxes on billions of dollars of profit from domestic manufacturing. They say that the assertive tax avoidance of multinationals like G.E. not only shortchanges the Treasury, but also harms the economy by discouraging investment and hiring in the United States.
"In a rational system, a corporation's tax department would be there to make sure a company complied with the law," said Len Burman, a former Treasury official who now is a scholar at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "But in our system, there are corporations that view their tax departments as a profit center, and the effects on public policy can be negative."
The shelters are so crucial to G.E.'s bottom line that when Congress threatened to let the most lucrative one expire in 2008, the company came out in full force. G.E. officials worked with dozens of financial companies to send letters to Congress and hired a bevy of outside lobbyists.
The head of its tax team, Mr. Samuels, met with Representative Charles B. Rangel, then chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which would decide the fate of the tax break. As he sat with the committee's staff members outside Mr. Rangel's office, Mr. Samuels dropped to his knee and pretended to beg for the provision to be extended — a flourish made in jest, he said through a spokeswoman.
That day, Mr. Rangel reversed his opposition to the tax break, according to other Democrats on the committee.
The following month, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Immelt stood together at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem as G.E. announced that its foundation had awarded $30 million to New York City schools, including $11 million to benefit various schools in Mr. Rangel's district. Joel I. Klein, then the schools chancellor, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who presided, said it was the largest gift ever to the city's schools.
G.E. officials say the donation was granted solely on the merit of the project. "The foundation goes to great lengths to ensure grant decisions are not influenced by company government relations or lobbying priorities," Ms. Eisele said.
Mr. Rangel, who was censured by Congress last year for soliciting donations from corporations and executives with business before his committee, said this month that the donation was unrelated to his official actions.
Defying Reagan's Legacy
General Electric has been a household name for generations, with light bulbs, electric fans, refrigerators and other appliances in millions of American homes. But today the consumer appliance division accounts for less than 6 percent of revenue, while lending accounts for more than 30 percent. Industrial, commercial and medical equipment like power plant turbines and jet engines account for about 50 percent. Its industrial work includes everything from wind farms to nuclear energy projects like the troubled plant in Japan, built in the 1970s.
Because its lending division, GE Capital, has provided more than half of the company's profit in some recent years, many Wall Street analysts view G.E. not as a manufacturer but as an unregulated lender that also makes dishwashers and M.R.I. machines.
As it has evolved, the company has used, and in some cases pioneered, aggressive strategies to lower its tax bill. In the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan overhauled the tax system after learning that G.E. — a company for which he had once worked as a commercial pitchman — was among dozens of corporations that had used accounting gamesmanship to avoid paying any taxes.
"I didn't realize things had gotten that far out of line," Mr. Reagan told the Treasury secretary, Donald T. Regan, according to Mr. Regan's 1988 memoir. The president supported a change that closed loopholes and required G.E. to pay a far higher effective rate, up to 32.5 percent.
That pendulum began to swing back in the late 1990s. G.E. and other financial services firms won a change in tax law that would allow multinationals to avoid taxes on some kinds of banking and insurance income. The change meant that if G.E. financed the sale of a jet engine or generator in Ireland, for example, the company would no longer have to pay American tax on the interest income as long as the profits remained offshore.
Known as active financing, the tax break proved to be beneficial for investment banks, brokerage firms, auto and farm equipment companies, and lenders like GE Capital. This tax break allowed G.E. to avoid taxes on lending income from abroad, and permitted the company to amass tax credits, write-offs and depreciation. Those benefits are then used to offset taxes on its American manufacturing profits.
G.E. subsequently ramped up its lending business.
As the company expanded abroad, the portion of its profits booked in low-tax countries such as Ireland and Singapore grew far faster. From 1996 through 1998, its profits and revenue in the United States were in sync — 73 percent of the company's total. Over the last three years, though, 46 percent of the company's revenue was in the United States, but just 18 percent of its profits.
Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist for the trade publication Tax Analysts, said that booking such a large percentage of its profits in low-tax countries has "allowed G.E. to bring its U.S. effective tax rate to rock-bottom levels."
G.E. officials say the disparity between American revenue and American profit is the result of ordinary business factors, such as investment in overseas markets and heavy lending losses in the United States recently. The company also says the nation's workers benefit when G.E. profits overseas.
"We believe that winning in markets outside the United States increases U.S. exports and jobs," Mr. Samuels said through a spokeswoman. "If U.S. companies aren't competitive outside of their home market, it will mean fewer, not more, jobs in the United States, as the business will go to a non-U.S. competitor."
The company does not specify how much of its global tax savings derive from active financing, but called it "significant" in its annual report. Stock analysts estimate the tax benefit to G.E. to be hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
"Cracking down on offshore profit-shifting by financial companies like G.E. was one of the important achievements of President Reagan's 1986 Tax Reform Act," said Robert S. McIntyre, director of the liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice, who played a key role in those changes. "The fact that Congress was snookered into undermining that reform at the behest of companies like G.E. is an insult not just to Reagan, but to all the ordinary American taxpayers who have to foot the bill for G.E.'s rampant tax sheltering."
A Full-Court Press
Minimizing taxes is so important at G.E. that Mr. Samuels has placed tax strategists in decision-making positions in many major manufacturing facilities and businesses around the globe. Mr. Samuels, a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago Law School, declined to be interviewed for this article. Company officials acknowledged that the tax department had expanded since he joined the company in 1988, and said it now had 975 employees.
At a tax symposium in 2007, a G.E. tax official said the department's "mission statement" consisted of 19 rules and urged employees to divide their time evenly between ensuring compliance with the law and "looking to exploit opportunities to reduce tax."
Transforming the most creative strategies of the tax team into law is another extensive operation. G.E. spends heavily on lobbying: more than $200 million over the last decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Records filed with election officials show a significant portion of that money was devoted to tax legislation. G.E. has even turned setbacks into successes with Congressional help. After the World Trade Organization forced the United States to halt $5 billion a year in export subsidies to G.E. and other manufacturers, the company's lawyers and lobbyists became deeply involved in rewriting a portion of the corporate tax code, according to news reports after the 2002 decision and a Congressional staff member.
By the time the measure — the American Jobs Creation Act — was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2004, it contained more than $13 billion a year in tax breaks for corporations, many very beneficial to G.E. One provision allowed companies to defer taxes on overseas profits from leasing planes to airlines. It was so generous — and so tailored to G.E. and a handful of other companies — that staff members on the House Ways and Means Committee publicly complained that G.E. would reap "an overwhelming percentage" of the estimated $100 million in annual tax savings.
According to its 2007 regulatory filing, the company saved more than $1 billion in American taxes because of that law in the three years after it was enacted.
By 2008, however, concern over the growing cost of overseas tax loopholes put G.E. and other corporations on the defensive. With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, momentum was building to let the active financing exception expire. Mr. Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee indicated that he favored letting it end and directing the new revenue — an estimated $4 billion a year — to other priorities.
G.E. pushed back. In addition to the $18 million allocated to its in-house lobbying department, the company spent more than $3 million in 2008 on lobbying firms assigned to the task.
Mr. Rangel dropped his opposition to the tax break. Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, said he had helped sway Mr. Rangel by arguing that the tax break would help Citigroup, a major employer in Mr. Crowley's district.
G.E. officials say that neither Mr. Samuels nor any lobbyists working on behalf of the company discussed the possibility of a charitable donation with Mr. Rangel. The only contact was made in late 2007, a company spokesman said, when Mr. Immelt called to inform Mr. Rangel that the foundation was giving money to schools in his district.
But in 2008, when Mr. Rangel was criticized for using Congressional stationery to solicit donations for a City College of New York school being built in his honor, Mr. Rangel said he had appealed to G.E. executives to make the $30 million donation to New York City schools.
G.E. had nothing to do with the City College project, he said at a July 2008 news conference in Washington. "And I didn't send them any letter," Mr. Rangel said, adding that he "leaned on them to help us out in the city of New York as they have throughout the country. But my point there was that I do know that the C.E.O. there is connected with the foundation."
In an interview this month, Mr. Rangel offered a different version of events — saying he didn't remember ever discussing it with Mr. Immelt and was unaware of the foundation's donation until the mayor's office called him in June, before the announcement and after Mr. Rangel had dropped his opposition to the tax break.
Asked to explain the discrepancies between his accounts, Mr. Rangel replied, "I have no idea."
Value to Americans?
While G.E.'s declining tax rates have bolstered profits and helped the company continue paying dividends to shareholders during the economic downturn, some tax experts question what taxpayers are getting in return. Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment. In that time, G.E.'s accumulated offshore profits have risen to $92 billion from $15 billion.
"That G.E. can almost set its own tax rate shows how very much we need reform," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, who has proposed closing many corporate tax shelters. "Our tax system should encourage job creation and investment in America and end these tax incentives for exporting jobs and dodging responsibility for the cost of securing our country."
As the Obama administration and leaders in Congress consider proposals to revamp the corporate tax code, G.E. is well prepared to defend its interests. The company spent $4.1 million on outside lobbyists last year, including four boutique firms that specialize in tax policy.
"We are a diverse company, so there are a lot of issues that the government considers, that Congress considers, that affect our shareholders," said Gary Sheffer, a G.E. spokesman. "So we want to be sure our voice is heard."


text:
These Celebs Show Of Their Leather
Some people feel that wearing leather takes a certain type of bold fashionista personality. I feel like you can pull off anything you want as long as YOU feel good in it, even leather! Whether it's for a dressy event or a casual dinner, these celebs show you how to rock your favorite leather pieces everyday!
What do you think about wearing leather, Yay or nay?!


text:
Assmann Corp. has announced that its crosslink chemical storage tanks are now NSF 61 certified for chemical storage and are suitable for various chemicals. The high-density crosslink resin tanks are additionally highlighted by:
- Your selection from vertical storage, horizontal storage, double-wall, conical-bottom or open-top tanks, as well as chemical feed stations and secondary containment basins.
- Capacities from 40 to 12,000 gallons.
- Polyethylene construction in a variety of shapes.
- Availability of secondary processing, such as fittings, vents, fill lines, heat tracing and insulation.


text:
The HallStar Company has acquired BioChemica International, a supplier of exotic butters and oils for use in personal care products. The acquisition represents HallStar's move into the natural and organic personal care products market.
"Based on marketplace trends and our current position as a provider of innovative personal care ingredients, expanding into the naturals space is a logical move that will help us better serve our customers while also delivering profitability," said John Paro, chairman, president and CEO of. HallStar, in a company press release.
HallStar will support BioChemica with resources enabling the business to develop new consumer-friendly products and to more effectively market those products on a global basis.
BioChemica will continue to serve its global customer base from its Melbourne, Fla., USA, facility, retaining its employees as well as its brand as a HallStar business unit.


text:
European Commission: The Community interest test in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy proceedings, 13 Jan 2006
From WikiLeaks
Unless otherwise specified, the document described here:
- Was first publicly revealed by WikiLeaks working with our source.
- Was classified, confidential, censored or otherwise withheld from the public before release.
- Is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.
Any questions about this document's veracity are noted.
The summary is approved by the editorial board.
See here for a detailed explanation of the information on this page.
If you have similar or updated material, see our submission instructions.
- Release date
- November 3, 2008
13 Jan 2006 Limited distribution European Commission paper setting out internal and confidential guidelines applied to anti-dumping investigations. It will be of interest to non-EU trade officials, companies and lawyers involved in trade defence mechanisms used by the European Union. European Institutions are responsible for creating this document; comment and independent verification may be obtained at that level. Stakeholders in anti-dumping investigations may use this document against EU institutions.
See also the companion document European Commission: Cumulation in anti-dumping an anti-subsidy investigations by the EC.
The document includes numerous examples:
- Gum rosin from China
- Laser Optical Reading Systems (LORS) from Japan, South Korea and Malaysia
- Ferro-silicon from Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela
- Synthetic handbags from China
- Personal fax machines from China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand
- Sulphanic Acid from China and India
- Tungstic oxide and tungstic acid from China
- Salmon from Norway, Chile and the Faeroe Islands
- DRAM (computer memory) from South Korea
- Glycosate from China
- Hollow sections from Turkey
- Bed linin from Pakistan
- CD-R's (recordable compact discs) from Taiwan
- Tube and pipe fittings from the Czech Republic, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea and Slovakia
- Welded tubes from the Czech Republic, Poland, Thailand, Turkey and the Ukraine
- Granular polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) from Russia and China
- Magnesia bricks from China
- Polyester stable fibres (PSF) from China and Saudi Arabia
- Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from Australia, China and Pakistan
- Sodium cyclamate from China and Indonesia
- Graphite electrode systems from India
- Urea from Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Libya, Lithuania, Romania and the Ukraine
- Zinc Oxide from China
- Hot rolled coils from Bulgaria, India, South Africa, Taiwan, Yugoslavia
- Silicon from Russia
- Ring binder mechanisms from Indonesia, China and India
- Colour television receivers from China, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand
- Polysulfide polymers from the USA
- Glycine from China
- Coumarin from China
- Paracresol from China
- Grain oriented electrical sheets (GOES) from Russia
- Compact fluorescent lamps from China
- Magnesium Oxide from China
Further information
File size in bytes


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Clinically depressed people have a hard time telling the difference between negative emotions such as anger and guilt, a new University of Michigan study found.
The ability to distinguish between various emotional experiences affects how individuals deal with life stressors, said Emre Demiralp, a researcher in the U-M Department of Psychology and the lead author of the study recently published in Psychological Science.
Being unable to differentiate certain emotions from each other might lead to a person choosing an action that is not appropriate, thus exacerbating the problem, she said.
"It is difficult to improve your life without knowing whether you are sad or angry about some aspect of it," Demiralp said. "For example, imagine not having a gauge independently indicating the gasoline level of your car. It would be challenging to know when to stop for gas.
"We wanted to investigate whether people with clinical depression had emotional gauges that were informative and whether they experienced emotions with the same level of specificity and differentiation as healthy people."
The study involved 106 people ages 18-40, half of whom were diagnosed with clinical depression. Participants carried a Palm Pilot for seven to eight days and recorded their emotions at random times each day.
They indicated how they felt based on seven negative emotions (sad, anxious, angry, frustrated, ashamed, disgusted, guilty) and four positive emotions (happy, excited, alert, active) on a scale from one (not at all) to four (a great deal).
When participants experienced two emotions at the same time, they often found it challenging to distinguish between negative emotions than positive emotions, the study found.
Demiralp said that positive emotions serve as a buffer in coping with negative emotions for depressed people.
The study's other authors were Martin Buschkuehl, Phoebe Ellsworth, Luis Hernandez-Garcia, Patricia Deldin and John Jonides of the University of Michigan; Renee Thompson, Jutta Mata and Ian Gotlib of Stanford University; Susanne Jaeggi of the University of Maryland; Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University; and Metin Demiralp of Istanbul Technical University.


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special thanks to Dr. Robert Hamilton for article information and photos
The Eagles Golf B-team played in a one-day junior varsity event at the Wasioto Winds Golf Course in Pineville, KY. The tournament was hosted by Union College.
Wasioto Winds is a difficult layout with numerous water hazards, the like of which the Eagles had not had the opportunity to be exposed to prior to this tournament. Randy Smith posted ALC's lowest score with a 98. The Eagles' overall team score was 483. The Alice Lloyd players were not the only players to shoot over 100 on this course, however, the result shows the great difference in quality of play between the Eagles A-team and B-team.
"This is our last official tournament of the fall, and reveals the degree to which we have to improve the level of our B-team if we wish to be more competitive in KIAC conference play," said Coach Robert Hamilton. "There were many encouraging signs in the play of all of our players, and they all clearly have the talent to play much better."
Coach Hamilton says that he plans to spend the time from now until March 2014 developing the playing ability of his second string players.
The Eagles will open spring play by hosting an invitational tournament on March 6th & 7th, 2014 at Stonecrest Golf Course in Prestonsburg, KY.


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Asian Ethnology Podcast
Interview with Frank J. Korom: Meet the Co-editors (1 of 2)
Interviewer: Ben Dorman, co-editor Asian Ethnology
Recorded 24 November 2017, Nagoya, Japan
This is the first of two episodes featuring interviews with the co-editors. Frank J. Korom discusses the influence of his immigration experience on his research, his work published in Asian Folklore Studies and Asian Ethnology, and the various research projects he has been involved with, including work as a museum curator.
Frank J. Korom is Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Boston University and co-editor of Asian Ethnology. His research and teaching interests range from South Asian expressive traditions and contemporary religion to diaspora studies and transnationalism. He is also interested in film, ritual, and performance studies. He is also an affiliated faculty member of Harvard University's Program on Mythology and Folklore.
Episode Summary
Intro :25
Personal background and influence on studies and research 4:39
Anthropology and religious studies; folklore studies and language 7:55
Initial connection to Asian Folklore Studies; "Of Navels and Mountains," "Holy Cow! The Apotheosis of Zebu, or Why the Cow Is Sacred in Hinduism" (see Publications listing below) 11:25
Pakistani Folklore Culture (see Publications listing below), Asian Folklore Studies, and the history of folklore as an academic discipline; "Inventing Traditions" (see Publications listing below) 14:59
Asian Ethnology and changes since Asian Folklore Studies 19:41
Village of Painters, "folklore" and "folklife," and narrative scrolls; Museum of International Folk Art; material culture, Hosay Trinidad, working at the museum, return to academia (see Publications listing below) 33:07
Current project – research on "the making of a transnational Sufi family" 39:19
Outro 39:23
Publications discussed in this episode
1. Of Navels and Mountains: A Further Inquiry into the History of an Idea . Asian Folklore Studies 51-1: 103-125 (1992). (Author: Frank J. Korom)
2. Holy Cow! The Apotheosis of Zebu, or Why the Cow Is Sacred in Hinduism Asian Folklore Studies 59-2: 181-203 (2000). (Author: Frank J. Korom)
3. "Inventing Traditions: Folklore and Nationalism as Historical Process in Bengal," in D. Rihtman- Augustin and M. Povrzanovic (eds.) Folklore and Historical Process. 1989. Zagreb: Institute of Folklore Research, pp. 57-84.
Pakistani Folklore Culture: An Annotated Bibliography., 1988, Islamabad: Lok Virsa Research Centre, 1988.
Hosay Trinidad: Muharram Performances in an Indo-Caribbean Diaspora., 2003. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Village of Painters: Narrative Scrolls from West Bengal , 2006. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press.
Music used with kind permission of the performer, shamisen master Koji Yamaguchi.
Copyright 2018 by Asian Ethnology Podcast


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Early in the stoner action comedy Pineapple Express, co-writer/star Seth Rogen delivers a litany of reasons why pot is beneficial, culminating in "It makes shitty movies better." While certainly true, the line also reads as a winking self-reference to the film's own limited ambition. Of course Rogen, uber-producer Judd Apatow, and director David Gordon Green want Pineapple Express to be good, but they'll settle for it being "good when you're high."
The plot situates nerve-wracked, pot-smoking process server Dale Denton (Rogen) and his dim-bulb pot dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) in the middle of a drug war. Before the thriller plot kicks in, Rogen and co-screenwriter Evan Goldberg (Superbad) take their time establishing Denton, his awkward relationship of three months with a high-school girl (Amber Heard), and his tentative friendship with Saul, a lonely stoner in the mood to bond with nice client Dale since all of Saul's other customers are apparently idiots and jerks. The laid-back scene introducing Saul is easily one of the film's best. Rogen is winningly casual and certainly funny (not to mention credible as a lifelong toker), but Franco turns in a magnificently free and spontaneous performance that's both wholly believable and hilarious.
The trouble begins when Saul offers Dale the cream of the crop: a rare new pot blend called Pineapple Express ("It's like God's vagina," Saul enthuses). Dale shortly becomes witness to a murder, leaving behind a telltale roach. The not-so-dynamic duo goes on the run, troubleshooting on the way Dale's girlfriend and her parents (Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn). Comic actor of the moment Danny McBride (Drillbit Taylor, The Foot Fist Way) plays Red, an untrustworthy acquaintance who sparks a purposefully clumsy fight sequence amongst the three men and, like the killer in a horror movie, refuses to go quietly from the film. Craig Robinson (The Office) also brings the funny as an ever-frustrated thug.
These scenes and a subsequent car chase keep the film running for the better part of its first two acts, setting aside a meandering detour to the woods. Rogen and Goldberg reliably deliver amusing non sequiturs (Saul's suggestion that he and Dale could be tracked by "heat-seeking missiles, bloodhounds, foxes, barracudas"), pop culture references (from "Electric Avenue" to 227), and character comedy (like Saul's reaction to learning Dale is a process server: "You're a servant, like a butler?"). Plus, indie stalwart Green and longtime cinematographer Tim Orr inject their dusty visual style, in counterpoint to a prologue that simultaneously parodies, complete with black-and-white and theremin, '50s sci-fi horror and Reefer Madness.
The film runs into a spot of trouble when it has to "grow up" and resolve its plot. Scenes with Gary Cole as the baddie and Rosie Perez as his corrupt-cop lover fail to overcome the reality that they're obligatory plotting (though Perez's character allows for Dale's amusingly wrongheaded appraisal "What an adorable little cop"). And the film has tonal difficulty reconciling the run-of-the-mill exaggeration of action comedy with surreal parody, as when the Asian druglords show up in their ninja blacks (sigh), and we find ourselves watching Ken Jeong (the real-life doctor who played the gyno in Knocked Up) tossing a knife into a guy's neck. Finally, the emotional arc doesn't exactly have a pot of gold at the end of it--an amusingly conceived wrap-up in a diner can't disguise the increasingly familiar taste of Apatow bromance.
To be sure, there's some humor to be mined by aping an '80s-style action movie while subverting '80s action cliches. In one small, well-observed moment, we see how unreasonably easy it is for action stars to pull off manuevers like climbing into a vent and reaching down to hoist someone else off the ground (most of the other skewered cliches are more obvious, like a slo-mo leap and the easy flow of guns and bullets throughout a shootout sequence). The scoring by Graeme Revell is pretty hilarious, and be sure to stay through the credits for the retro Huey Lewis title tune.
Despite its rusty mechanics and hodgepodge of tones, Pineapple Express convincingly imitates the mode of Midnight Run: on-the-run odd-couple comedy with gunplay and car chases. Green has made his first eager-to-please film, and his first that's completely devoid of deeper meaning. These are disconcerting qualities for Green enthusiasts (and multiplex-goers hopefully learning to expect more from the movies). But "green" enthusiasts and Apatow acolytes will happily groove to this movie, and they have enough good reason.
Sony once again teams with Judd Apatow for a feature-packed special edition, Pineapple Express marking a "high" point of sorts. Sony does it again with a transfer that's simply perfection: the film looks exactly as it did on the big screen, except with none of the flaws of film projection. The picture is rock-solid, exact in its color rendering and detail, deep in its black levels, and completely clean in its source. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack leaves nothing to be desired, with its exciting immersion during action scenes and clarity of dialogue and music throughout the film.
Apatow is known for his in-depth home-video special editions, and Pineapple Express is no exception. For starters, we get the Theatrical Version (112 minutes) and Extended Unrated Version (118 minutes). There's a jam-packed commentary track with no chance of a gap in the conversation. Participants include Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Ed Begley, Jr., co-writer/producer Evan Goldberg, director David Gordon Green, Craig Robinson, Rosie Perez, producer Shauna Robertson, and Kevin Corrigan. A good time is had by all, including the listener, as the talents chat about the movie and its difficulties (like Franco's head-splitting injury) as well as other random ephemera (like Rogen's story of running into Jeff Goldblum and "pussying out" from telling him about the Jeff Goldblum joke in Pineapple Express).
Next up are 3 "Deleted Scenes" (3:27, SD) and 8 "Extended & Alternate Scenes" (21:06, SD) with some bonus gems of wacky dialogue and situations (shame they're not in HD, though...). "The Making of Pineapple Express" (21:08, HD) is a highly entertaining look at the film's development, casting, rehearsal and production, incorporating interviews with Rogen, Apatow, Goldberg, Green, Franco, McBride, Perez, Gary Cole, Corrigan, Robinson, production designer Chris Spellman, and David Gordon Green's parents Jeanne and Gordon Green. "The Action of Pineapple Express" (12:19, HD) breaks down the major action sequences with Rogen, Franco, Green and stunt coordinator Gary Hymes.
"Phone Booth" (6:25 with "Play All" option, SD) offers two montages of raw takes with Apatow playing Angie on the other end of the phone with Rogen's Dale. "Line-O-Rama" (3:28, SD) is an Apatow tradition rounding up various improv "wild lines." "David Gordon Green's Direct-O-Rama" (3:47, SD) is a new spin, featuring the director's wacky directions to get differing line readings. There's a "Gag Reel" (4:55, SD), followed by some bonus "Item 9" (4:17, SD) skits picked up apparently during breaks in filming. In a similar vein, "Saul's Apartment" (13:46 with "Play All" option, SD) amounts to four sequel shorts with Franco and guests.
"Raw Footage" (32:43 with "Play All" option, SD) serves up uncut takes of several sequences. "Begley's Best" (5:43, HD) isn't the montage of crazy takes it sounds like; rather, it's a documentary featurette following Begley as he processes orders of his environmentally sound cleaning products (it's more fun than it sounds). "Red and Jessica's Guide to Marriage" (4:12, HD) features Danny McBride and a screen bride as they offer up unique tips for a long-lasting marriage. The "Injury Report" (4:56, HD) humorously details (and exaggerates) the film's many mishaps, while "Ken Jeong: Stuntmaster" (3:12, HD) plants tongue firmly in cheek to make "the man" out of the mousy actor.
"Rehearsal 3/6/07--Police Liaison" (5:40, HD) shows a chunk of rehearsal with the director and two actors, providing the uninitiated with a good idea of how words on a page, added to improv, can help develop a scene, with the shooting day providing yet more inspiration for the final product. An excerpt from the "First Table Read 3/4/06" (8:36, HD) provides similar insight, in part by including an elaborate scuba adventure that didn't make it to production. We get a good portion of the "Comic-Con Panel" (7:33, SD) promoting Pineapple Express, including faux nerds asking questions at the mic.
Last up are a "Red Band Trailer" (2:47, HD), Digital Copy on Disc Two for portable playback, and BD Live hookup for more exclusive content available at the Sony website. With all of this added value, Pineapple Express is a no-brainer pick-up for comedy fans.
Review gear: |
Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT30 55" Plasma 1080p 3D HDTV
Oppo BDP-93 Universal Network 3D Blu-ray Disc Player
Denon AVR2112CI Integrated Network A/V Surround Receiver
Pioneer SP-BS41-LR Bookshelf Speaker (2)
Pioneer SP-C21 Center Speaker
Pioneer SW-8 Subwoofer


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Sean Bercaw has thought a lot about why one of the most archaic forms of communication, the message in the bottle, is considered romantic. He has sent more than 250 of them out to sea.
"Anyone launching a bottle is investing his or her hopes and desires in the bottle being found," he says. "The cool thing about it, is it's not simply black and white: succeed or fail. Even if no one finds it now, there is always that possibility. That hope always exists that some one may find it a hundred years later."
It is that possibility, rather than the probability of reaching another human that is inspiring says Bercaw. Having tossed bottles into the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, he has gotten 45 responses, about a 20 percent hit rate. But that means four out of every five bottles have not yet been found. "If you knew for sure it would get a response, it wouldn't be as romantic," he says.
Although Bercaw, 51, is single, he isn't looking for love. A former Naval officer and tall ship captain who has sailed 160,000 nautical miles around the globe, he launched his first bottle as a scientific experiment when he was only ten years old.
Bercaw, who grew up in Santa Barbara, became interested in wind currents when he left California to sail around the world with his parents and two sisters on a 38-foot ketch, Natasha. The three and a half year voyage was a unique education that would influence the rest of his life.
There was no official "homeschooling" back then, but his parents brought a 500-book library and made their children read up on every new destination. They all had to help keep the hourly log of location, weather and the course they were steering. Bercaw can't remember exactly what prompted the bottle experiment, but he is fairly certain it was his own idea. Neither of his parents drank alcohol, so he had to scavenge for wine bottles from bars at various ports of call. The hardest part, he says, was finding the cork.
He launched his first 40 bottles, keeping detailed notes that included latitude, longitude, a description of the location, condition of the seas, and how the bottle floated. The note inside asked for a responder to include the bottle number and the date and location of the find.
His first response came from a boy in Nicaragua who lived with his grandparents and found the bottle on a beach after it had floated more than 1500 nautical miles in less than three months. The second came five months later from a 22-year old woman in Grenada who described her physical features and her hobbies "as if it were a Match.com ad," he says. He was only thirteen at the time. After a twenty-five year hiatus, Bercaw renewed his message in a bottle project when he started working for the Sea Education Association (SEA) in Falmouth captaining "school ships," which are semester abroad programs for college students.
In late January one of Bercaw's former students, Annie Isaacs of Dover, Ma, now a graduate student at Boston College, got a reply from a couple who found her bottle in Spain. She says her heart "did jumping jacks," when she saw the email. "It's really is an amazing feeling," she says.
Bercaw maintains detailed notes on where and when each bottle was launched and retrieved, as well as photocopies of each response and the additional information he gets from interviewing the recipient about the condition of the bottle and the traffic of the location. Analyzing the time and location data helps him theorize about the length and likely path of the bottle's voyage. "
You learn about ocean currents, " he says, "but the messages themselves are so human."
Although he primarily launches his own bottles into the sea, Bercaw once, tossed one into the Atlantic for a friend. It contained a love poem she had written. "Love and the Sea" by Alison Howard was not so much seeking romance, but recovering from it. It references "stormy days and broken dreams" and hopes that the bottle "may reach the hands of someone who will appreciate it as much as I." The heartfelt message traveled 650 nautical miles and was recovered by a woman on Caswell Beach, North Carolina less than eight months later.
Messages inside bottles go back to the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus who threw sealed bottles into the sea to prove that the Mediterranean was formed by the inflowing Atlantic. They became controversial in the 16th century when Queen Elizabeth I made it a capital crime for anyone but an appointed "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles," to open one, and in the 1970s, NASA sent its own version into space. The Voyager I and II probes each have an attached golden disc that carry sounds and images of human life as well as greetings from then-president Jimmy Carter beyond the outer planets.
Messages inside bottles have been romanticized in literature, from Edgar Allen Poe's short story "MS Found in a Bottle" to Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes, to the more recent Message In the Bottle by Nicholas Sparks.
Seven years ago, a message inside a bottle touched off a minor environmental controversy when the recipient, a man in southern England, scolded the sender, a Mattituck, NY high school science teacher, for contributing to ocean litter.
That science teacher used plastic bottles, which travel faster and farther than glass. But because plastic isn't biodegradable. Bercaw says he sticks to the classic glass bottle and natural cork.
Robin Lacey, who manages the beach cleanups for the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, says there are much worse marine issues than messages sent in bottles. "I worry more about plastics and cigarette butts," he says.
Bercaw's responses have come from all over the globe, from Bermuda to France to Florida to Tahiti. They have been hand written by small children and old men, texted and emailed from honeymooners and business executives. "One guy called me on his cellphone from the beach where he had just discovered it," Bercaw says. "I thought that was an interesting juxtaposition of technologies. The most archaic form of communication and the latest satellite cell phone."
Last September, Robert Ellison of Jamaica Plain and his wife found one of Bercaw's messages in a bottle during a weekend escape to Cuttyhunk. "I was looking for good surfcasting spots on some fairly remote beaches. I saw a wine bottle on some rocks and actually thought: wouldn't that be funny if that was a message in a bottle?" Ellison says.
When he picked it up, he knew it immediately. "It was the quintessential message in a bottle," with the message wrapped around a pencil, and the traditional wine bottle tightly corked. "We didn't allow ourselves to open it that night," he says. Instead, he and his wife brought it back to the inn where they were staying and waited until dinner. "We wanted to make a ceremony out of it."
As it turns out, Ellison is an oceanographer, already familiar with drift bottle experiments, but that didn't lessen the excitement. "It was the highlight of our weekend," he says. When he contacted Bercaw, they had a lot in common. Ellison works for YSI Inc. in Beverly, a company that makes submersible instruments to measure water quality. Now Ellison is lending him some of that equipment for Bercaw's next voyage.
Bercaw has captained a variety of vessels, including the tall ship SSV Amistad, on its historic trip back to Cuba. In his next voyage, he will captain a converted cargo ship from Nova Scotia to the Cook Islands, west of Tahiti. He plans to launch 20 to 25 new bottles on the voyage to the Pacific. Bercaw believes that romance is an important part of the life at sea, When he teaches students aboard the school ships, he likes to begin voyage by having them read the essay by Robert James Waller (The Bridges of Madison County): "Romance."
That essay makes the argument that real romance must be fostered in a myriad of ways in every day life, and that "If you try to look at romance straight on, you can't see it.
"A romantic takes joy in the "subtle things," says Bercaw, whether they are at sea or on land. He recalls once while on night watch at 2 a.m. in the pouring rain, the ship was sailing through a rainsquall. The moonlight came in under the squall, highlighting all the rain above. The ship running lights were glowing green and, because of the raindrops, reflected in the jib (a triangular sail on the forward mast).
Says Bercaw, "It was a powerful, romantic moment, that could easily have been missed.''
Jan Brogan can be reached at
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