text:
Heya, everybody,
It's a new beginning for me. I made quite some mistakes on "promoting my books" (a.k.a. spamming the hell out of my FB and Twitter accounts; sorry, guys) over the years.
I took some wrong advice. (It seems most indie authors on the web have done the same--lots of self-promoting social media posts which give nothing to the READER. I am guilty guilty guilty of this myself.)
Well, I'm starting afresh.
The truth is, I don't really "get" Facebook. I don't use it personally. Someone said to me once, "Oh, you HAVE to have a Facebook account if you want to sell books! You MUST!"
Dunno. I think my real fans have either signed up for my newsletter or reached out to me by email (my email address is at the back of every one of my books; also in the newsletter itself).
What a ride.
Well, I'm going to do things differently from now on.
Basically, I'm NOT going to promote my books anymore. I had a look at my Twitter account this morning and it gave me shudders. I couldn't believe how USELESS every single one of those tweets was.
Utterly...useless to my fans, my Constant Readers, or anyone else for that matter.
I deleted all the old tweets--not because I'm ashamed of them. There was simply nothing to be ashamed of--they were all just hot air crap automated posting from FB, Google, Goodreads...snore snore snore--no use to my followers AT ALL.
I'm starting again. I hope to connect from now on--to connect for real.
Many of you have sent me mails in the past, giving me your views, your opinions, good and bad. I'm old school. I grew up in a time when there was no internet, and then suddenly there was email, and us old-school folk are kind of used to email. All this Social Media stuff is--wow. It's new territory. And I failed at exploring it.
I had a look at my FB page. Oh, holy crap--SHUDDERS.
Self-promoting bullshit.
I'm sorry about this.
I thought I was doing the right thing. And I was also trying to give a nod to the awesome blogs who were promoting my books. I did it by sharing their stuff on my page, and resharing...oh man, it became such a mess. By giving each one of them a nod, I basically glutted my own FB page with self-promoting bullshit when... I think you get the point here.
I did a cover-reveal of TAKEN last year already. I never released that book. I just... I didn't release it because I knew I was doing something wrong with my fans and I didn't know WHAT.
I think I know it now. I think. I hope.
So, anyway, for those of you who have stuck around, I thank you, and here is my solemn, heartfelt promise to you, made in blood and stone:
I promise I won't shove my books down your throats ever again.
Never, ever again.
I have to clean out a lot of the old crap. I'll probably nuke all the old FB posts as well. What's the point of keeping them? They're useful to nobody.
My blog is a MESS. I need to clean it up, make it more useful for FANS. Sure, I'll have my books displayed on here. Sure, I'll send out news of whenever I write a new book, and maybe even do a few small small posts on release-week--just a few to make sure I reach most of you.
But, really, those of you who like my books would probably find out that I'd written a new one, anyway.
So, the blog will change. I'll let you know what I do with FB. I might just nuke the entire thing.
Factually, I'll probably be hanging out at Twitter more than anything else, just chatting, getting to know people. I'd love it if you connected with me on there. Here's the link: https://twitter.com/RachelDAuthor
I'll do better this time round.


text:
Cavalier Stevia Tablet Dark Chocolate with Berries
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
History of Prayer and Healing School
The story behind it . . .
As a teenager, Kenneth E. Hagin lay paralyzed for many months, seemingly destined to die. His heart cried out for someone to encourage him to believe that he could be healed. But the few people he asked for help only told him to prepare for death.
By the grace of God and young Kenneth's determined study of God's Word, faith finally was quickened in his heart for him to believe for his healing. On August 8, 1934, he was raised off the bed of sickness by the power of God, completely healed and made whole.
As a minister of the Gospel, Rev. Hagin long carried a dream in his heart to help those who suffered in pain and sickness the way he himself had once suffered. He wanted to provide a place where the sick could come and have faith put into them, rather than have it taken out of them through religious tradition and unbelief.
The Lord put it on Rev. Hagin's heart to start Prayer and Healing School, and the first classes were held in 1979. At the outset, Rev. Hagin dealt with both prayer and healing in the same session. As time went on, however, he saw there was a need to separate prayer and healing to allow for more specific teaching on each subject.
The Prayer & Healing Center is centrally located on the RHEMA campus in facilities completed in 1982. The building was beautifully renovated in 2002 and provides a peaceful environment in which people can begin to expect to receive from God. From here, staff members coordinate several prayer and healing outreaches.


text:
Endowing Wellheads With Brains
Oil producers have a newfound interest in gear that cuts costs.
By Matthew Philips
May 5, 2016 — 2:38 PM CDT
Three years ago, Raymond Welder was still monitoring his company's 150 oil and gas wells the old-fashioned way: Each day seven guys in trucks would drive hundreds of miles around South Texas checking each well. They'd jot down readings of production volumes and pressure levels and, once back at the office, type up the data and send it around to the rest of the staff. "We thought we were high-tech because we had e-mail," says Welder, chief executive officer of San Antonio-based Welder Exploration & Production.
Back then, a day or more could go by before the company realized a well wasn't working. Then a mechanic would have to be dispatched to the site to diagnose the problem and fix it. Says Welder: "Pretty soon, something small ends up costing you a week of production," which can be a big problem for a small producer with about 700 barrels a day of output.
WellAware helps clients monitor oil and gas wells via real-time data. Source: WellAware
Today, it takes just seconds for Welder to learn that one of his company's wells has gone down. That's because in 2013, Welder Exploration became one of the first oil producers to sign on with WellAware, a tech startup that kits out clients' oil and gas wells with hardware that transmits real-time data over its own radio network. Clients can access the information on a smartphone or tablet using WellAware's mobile app or through a Web browser. Customers pay $15 to $100 a month per well, depending on the level of service and equipment.
Except for advances in drilling technology, which underpinned the U.S. shale boom, much of the oil industry remains strikingly antiquated when it comes to above-ground operations. Now, as companies transition from searching for deposits to slashing costs and improving the productivity of existing wells, digitizing their operations has become much more appealing.
"People used to tell me, 'If you can't help us find more oil and drill faster, I don't have time to talk to you,' " says Dave Milam, head of product management at WellAware, which was founded in 2012. The company has raised $61 million in venture capital and counts billionaire Carlos Slim as an investor. The privately held company doesn't report financial results, but Milam says its roster of customers has grown tenfold in the past year.
Welder says WellAware's gear has saved his company hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year. "It would've been a lot worse if not for this technology," says Welder, who cut his staff by about a third over the past two years and idled about 30 percent of his wells. The use of the technology also helped his remaining employees become more productive. "Those guys who used to be in the trucks are no longer just data gatherers," he says. "They're problem solvers." In 2014, Welder joined the board of WellAware.
In a report released in March, McKinsey estimates that each of the world's oil majors could reap $1 billion in cost savings and production increases from the adoption of digital technologies. In California, Chevron is using artificial intelligence to mine troves of historical data on well locations with the goal of maximizing production. In late 2015 the company also began to fly drones over its oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley to collect data and build high-definition maps.
Ahmed Hashmi, global head of upstream technology at BP, says the company has plowed "several hundred million dollars" into digital field technologies, which now cover about 85 percent of its oil and gas production around the world, compared with just 20 percent five years ago. "Digital is the rare technology that allows us to do more with less," he says.
Even so, it's not always an easy sell. "A lot of guys in the oil and gas industry are older, and they don't completely understand the tech stuff," says Ken Sigmon, sales and marketing manager of Bluetick, a North Carolina company that offers remote monitoring and automation services for oil and gas companies. Sigmon chuckles about a recent conversation he had with a Texas oil producer who still used a flip phone. When "they see that their competitors are making themselves more efficient and profitable, then they'll buy into it," he says. "We used to use spears, now we use guns."
—With Meenal Vamburkar
The bottom line: The collapse in oil prices is stoking demand for technologies to automate oilfield functions once performed by humans.


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Candida is a fungal element that is present as a part of the normal flora in the mouth and GI tract in small amounts. If the balance of normal flora is disturbed, the candida may become more plentiful and then thrush or a candida infection develops.
Thrush may appear as creamy white lesions in the mouth or throat. The areas may be painful and may bleed if scraped. Thrush or Candida Infection is often diagnosed based on appearance, culture, or endoscopic examination.
Persons at risk for thrush include those with weakened immune systems and the very young or very old. Stress, certain medications, tobacco use, ill-fitting dentures and certain medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus, HIV, dry mouth or even pregnancy can increase the risk of developing thrush.
Symptoms may include painful or difficult swallowing.
Thrush is treated with antifungal medications that are available in different forms. It is important to practice good oral hygiene. Using warm salt water rinses may also be helpful.
In order to prevent thrush it is important to see your dentist regularly. Limiting foods that contain a lot of sugar or yeast that encourage the growth of candida is also important. Eating yogurt with active cultures, especially when taking certain medications such as antibiotics, may minimize your risk. After using steroid inhalers you should rinse your mouth or brush your teeth. Treat vaginal yeast infections as soon as possible. Some studies have also shown that garlic may be effective because of its antifungal/antibacterial properties. It is important to stop smoking and avoid mouthwashes and rinses that alter the normal flora may also be beneficial.


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Because I have lived most of my life away from California, when I return for a visit I see it with different eyes than those who have never left. Everything is new to me, and at the same time, I remember and know every detail. There should be a word for that, a word for remembering what you didn't know you knew; the way déjà vu means you feel like something has already happened even though you know it hasn't. But déjà vu is not it, not what I feel when I step out onto California land. This is, perhaps, more of a bone and blood memory: the air, minerals, water, scents, pollen, light, angle of the sun and stars, that my body remembers, that some deep part of my brain remembers. Usually this is triggered simply by being in California: feeling the thunder of surf on a flat sweep of beach, stepping over the rampant roots of huge fig trees bursting through slabs of sidewalk, or smelling eucalyptus on the evening air, running my hand along the ancient spears of agave or sitting beneath the shameless purple blossoms of jacaranda.
Once, taking a bus a few years ago in Westwood, I suddenly stepped back into my four year old body, going up those bus steps, my hand in my mother's hand, sitting next to the window looking out at hot sidewalks and palm trees planted along the way. I had never consciously remembered taking the bus with my mom in Los Angeles, and yet once I stepped on that bus, I felt as if I'd never been without that memory. It was as much a part of me as the color of my hair.
So my experiences in California now – as a middle-aged woman - are constantly doubled with memories of being a child here; sensory memories, emotional memories, that shadow my every move. In some ways, this is like walking simultaneously on two timelines; my two bodies, one three or four years old, one fifty-one, connected suddenly by the geographic location and my history with it. This probably wouldn't happen with someone who had grown up in a place and never left, because there is no rupture in that timeline – it's all connected. For me, there is that moment when my mother and I got on a bus and left California "forever."
We took a Greyhound, actually, all the way from Los Angeles to Washington State. I remember only parts of this (no doubt I slept much of the time). I remember that someone had bought me a lovely new dark blue sweater that buttoned up the front, just for the journey, and that I left it on the bus when we got off. How I mourned that sweater. It had been a special gift for the journey, and I lost it to the journey. I also felt bad that I hadn't kept hold of my possessions, a little guilty that someone spent money on me and I'd wasted it. Mostly, I remember the heat: the bus must have had AC, but the sun beat in from the window anyway, and I stuck to the seat.
We must have gone up the middle of the state, up through the deserty valley, because my body is filled with those rolling golden hills and flat brown fields when I think of this bus ride. We stopped at my grandparent's home near Bakersfield for a visit, I recall; but then we got back on a different Greyhound and continued on to Washington, where my mother's new husband and my new stepfather, Tommy, waited for us. We would stay at his sister Tina's house while looking for a place of our own to live. I would enter another world, a lush, green, gray, wet, close, dark world. And my Southern California body would withdraw deep into the core of my being, wrapped in fog and clouds and months, years of fir trees, rain, puddles, wet shoes and hair. My California body would stay there, curled up, dormant. Even when I returned for a visit at age nine, or when I visited Santa Barbara with my mother when I was nineteen, my California self didn't emerge – completely enveloped in who I had become, a Pacific Northwestern girl, someone who had gone into that grey land and submerged herself, become a creature of water, mud, pine needles, decaying red cedar, salmonberries, creeks, stinging nettles that left raised tattoos on my skin, skin no longer the color of deep cinnamon brown but an olive-beige – reminiscent, I often thought as I grew older, of the underside of a mushroom.
Like most people who live in the Pacific Northwest for a long time, like any child relocated at this age, I quickly became fiercely territorial of my new home. No other place was as clean, as beautiful, as friendly. And California? California became the Devil, signifying all that was wrong with the world: impassable freeways, earthquakes, heat, violent upheaval. People in the PNW who came from California did not advertise that fact; it was a slur to call someone a "California Driver!" or imply that some outsider was "from the land of shake n' bake." Now I realize that part of this attitude must have come from my mother's sense of having fled a past she wanted to forget, a place and time when she made unforgiveable mistakes and was subject to abuse that could not be forgiven. She had fled California and who she had been there as if it were Hell on earth; as if the fires of Hell had caught her, burned her, left her with raging scars that could only be healed in the land of endless rain. My mother was in hiding. My mother had gone underground. And she took me with her, because she had lost all her other children to the maw of a monstrous state that would never, never give them back to her.
And I loved my mother. Oh, how I loved her. My loyalty knew no bounds, and would suffer no correction of my mother's behavior, even when that behavior wounded me past all healing.
So my California body slept. Waited. Dreamed. Did it struggle to get out? Or was it lulled into dormancy by the long wet winters that went on for ten months out of twelve? I was always such a good sleeper, my mother told people. I slept through car rides, bus rides, parties, even disappearing into my bedroom for self-dictated naps when life got too busy. I became practiced at retreat. I adapted. I transformed.
At least on the outside. On the inside, my body remembered everything. I sit in this California coffee shop this morning and my skin tingles with what I know. What I remember. What I will remember.


text:
FIREFIGHTERS in Greater Manchester will be helping keep thousands of elderly people safe this winter after being chosen to lead a national health initiative.
Every winter 30,000 people die as a result of health issues linked to cold weather.
Various agencies work hard to prevent unnecessary deaths but Public Health England are hoping to save even more lives through a new partnership with fire and rescue services.
Greater Manchester is one of three services chosen to support the health and social care system by promoting public health and preventative health care when visiting people in their homes.
The service already visits over 60,000 homes each year to fit smoke alarms and provide fire safety advice but now firefighters will also use the opportunity to give advice on falls prevention, cold homes, social isolation and flu inoculations.
They will take action or refer residents onto other health and social care services, including those provided by voluntary sector organisations such as Age UK.
These checks will be known as Safe and Well visits, and will also see firefighters taking action and giving advice on health and crime prevention issues, as well as traditional fire safety measures.
Chairman of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, Councillor David Acton, said: "Over the last 10 years we have seen accidental fires fall dramatically as a result of the early intervention our staff have carried out by providing fire safety advice and fitting smoke alarms.
"If we have the opportunity to make a bigger impact while we visit homes, by looking for obvious ways to keep people safe during winter or safe from crime, then why wouldn't we?
"We know we have unique access to a large number of homes, many are the same people who are at high risk of winter-related illnesses, so it makes sense to collaborate with PHE to improve the lives of residents in Greater Manchester.
"We want to use our skills and expertise to help save lives in other ways by working even more collaboratively with our health and social care partners.â€
A spokesman from PHE said: "Public Health England is working with the Local Government Association, NHS England, Age UK and the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) to develop a shared view of how fire and rescue services can use their capacity to support the health and social care system including promoting public health and preventative health care.Â
"Fire and rescue services have seen success in reducing demand for their services by taking a preventative approach through home safety visits (or more recently, safe and well visits).
"Those factors that predispose someone to being at risk from fire also predispose someone to be at risk of having or developing long term and other conditions that create demand for other organisations. By focusing on changing behaviours relating to these factors fire and rescue services could translate their prevention successes into other areas.â€
- A launch event is being held on Monday, November 2, at Manchester Central Fire Station, Thompson Street, Manchester, M4 5FP, from 10am. For further details please call GMFRS' corporate communications department on: 0161 608 4090.


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International Tax Newsletter - Summer 2011 - CHILE: New Audit Process For Transfer Pricing
August 01, 2011Download
Article 38 of the Income Tax Law sets out the regulations on transfer pricing which have not been changed since 2002.
The regulations are intended to give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the power to justifiably object to transfer pricing if they have the documentation that, according to reasoning, analysis and logical consistency, allows them to assign another value to the transfer or the prices received or paid between related companies, according to the terms of the law, if one of the companies is established abroad.
For tax purposes, the IRS has pointed out that the above prices shall be called "transfer pricing" and includes concepts such as the purchase and sales of goods, the provision of services and technology transfer as well as the authorization for the temporary use of licences and trademarks. Broadly speaking, transfer pricing is the price paid or received for the transfer of goods or services between companies which are part of a multinational group.
Immediately after the last legal regulations on transfer pricing had been passed, the IRS published instructions clarifying its approach on the topic and giving examples of several cases and procedures to determine whether the operation has been carried out under the principle internationally known as "arm's length."
The Director of the IRS has recently announced that the Service has begun an audit process on these types of operations. He has explained that Article 38 of the Income Tax Law is a facility for the IRS to assess the value of an operation as if it had been made between non-related parties. To do this, the methods based on the OECD model will be applied, considering its advantages and disadvantages according to the case. Tax auditors are being trained on the subject and have recently finished a course on the new Chapter IX of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guide on entrepreneurial groups' reorganizations.
The IRS has not given specific instructions on how taxpayers can demonstrate that prices have been fixed properly from the tax point of view. However, regardless of which method has been applied, reliable documentation that provides supporting evidence under a tax audit shall be crucially important to prove that its price is not out of the line with the regular market prices between non-related parties.
International Tax Newsletter - Summer 2011
- CHILI: New Audit Process For Transfer Pricing
- CHINA: Corporate Income Taxes (CIT) Treatment On Asset Transfer Income Derived By Enterprises
- CZECH REPUBLIC: Corporate Tax Legislation
- GERMANY: Electronic Transmission Of Tax Accounting Introduced For 2012 Onward
- HUNGARY: Corporate Income Taxation
- INDIA: Finance Act 2011 — Amendments Relevant To International Taxation
- IRELAND: Finance Act 2011 Changes For Companies Investing In Ireland
- JAPAN: Recent Tax Treaty Reforms
- MEXICO: Recent Tax Treaty Reforms
- NETHERLANDS: Corporate Income Tax
- RUSSIA: New Zero Rating For Income From The Sale Of Shares In Russian Companies
- UNITED KINGDOM: Corporation Tax Rate
- UNITED STATES: Key International Tax Developments


text:
Washing Equipment of Texas
San Antonio Pressure Washers
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Chances are, your equipment cost a lot of money. So of course, you want to protect your investment and keep it running efficiently. For better performance and longer life, keep your equipment clean with WET top-quality pressure washers. No matter what your cleaning needs may be, WET has an ideal solution.
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Conserve precious water & protect the environment with wash water recycling and pre-treatment systems.
With WET wash water recycling and pre-treatment systems, you can separate, treat, and filter oils, solids, and trace amounts of chemicals. These systems leave water clean enough for re-use. Our Wash Water Evaporators reduce hauling hazardous waste and/or expensive treatment, saving you money and reducing risk and liability.
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Washing Equipment of Texas is the premier provider of sales, rentals, and repairs of commercial and residential washing equipment for Texas and the greater Southwest region. We offer a huge variety of cleaning products and equipment for any project, big or small.
Washing Equipment of Texas (WET) is a family owned operation, and we are proud to say that we've been in business for over 30 years. We have our company headquarters in San Antonio TX, with additional physical locations in Corpus Christi, La Feria, El Paso, and Albuquerque.
Call our experienced technicians today at 800-899-9388 to get a free quote on our washing equipment.
To best serve your needs, our repair and maintenance teams are available to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!


text:
Lying Figures are skulking humanoid monsters in Silent Hill 2.
The Lying Figure is the first creature James Sunderland encounters, after following trails of blood through Silent Hill. He confronts it in a closed tunnel after retrieving the radio, where it is seen feeding on a corpse.
They also appear in the Born from a Wish scenario and torment Maria.
Lying Figures appear on an alternate cover of Sinner's Reward, Issue 4 and in the short film Fukuro as well.
The Lying Figure should not be confused with the Straightjacket in Silent Hill: Origins, to which it shares many similarities, but the latter has some significant changes.
An incarnation of the Lying Figure monster appears in the Silent Hill film, credited as the Armless Man. This version of the Armless Man likely represents Alessa Gillespie's hospitalization.
Their entire bodies appear to be trapped in a straitjacket of flesh, complete with stereotypically feminine legs and visible buttocks. On their feet, they wear a pair of what seem to be platform heels encased in flesh. When they scurry across the ground, they make a high-pitched wailing noise that sounds like the scraping of metal against cement. They seem to have zippers on their faces.
They attack by spewing a spray of poisonous mist from an opening in their chest, which will knock James/Maria back and force him/her to recover for a few seconds before being able to resume his/her attack. Because of this, it's best to deal with them from range, preferably by using the handgun, as a few good shots can down the creature. However, if melee is the only option, it's advised to use the steel pipe while strafing left/right to avoid the poison.
They are slow-moving while standing upright; however, when knocked down, they can easily hit James/Maria by skittering very quickly along the ground, easily outrunning the player. It's best to flee if the situation arises.
The Lying Figure represents the image of a hospital patient squirming in agony. This is a manifestation of James's internal suffering.[1] The novelization also mentions they were created from feelings of confinement.[2]
In Silent Hill 2, Masahiro Ito designed the Lying Figure as reminiscence of Mary Shepherd-Sunderland in her state of terminal illness, which has been speculated to have something to do with physical distortion, as Mary said, "I look like a monster!". This furthers the evidence that the Lying Figure was meant to be similar to how Mary saw herself: suffering in agony and trapped in its own inescapable body.
As well, its main means of attack is spitting an acid-like mist at James/Maria; this is suggestive of vomiting, alluding further to the theme of illness. However, this may also be suggestive of how Mary spat hateful words at James during her illness. The Lying Figures seem to have zippers on their faces which could be symbolic of either a straitjacket, representing James wanting of Mary to "zip it" (her mouth) due to her verbal treatment of him, or even a bodybag, perhaps representing a memory of James' last look at Mary as she was zipped into one.
As the creature appears to have its arms restricted, it can be assumed that it represents James's frustration from being unable to touch or hold Mary during her sickness. The way that it skitters along the ground and screeches like grating metal also likens it to a pest. This could point to Mary being burdensome and disgusting to James.
The prevalent theme of sexual frustration ties in, as this beast is practically unclothed, trapped, writhing, has effeminate legs and buttocks, has feet that look like platform shoes, and spews a spray from its chest, possibly mirroring male ejaculation. In extension, the Lying Figure could also represent James's disgust with his own growing sexual yearning in the face of Mary's illness, and the figure symbolizes this by having both of its hands thrust down its underwear, easily noticeable in the creature's concept art.
Lying Figures also appears in Maria's Born from a Wish scenario, which is realistic considering Maria is essentially an illusion of Mary.
- The Silent Hill 2 "official" BradyGames strategy guide by Dan Birlew refers to them as "Patient Demon". However, this should not necessarily be accepted as an official name because it never appears anywhere else, and the "official" strategy guides occasionally have errors.
- In the making of Silent Hill 2 video, monster designer Masahiro Ito revealed that his inspiration for the Lying Figure came from watching a programmer friend walk into the office. Ito states that his friend was wearing a hooded sweater with his hands in his pockets and was walking "in a cool way" as he was listening to his walkman.[3]
- In the early sketch, they wear red boots and have "mouths" that allow them to nourish themselves by feeding on corpses.
- Another early sketch features their upper bodies wrapped in cloth, heightening the idea of being restrained.
- The corpse in the alleyway where James first encounters one resembles a Lying Figure wearing clothing, possibly implying that Lying Figures were once human, or are human.
- In the Silent Hill Historical Society, there is a photo/painting called Death by Skewering. It depicts Lying Figures being pierced by tree branches.
- In the Art of Silent Hill, there is an image of "beta" Lying Figures in which they seem to have mouths.


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We all have Christmas songs we love, and yuletide carols we really, really hate. Bob Geldof HATES "Do They Know It's Christmas," and the problem is, he wrote it.
"I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history," Geldof, the 59-year-old former Boomtown Rats singer told the Daily Mail. "One is 'Do They Know it's Christmas?' and the other one is 'We Are the World.'"
OK Bob, we don't like them either. But they did raise millions of dollars for African famine relief. And isn't that what the Christmas spirit is all about?
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
Apparently not.
"Any day soon, I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter and it will be playing," said Geldof. "Every F-----g Christmas."
Selected Reading: Popeater, Daily Mail, BobGeldofInfo.


text:
A special Blog Talk Radio tribute to our friend, Light Language Practitioner and Psychic Medium, Sean Jackson. Friends and family call in to share stories, music and honor a wonderful spirit who left this earth all too soon. Sean transitioned December 3, 2013 and he is missed dearly. (to listen and activate slideshow, click PLAY button below)
Find Additional Spirituality Podcasts with Astrogirl12 on BlogTalkRadio


text:
Q: Do tax cuts lead to economic growth?
Panel's answer: Yes 4/ No 4
Marney Cox, San Diego Association of Governments
Not unless they are carried out to affect individual incentives. The main economic argument for tax cuts is simple enough: allowing people to keep more of what they earned through work, they will have an incentive to work more and they'll spend some of their increased earnings. Working and spending more are the foundations for economic growth. But if we short-cut this to just spending, well, we lose everything economics has taught us. Tax cuts that are redistributive or temporary, for example, will not have the same incentive effects, so the effects on economic growth are less or none at all.
Kelly Cunningham, National University Systems
Basic economics and simple logic should make it obvious reducing costs for business allows greater productivity, while taxes add to the expense of any economic activity. Every hour and dollar spent complying with taxes takes time and resources away from the incentives for profit-seeking, risk-taking businesses to grow and hire more workers. Taxes also burden savings and investments, siphoning money from much more productive, market-based private sector endeavors to less efficient, often wasteful bureaucratic actions. The lower taxes burden the private sector economy, the greater the savings, investment and productivity goes to real economic efforts and long-term growth.
Alan Gin, University of San Diego
Cutting taxes is supposed to boost the economy by giving consumers more money to spend. But you can't force people to spend money. Those with low incomes might spend most of their tax cuts, but cuts for higher income individuals are likely to go into savings or to reduce debt. Another argument for tax cuts is that they would allow "job creators" to hire more people. But businesses are not going to hire more workers or invest more if they don't have more customers, even with lower taxes. For example, how many jobs would Mervyn's or Circuit City have created if they had gotten tax cuts?
James Hamilton, University of California San Diego
In the current environment, the main thing needed to achieve faster growth is to get more spending. If you give consumers more disposable income, they are sure to spend more, so there really is no question about the short-run effect. But the issue is how much we can afford to cut taxes. Although I don't think we need to deal with it this year, America faces a very serious long-run fiscal challenge. If lower taxes are paid for with lower government spending today, that is a net fiscal contraction that would probably reduce rather than increase overall spending.
Gary London, The London Group Realty Advisors
I do not believe that most people and businesses look to the taxing system as overly prescriptive in determining their business strategies or their consumption. Less taxes are always more appealing, but historically lower tax rates have not produced jobs or increases in GDP. However, the tax code can be a force of good to provide specific incentives to promote policy goals in the form of tax breaks. In 2004-2005 one such break allowed current year expensing of new vehicles over 6,000 lbs. In that same period current year expense law applied to capital goods acquisitions. These actually induced purchasing and hiring, and stimulated the economy.
Norm Miller, University of San Diego
Trickle-down economics has been shown to work for taxpayers and businesses in extremely high tax brackets, say 50% plus, but every empirical study including those by the CBO have suggested very modest impacts on economic growth and negative effects for the budget deficit. Politicians have never been obligated to rely on facts or truth so they spout unfounded theories that do not apply to a global economy. Only transformational technologies or cheaper resources will really spur economic growth, although lower taxes on corporate America would be generally beneficial.
Lynn Reaser, Point Loma Nazarene University
Generally, tax cuts lead to more economic activity, which is why they have been part of most stimulus programs, including those implemented by both Democrats and Republicans. The structure of cuts will determine their impact. Tax cuts focused on household spending will tend to have a more immediate effect, while cuts promoting saving and investment will have a longer term impact. The major constraint limiting the effectiveness of tax cuts involves the deficit. If investors regard government finances as tenuous, they will demand higher interest rates, which could choke off any positive impact intended by the tax reductions.
Dan Seiver, Reilly Financial Advisors
In general, tax cuts increase economic growth. If the economy is at less than full employment, there are idle resources that can be put to work when demand for goods and services rises. This will increase the pace of GDP/output growth. Demand increases because consumers have more take home pay, which they normally spend, while businesses may increase output and employment if each dollar of profit is taxed at a lower rate. Tax cuts have to be paid for, though, and if government spending is cut to keep the deficit from rising, the cuts in government spending will offset some or all of the stimulus from a tax cut.


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Jane Austen meets zombies in monster mash-up
LONDON - It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen novel in possession of added gore will be a surefire best-seller.
That's the conclusion reached by publishers since the success of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," an unlikely literary sensation created by adding dollops of "ultraviolent zombie mayhem" to Austen's classic love story.
"Zombies" -- billed as 85 per cent Austen's original text and 15 per cent brand-new blood and guts -- has become a best-seller since it was published earlier this year, with 750,000 copies in print. There's a movie in the works. And it has spawned a monster -- or, more accurately, a slew of literary monster mash-ups.
Next month, "Zombies" publisher Quirk Books is releasing "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters," which adds giant lobsters and rampaging octopi to Austen's love story. Out this week from another publisher is "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre," a supernatural sequel which portrays the aloof hero of "Pride and Prejudice" as an undead bloodsucker. Later this year comes "Jane Bites Back," in which the author herself develops a taste for blood.
Even Austen purists admit a grudging admiration for the "Zombies" concept.
"In publishing terms, it's brilliant," said Claire Harman, a Columbia University professor and author of "Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World."
"Why did I spend three years writing a critical book on Austen? Why didn't I just think of that?"
Quirk Books editorial director Jason Rekulak said he was inspired by the Internet-unleashed wave of "creative copyright infringement" -- musical and video mash-ups that mangle styles and genres for comic or dramatic effect.
He made a list of classic books whose copyrights have lapsed and were ripe for pillage, from "Moby Dick" to "Great Expectations."
"Then I made a list of things that might enhance these novels -- robots, ninjas, zombies," Rekulak said. "As soon as I drew a line between 'Pride and Prejudice' and zombies, I knew I had a great title."
The irresistible title is key to the success of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." The book itself keeps most of Austen's story -- girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl is won over by boy's good looks and large fortune -- with added chunks of zombie violence by U.S. writer Seth Grahame-Smith.
"Zombies" and its successors are the latest mutant offshoots of the unstoppable Austen industry.
The author wrote just six novels before she died at age 41 in 1817, but they have inspired endless spinoffs, from "chick-lit" novels like "The Jane Austen Book Club" to time-travelling TV series "Lost in Austen" and Bollywood-tinged movie "Bride and Prejudice." There are books on everything from etiquette ("Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners") to gardening ("In the Garden with Jane Austen"), and a huge Internet-based community of passionate Jane-philes.
It's a remarkable turnaround for a writer who achieved limited success in her lifetime and was largely forgotten after she died.
Harman, who studied Austen's resurrection by a band of late 19th-century admirers, said her global fame rests partly on the appeal of her elegant, witty books, with their blend of social commentary, feisty heroines and romantic happy endings.
"Because there are only six of them, (readers) want more and they will riff on the scenes she provided," Harman said. "People want to wallow. They want to get in that lovely warm bath and have a longer bath."
And partly, Harman said, it's good timing, "a kind of technological luck."
The emergence of the Internet coincided with a wave of Austen adaptations, including the BBC's 1995 "Pride and Prejudice" and Ang Lee's adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility" the same year, that brought the writer new fans.
That doesn't explain the surprising affinity between Austen's Regency world, with its horse-drawn carriages, country-house balls and empire line dresses, and the supernatural.
"There's more overlap between the two worlds than I ever imagined," said Rekulak, who was startled to find a large number of Austen fans at Comic-Con, the San Diego conference devoted to all things science fiction and fantasy.
"It struck me that that kind of Regency romance is its own sort of fantasy," he said.
It's not so far-fetched to see echoes of handsome, brooding Mr. Darcy in the teen-heartthrob vampires of the "Twilight" books and movies or the TV series "True Blood."
Amanda Grange, author of Sourcebooks' "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre," said she found it easy to add dark, Gothic overtones to the story of Darcy and Lizzie Bennet. Austen wrote against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, and in an era that produced Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and the first vampire stories.
Like many good publishing ideas, the trend could soon spiral out of control. Rekulak says he can't stop friends and family sending him ideas for more books -- he has a list of more than 200 titles, from "A Farewell to Arms and Legs" to "The Brothers Kara-zombie."
The coming months promise more in the same bloody vein from a variety of publishers, including "Queen Victoria: Demon-Hunter" and "I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas."
If nothing else, the trend proves the willingness of readers and writers to eliminate the gap between pop culture and what used to be known as high art.
Grange said she had the idea for her story years ago while watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the TV show about a suburban California student who battles demons.
"I just thought that if they ever did a 'Pride and Prejudice' episode it would work really well," Grange said. "You could have Buffy as Lizzie and Angel as Darcy."
"People used to live in more compartmentalized worlds," she said. "Now we are exposed to all of it -- we study the classics at school but then we go home and watch TV."