text:
Dumpster Rentals of Milwaukee
Milwaukee's #1 Dumpster Rental Company
Dumpster Rentals of Milwaukee, a leading waste management company, provides dumpster rental services to residential, industrial, and commercial clients in Milwaukee County and Waukesha County. We are committed to customer satisfaction, eco-friendly practices, and reliable service. We offer temporary and long-term dumpster rental, waste removal, as well as recycling solutions for different projects. We offer a variety of sizes for clients to ensure efficient and cost-effective waste disposal. Dumpster Rentals of Milwaukee is a reliable, eco-friendly partner in waste management in the Milwaukee region. Same day dumpster delivery available. Order now.
Milwaukee ( mil-WAW-kee), is the most populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is the 31st largest city in the United States, the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States, and the second largest city on Lake Michigan's shore behind Chicago. It is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee metropolitan area, the fourth-most densely populated metropolitan area in the Midwest. Milwaukee is considered a global city, categorized as "Gamma minus" by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, with a regional GDP of over $102 billion in 2020.Today, Milwaukee is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the U.S. However, it continues to be one of the most racially segregated, largely as a result of early-20th-century redlining. Its history was heavily influenced by German immigrants in the 19th century, and it continues to be a center for German-American culture, specifically becoming well known for its brewing industry.
Arlington Heights, Avenues West, Bluemound Heights, Borchert Field, Brewer's Hill, Brynwood, Capitol Heights, Clarke Square, Cold Spring Park, Columbus Park, Downer Woods, Enderis Park, Forest Home Hills, Franklin Heights, Green Moor


text:
At the end of 2012, a number of tax and spending policies are scheduled to change. Taken together, these changes may exert a strong fiscal drag on an already fragile macroeconomic environment depending on the actions of Congress. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calls this the "fiscal cliff." Tax policy analysts call it "taxageddon" or "taxmageddon."
Regardless of its name, it represents the next dramatic policy deadline in Washington. Under present law, in 2013 the 2001/2003 tax cuts expire, the payroll tax cut expires, extended unemployment benefits end, and federal government spending levels decline due to last summer's Budget Control Act.
If implemented, these changes would have large consequences for housing and home builders.
First, at the macro level, the fate of the ongoing recovery in housing is dependent on economic growth, job creation and household balance sheet repair. If all of the scheduled tax hikes and spending cuts go into force, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the total 2013 fiscal drag on the economy will be $560 billion. The chart below illustrates the CBO budget projections by fiscal year. Notice the jump in revenues in 2013, as well as the decline in outlays from 2011 to 2014.
As a result of the scheduled 2013 policies, the CBO forecast for GDP growth in 2013 falls from 4.4% to 0.5%. NAHB is currently forecasting 2.8% growth, but that is because our forecast assumes that the fiscal cliff is for the most part avoided (producing only a 1 to 1.5 percentage point drag on GDP, compared to the 3.9 percentage point drag estimated by CBO).
However, if the full fiscal drag is inflicted on the economy it would clearly be harmful to GDP growth. Negative or virtually flat GDP growth would obviously be harmful for housing, as it would cause more job loss, set back household balance sheet repair, and depress the already weakened housing market.
Besides the macro impact, certain individual policies will have a direct negative impact on housing and home building.
For home builders, the expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts would represent a business tax hike for a majority of the industry. According to NAHB census of membership data, 80% of NAHB members are organized as pass-thru entities, such as S Corporations or LLCs. For pass-thru entities, individual income tax rates are business tax rates. And if the 2001/2003 tax cuts expire, all the rates will increase – from the bottom rate of 10% increasing to 15% to the top rate of 35% increasing to 39.6%.
Taxes would rise for capital income as well. Capital gains tax rates, important for multifamily developers and C Corporations, would increase from 15% to 20%. Dividends rates, important for some S Corporations and C Corporations, would increase from 15% to ordinary income tax rates up to 39.6%.
Expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts would also mean an end to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch. Absent an AMT patch, the number of AMT payers for 2012 would grow from somewhat less than 5 million to more than 30 million. If the other tax cuts expire, this 30 million number would be significantly lower (10 million), but the AMT patch remains important nonetheless given the number of home builders organized as pass-thrus, who tend to get hit with the AMT. Typically the AMT is a concern for taxpayers reporting $200,000 to $500,000 in income, particularly those with large numbers of dependents or who live in high cost areas.
Finally, the top estate tax rate would increase to 55% and the exemption amount would fall to $1 million. For the nation's family-owned home builders, the estate tax is a threat to keeping an multigenerational enterprise alive.
For housing demand, a number of expiring tax law provisions would reduce after-tax income and homebuyer and rental demand. For example, if the 2001/2003 tax cuts expire, the marriage penalty returns for a significant number of taxpayers. The child tax credit falls from $1000 to $500 per child.
And a direct negative effect on housing demand would come from the return of the Pease limitations, which would reduce the value of the mortgage interest deduction (MID) for taxpayers in high cost areas. The Pease rule phases out itemized deductions for taxpayers above and below the commonly cited middle class threshold of $250,000, thereby weakening the benefit of the MID.
Finally, while already in the baseline, there is also the issue of the "tax extenders." For housing, important tax extenders needing approval include the 9 percent credit fix for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the 25C energy-efficient remodeling credit and the 45L new energy-efficient home tax credit.
So what do we expect to happen? While a lot rides on the results of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections, the best guess is that Congress manages to avoid the fiscal cliff, but as usual, runs close to the effective deadline. Thus, most, if not all, of the 2001/2003 tax cuts will be extended, perhaps for just a year or two. The payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits will likely lapse, but we expect the net spending cuts from the Budget Control Act to stand, even if there is some shifting or postponement among certain programs.
It is worth noting that there is a long-run fiscal challenge. Current budget deficits are unsustainable year after year if present policy is extended. Hard choices are going to have to be made regarding government spending – particularly entitlements – and tax revenues. But those choices do not have to be enacted in 2013, and given the weakness in the economy, they should not be.
While our expectations are that an economic crisis is averted, how the fiscal cliff problem is solved in 2012 will shape the tax reform debate in 2013. And given then importance of the MID and other housing tax rules, the importance of the short-term political challenge should be apparent.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Labeling is an important and essential component of any spa product. Listing everything from ingredients to directions to warnings, the label conveys a great deal, especially when it comes to products like sunless tanners. There's so much information, in fact, that it's easy to get lost. Once you can see the meaning behind the product's label, however, you can figure out what the best fit is for your spa.
Basic industry terminology
Before delving into labeling and what it means specifically for sunless tanning products, it is important to cover basic industry terminology, keeping in mind that this article will only provide a brief overview, as the cosmetics industry regulations can be rather involved and complex.
What's the difference between cosmetics, drugs and cosmeceuticals? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) defines cosmetics as "articles intended to be rubbed, poured, sprinkled, or sprayed on, introduced into, or otherwise applied to the human body ... for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance." Cosmetics include items that are typically thought of as makeup, perfumes and moisturizing creams.1
Conversely, drugs, as defined by the FDA, include products that "cure, treat, mitigate or prevent disease or that affect the structure or function of the human body."1 So, a moisturizer that claims to eliminate wrinkles—a medical claim—would need to be treated as a drug.
To further clarify terminology, cosmeceuticals is not a term recognized by the FD&C Act, so these products may be classified as either cosmetic or drug, depending on the claims made by their manufacturers and their ingredients. While drugs are subject to a review and approval process by the FDA before to sale, cosmetics are not. Labeling requirements also are somewhat different for drugs and cosmetics. For example, drug labels are required to list active and inactive ingredients separately.
Most sunless tanning products are designed only to enhance one's appearance and therefore fall squarely into the cosmetics category. There are, however, ingredient-labeling rules and regulations that apply to any cosmetic product regardless of its classification.
What are the labeling rules for cosmetic products? Labels for cosmetic products must contain the following information
- the common name or function of the product
- the net quantity of contents in terms of weight or measure
- appropriate warnings
- the company name and business address of the firm manufacturing or distributing the product
The label must also include the list of ingredients given in descending order from most to least prevalent. Ingredients with a concentration of 1% or less can be listed in any order.
Often ingredients are given using the International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients, or INCI, name. The INCI system is a multinational set of terms for ingredients, using the Latin, scientific or English terminology. For example, calciferol is the INCI name for
vitamin D, and it is often seen on product labels that include the ingredient listed both ways so that consumers can easily understand what is in the product.
Will sunless tanning products protect me from the sun? Because a sunless tan does not offer UV protection, the FDA requires that sunless tanning products sold without sunscreen include the following statement on the label: "Warning—This product does not contain a sunscreen and does not protect against sunburn. Repeated exposure of unprotected skin while tanning may increase the risk of skin aging, skin cancer and other harmful effects to the skin even if you do not burn."2
Understanding ingredients
Armed with a basic understanding of what a sunless tanning product's label should convey, now it is time to look into what's really going on behind those words.
How does a sunless tan actually work? One of the most popular ways a sunless tan in created is through the presence of one main ingredient: dihydroxyacetone, commonly referred to as DHA. DHA is an FDA-approved, sugar-based ingredient, typically derived from beets or sugarcane, which reacts with the top layer of the skin to turn it a brown or tan color. This color takes up to several hours to fully develop, and thus, users are advised to avoid washing, swimming, and if possible, sweating heavily for up to eight hours after a sunless tanning session.
Because DHA reacts with the outermost layer of the skin, it is important for users to exfoliate properly before receiving a spray tan or self-tan so that the DHA can react with a smooth, fresh layer of skin, ensuring the best results. The exact length of time the sunless tan will last varies depending on the sunless product, its application and the user's pre-sunless tan preparation and post-tan maintenance regimen, but typically results can be expected to last up to a week.
How many ingredients does a sunless tanning product have? When looking at the label of a sunless tanning product, check out the number of ingredients. A great sunless tan doesn't require a laundry list of additives; it can be achieved with a minimal number of ingredients. As a general rule, the more ingredients any product has, the greater the probability that a user will have an adverse or allergic reaction to it. Look for products that have the fewest ingredients but still deliver optimum results. Also keep in mind that the number of ingredients is only one part of the equation; it is also critical to understand what else is in there.
What else is in a sunless tanning product? When looking at a sunless tanning product's label, see what other ingredients are going into the solution. Does it contain oil, aloe vera, alcohol or fragrances?
Because DHA tends to have a drying effect on the skin, many sunless tanning products, particularly spray tan solutions, include oils or aloe vera to add moisture back into the skin. However, the downside to having oils or aloe vera in the tanning solution is that it can make the skin feel sticky or tacky, and it dramatically increases the drying time of a spray tan. Some sunless solutions can take almost 20 minutes to dry, even in front of a fan, which can be an inconvenience to the client and to your business.
Also, see if the sunless tanning solution contains ethyl alcohol, commonly referred to simply as alcohol, as it is an ingredient to avoid. Ethyl alcohol is often used to speed up drying time to counter the effect of the presence of oil or aloe vera, but the result is that it can be very drying to the skin.
An additional note about alcohol is that there are different ingredients that belong to the chemical group of alcohols contained in cosmetic products, which have completely different functions from ethyl alcohol. For instance, stearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol and others are used as emollients, emulsifiers and thickening agents, and therefore do not have a drying effect.
Another ingredient to look for in a sunless tanning product is fragrance. Fragrance, as defined by the FDA, is "any natural or synthetic substance or substances used solely to impart an odor to a cosmetic product."3 According to the FDA, fragrances have been cited by the North American Contact Dermatitis Group as the number one "most common cause of allergic and irritant reactions."3 Thus, it is ideal to find sunless solutions that are fragrance-free.
Labels decoded
These are some of the main items to consider when reviewing the label on a sunless tanning product, whether it is a solution for professional spray tanning or self-tanner for home application. It is always important to do your homework with any skin care product you buy and purchase only from reputable suppliers to ensure the products you use are not only safe, but also deliver the best possible results.
Always look at a sunless tanning product's label, and don't be afraid to ask questions. All manufacturers should be able to explain what their labels mean and why their products include certain ingredients, so you can feel confident that you are using a quality product that is also healthy for the skin.
1. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-218.html
2. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-tan4.html
3. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-safe.html
(All accessed April 27, 2007)


text:
US student freed by North Korea in a coma dies at 22
CINCINNATI (AP) – Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma last week after almost a year and a half in captivity, died Monday, his family said.
The 22-year-old "has completed his journey home," relatives said in a statement. They did not cite a specific cause of death.
"Unfortunately, the awful, torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today," his parents said.
Doctors had described his condition as a state of "unresponsive wakefulness" and said he suffered a "severe neurological injury" of unknown cause.
His father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that he believed Otto had been fighting for months to stay alive to return to his family. The family said he looked uncomfortable and anguished after arriving June 13 but his countenance later changed.
"He was peace. He was home, and we believe he could sense that," they said.
Warmbier was accused of trying to steal a propaganda banner while visiting with a tour group and was convicted of subversion. He was put before North Korean officials and journalists for a televised "confession."
"I have made the worst mistake of my life!" he exclaimed, choking up as he begged to be allowed to reunite with his parents and two younger siblings.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.
The University of Virginia student was held for more than 17 months. His family said it was told he had been a coma since soon after his March 2016 sentencing.
Doctors said he suffered extensive loss of brain tissue and "profound weakness and contraction" of his muscles, arms and legs. His eyes opened and blinked but without any sign that he understood verbal commands or his surroundings.
Unresponsive wakefulness is a new medical term for persistent vegetative state. Patients in this condition who have survived a coma can open their eyes, but they do not respond to commands. People can live in a state of unresponsive wakefulness for many years with the chances of recovery depending on the extent of the brain injury.
North Korea said Warmbier went into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Doctors in Cincinnati said they found no active sign of botulism or evidence of beatings.
His parents told The Associated Press the day of his release that they wanted "the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime."
Fred Warmbier praised his son's "performance" and President Donald Trump's administration. He was critical of the approach to his son's situation taken by former President Barack Obama's administration.
In a White House statement, Trump said, "A lot of bad things happened, but at least we got him home to be with his parents." He called North Korea a "brutal regime."
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he offered his prayers as Warmbier's parents "enter a time of grief no parent should ever know," and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Warmbier's death "touches the American heart like no other."
The younger Warmbier grew up in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. He was salutatorian of his 2013 class at a highly rated high school and was on the soccer team. He had had planned to study in China in his third year of college and heard about Chinese travel companies offering trips to North Korea.
Young Pioneer Tours described itself as providing "budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from." Its travel options also included Iran, Iraq and former Soviet countries.
Warmbier was leaving North Korea on Jan. 2, 2016, when he was detained at the airport.
The U.S. Department of State warns against travel to North Korea. While nearly all Americans who have been there have left without incident, visitors can be seized and face lengthy incarceration for what might seem like minor infractions.
Jeffrey Fowle, also from Ohio, was detained in 2014 when he intentionally left a Bible in a nightclub. Fowle was freed after six months. He said he was kept isolated most of the time but not physically abused. He and others freed from North Korea have said they were coached and coerced into giving confessions.
Three Americans remain held in North Korea. The U.S. government accuses North Korea of using such detainees as political pawns. North Korea accuses Washington and South Korea of sending spies to overthrow its government.
At the time of Warmbier's release, a White House official said Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, had met with North Korean foreign ministry representatives in Norway the previous month. Such direct consultations between the two governments are rare because they do not have formal diplomatic relations.
Yun learned about Warmbier's condition in a meeting a week before the release from the North Korean ambassador at the U.N. in New York. Yun then was dispatched to North Korea and visited Warmbier June 12 with two doctors and demanded his release on humanitarian grounds.
Warmbier's hometown rallied around his family, wrapping school-color ribbons around trees and utility poles lining Wyoming's main road. People chanted "Otto Strong!" and "We love you!" after his father's news conference last week at the high school.
Warmbier was "generous, outgoing, sweet, smart as a whip, just an overall good guy," Danica White, his sophomore English teacher, recalled last week.
On Monday evening, she said: "Otto will be dearly missed."Associated Press writers Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Josh Boak in Washington and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.


text:
FIFA: Road to World Cup 98
- Select Variant:
Conquer fierce defenders and defeat entire nations on your quest to compete in World Cup 98. Featuring 172 International teams from 6 zones and 16 International stadiums. Responsive player and ball control. New motion captured players and moves. Detailed stats for over 4500 players. 5 ways to compete: World Cup 98, Friendly, League, Penalty Kick Shootout and Training Mode. Edit teams and players to create your own dream team.
Add review
Rating (0)


text:
Plug & Play Digital Content for K-12
MediaCAST provides you with the unique option of selecting what content you would like in your digital library. By purchasing one or more of the digital content packages, you allow teachers and students immediate access to tens of thousands of digital media titles. Some schools may want to purchase an empty digital library platform, but the encoding of analog to digital content takes time. If you supplement your analog resources with Plug & Play content, you can take full advantage of your new MediaCAST system right away.
All of the content from the publishers listed comes with detailed metadata for easy searching, copyright and licensing and state standards integration.
Digital Content Packages
Discovery Education's best-in class contnet takes students beyond the classroom. With unparalleled access to the world's premier educational media, Discovery Education delivers top-quality solutions that engage students and inspire life-long learning. Robust professional development, assessment services that foster data-driven decision making, and a passionate educator community, coupled with high-quality, engaging content, are the key ingredients that have led their partners to measurable increases in student achievement. Find out why over half of all U.S. schools can call Discovery Education a partner in transforming traditional classrooms to digital classrooms at www.discoveryeducation.com
Over 13,000 video resources targeted for K12 - short 2 to 5 minute videos are engaging, relevant and inspiring, and help students develop critical thinking skills. Emmy award-winning original video - NBC Learn series including "Science of NFL Football," "Science of the Olympic Winter Games," "Chemistry NOW!" and "Finishing the Dream: Learning from the Civil Rights Era." Learn more at www.nbclearn.com
CCC! From New Dimension Media is a digital library filled with core curriculum media created specifically for K-12 classrooms. CCC! is comprised of over 3,000 titles with hundreds of new titles added each year. Recent additions to the CCC! library include thirteen episodes of Bill Nye's "Eyes of Nye" and 40 BBC Motion Gallery science and environment titles.
Visit the CCC! website
Learn 360 is an educational content provider that recently upgraded their library to include over 8,300 video titles. Along with video, Learn360 offers audio files, images and supplemental materials.
Visit the Learn360 website


text:
If you have been shopping for a computer, then you have heard the word "cache." Modern computers have both L1 and L2 caches, and many now also have L3 cache. You may also have gotten advice on the topic from well-meaning friends, perhaps something like "Don't buy that Celeron chip, it doesn't have any cache in it!"
It turns out that caching is an important computer-science process that appears on every computer in a variety of forms. There are memory caches, hardware and software disk caches, page caches and more. Virtual memory is even a form of caching. In this article, we will explore caching so you can understand why it is so important.


text:
Samsung smartphone debuts in London
South Korea's Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest flagship smartphone at a London launch as it seeks to cement its position as the world's best-selling mobile phone maker.
The Galaxy S3 boasts a 4.8-inch screen (12.2cm), 22 percent larger than the Galaxy S2, the hugely popular predecessor that helped the company overhaul Nokia as the world leader.
Despite the larger screen, Samsung says the phone is not much wider than its predecessor due to its smaller frame.
Other new developments include "intelligent camera features" which use face-recognition technology; and enhanced voice-activated controls.
An improved processor also allows users to watch video and write messages at the same time.
"With the Galaxy 3, Samsung has maximized the consumer benefits by integrating superior hardware with enhanced smartphone usability," said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung.
"What makes me most proud is that it enables one of the most seamless, natural and human-centric mobile experiences, opening up a new horizon that allows you to live a life extraordinary," he added.
The new model also uses the Android operating system, and its performance in the marketplace is perceived to be crucial to the success of the Linux-based system.
"The importance of the Galaxy S3 to Samsung cannot be underestimated," Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum, told the BBC.
"The company has built its reputation on producing the 'must-have' Android smartphone and in the process has become the poster child for the Android platform."
The handset's new "Smart stay" feature is designed to recognize how the phone is being used by having a camera on the front identify movement of the eyes.
It also comes with an eight mega-pixel camera with a zero-lag shutter speed to provide instant image-capturing.
Samsung Music Hub will provide a personal music streaming service and the Game Hub, Video Hub and Music Hub will soon be available globally.
Voice recognition interface "S Voice" allows the user to orally control the alarm clock, music features, text services and calendar.
The handset goes on sale in Europe in May to be followed by launches in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Samsung last week reported a record net profit of 5.05 trillion won ($4.44 billion) in the first quarter, thanks largely to strong smartphone sales.
Apple, which is engaged in a patents dispute with Samsung, is expected to release a new version of the iPhone later this year.
(c) 2012 AFP


text:
Jobs malaise warrants easy policy: Fed officials
By Kristina Cooke
COLUMBUS Ohio (Reuters) - The high unemployment rate means the Fed's ultra-easy money policies remain the right course of action, top Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday.
High unemployment is not a "quickly resolvable problem," but April's job gains show that the economic recovery is on a firmer footing, Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto said.
"We've got a long way to go before labor markets can be described as healthy again," Pianalto told the Columbus Metropolitan Club.
Recent rises in food and energy prices mean inflation will likely be temporarily higher this year, she said. But both wages and the public's long-term expectations of inflation remain subdued, she noted.
Given that backdrop, she said, current monetary policy is appropriate. Pianalto's views tend to hew closely to those of Chairman Ben Bernanke and the center of the Fed's policy-setting committee.
Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen similarly endorsed the Fed's stance of promising to hold rates near zero for an extended period as it completes $600 billion of bond purchases by the end of June.
"The current accommodative stance of U.S. monetary policy continues to be appropriate because the unemployment rate remains elevated and inflation is expected to remain subdued over the medium run," she said in a speech on assessing potential financial imbalances to a conference in Tokyo.
"Of course, once the economy improves sufficiently, the Fed will need to raise interest rates to keep the economy from overheating and excessive inflation from emerging," said Williams, who has his first vote on the Fed's policy-setting committee next year.
The Fed can do so, he said, by raising the interest it pays on excess bank reserves along with its short-term interest-rate target, and by reducing its long-term securities holdings.
None of the three directly addressed Wednesday's weak data, which showed U.S. companies hired far fewer workers than expected in May. The jobs report for May is due from the Labor Department on Friday, and economists on Wednesday were cutting their forecasts for employment growth.
"Recent gains in the labor market suggest that the economy is on (a) firmer footing and that the recovery is likely to continue. However, growth may be frustratingly slow at times," Pianalto said.
Recent weak data has raised concerns that the U.S. recovery is running out of steam.
But in a response to an audience question, Pianalto said she is less worried about the recent economic soft patch because business confidence appears to be holding up better than this time last year, when the European sovereign debt crisis slowed the U.S. recovery.
"This time around, even though we are once again seeing some softness we are not seeing the same reaction on the part of businesses," she said, adding she had not heard of businesses pulling back on investments and noted they are still hiring.
At its last policy-setting meeting, the Fed signaled its $600 billion bond-buying program would end as planned in June, while also suggesting it was in no rush to raise interest rates. The Fed has kept interest rates at record lows near zero since December 2008.
Pianalto said she expects inflation to fall back below 2 percent in the next couple of years and that it could take about five years for the jobless rate to reach its long-run sustainable rate of 5.5 percent to 6 percent. She said she expects the economy to continue at a "gradual recovery pace" of just above 3 percent per year over the next few years.
Williams also said he expects growth of about 3 percent this year and sees inflation falling to 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent next year, below the Fed's informal 2 percent target.
Inflation expectations meanwhile remain "amazingly" well-anchored, both in the U.S. and Europe, despite the huge shocks of the last several years, Williams said.
That stability "gives better maneuvering room for the Fed and other central banks to combat the actual declines in economic activity and increases in unemployment," he said.
(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal in WASHINGTON and Ann Saphir in CHICAGO; Editing by Gary Hill and Ramya Venugopal)


text:
Airbnb Renters Open Their Homes to the Enemy: NY Mayor Bill de Blasio Airbnb is embroiled in a legal battle in New York City, where short-term rental laws forbid its business. In a new video, Airbnb hosts give the city's incoming mayor a unique offer.
By Brian Patrick Eha •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, the proverbial saying goes. But rarely has this advice been taken so literally as in Airbnb's latest marketing effort, aimed at New York City mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, an opponent of the short-term rental concept that drives Airbnb's business model.
In a video uploaded to Airbnb's YouTube channel, a handful of New York City renters invite de Blasio's friends and family into their homes for the incoming mayor's "big day," his impending inauguration on January 1. "Gracie Mansion must be fully booked," reasons one host in the video, referring to the mayoral residence.
The playful invitation serves as a way of confronting, without antagonism, someone who could make or break Airbnb in New York, one of the apartment-rental service's largest markets. De Blasio is a friend to the organized labor factions, namely hotel unions, that oppose Airbnb. He has publicly voiced support for the short-term rental laws that forbid Airbnb hosts from renting out their homes in their own absence.
Airbnb did win a victory in September, when an appeals board overturned an earlier ruling that would have levied a $2,400 fine -- reduced from an original $40,000 -- against an East Village man who rented out his apartment through Airbnb's site. The ruling found the man, Nigel Warren, not guilty of violating city laws. "The sharing economy is here to stay, and so are we," David Hantman, Airbnb's head of public policy, wrote on the company's blog after the decision.
But that decision went in Airbnb's favor only because Warren had been present during the entire period of his renter's three-day stay. Many Airbnb hosts use the site to rent out their homes during vacations or other trips, earning money in absentia -- an activity which is still illegal in New York.
In November, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office issued a subpoena to Airbnb, demanding that the company turn over information on its users. Airbnb has petitioned to have the subpoena set aside.
Airbnb's video cuts through the contentious legal battle to address Bill de Blasio directly. After congratulating the mayor-elect on his win, the hosts featured in the video make a case for the value of Airbnb as a way of introducing people to New York and giving them an authentic, "local" experience. "Our guests spend their time and their money in diverse communities across the city," says one host.
And the invitation extends not only to de Blasio's nearest and dearest but to the new mayor himself. "Mr. Mayor, if you're ever in Hamilton Heights, you're always welcome to stay with me," another host says.
Related: How Your Business Can Get in on the Sharing Economy


text:
Monday, 22 August 2011 07:48 PM EDT
Four years to the month since the global credit crisis began, European lenders remain dependent on central bank aid, plaguing markets and economies worldwide.
Emergency steps such as unlimited loans from the European Central Bank are keeping many banks in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain solvent and greasing the lending of others, while low interest rates and debt-buying are containing borrowing costs. Such aid is needed as concerns about slowing economic growth and sovereign debt prompt banks to curb lending, stockpile dollars and hoard cash in safe havens.
"I'm not sleeping at night," said Charles Wyplosz, director of the Geneva-based International Center for Money and Banking Studies. "We have moved into a new phase of crisis."
Central bankers rescued financial firms after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008 by providing limitless funding of as long as a year. While they treated the symptom -- a lack of ready cash -- politicians, regulators and bankers in Europe have proved unable to cure the root cause: some European lenders are at growing risk of insolvency.
The tremors, the biggest since Lehman's collapse, were triggered by European governments' continuing inability to stop the sovereign debt crisis from spreading beyond Greece, Portugal and Ireland to question the Italy and Spain. Renewed signs of economic weakness globally and the downgrading of U.S. debt by Standard & Poor's rekindled concern about the quality of all government debt.
Bank Stocks Tumble
The signs of distress are widespread and mounting: Banks deposited 105.9 billion euros ($152 billion) with the ECB overnight on Aug. 19, almost three times this year's average, rather than lending the money to other lenders. The premium European banks pay to borrow in dollars through the swaps market increased yesterday for a fourth straight day.
European bank stocks have sunk 22 percent this month, led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Societe Generale SA. Edinburgh-based RBS, Britain's biggest government-controlled lender, has tumbled 45 percent, and Paris-based Societe Generale, France's second-largest bank, dropped 39 percent.
The extra yield investors demand to buy bank bonds instead of benchmark government debt surged to 298 basis points on Aug. 19, or 2.98 percentage points, the highest since July 2009, data compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch show. The cost of insuring that debt against default surged to a record Monday. The Markit iTraxx Financial Index linked to senior debt of 25 European banks and insurers rose to 250 basis points, compared with 149 when Lehman collapsed.
Greek Default Concern
It was the specter of government debt turning toxic that has revived the liquidity crisis policy makers had tried to stop in 2008. As speculation grew that European banks would have to write down their holdings of more governments' debt after a Greek default, lenders pulled funding to those banks that held the most peripheral debt. It also raised concern European governments would struggle to afford a further bail out of their banks, because both the state and the lenders had failed to reduce their borrowings since the onset of the crisis.
"The debt has been transferred from the banks to the sovereign, but it hasn't actually been eradicated," said Gary Greenwood, a banking analyst at Shore Capital in Liverpool. "Until the sovereigns get their balance sheets in order, then these concerns are going to remain."
Funding markets have seized up as investors speculate that sovereign debt writedowns are inevitable. Banks in the region hold 98.2 billion euros of Greek sovereign debt, 317 billion euros of Italian government debt and about 280 billion euros of Spanish bonds, according to European Banking Authority data.
The difference between the three-month euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, and the overnight indexed swap rate, a measure of banks' reluctance to lend to each other, was at 0.67 percentage point on Aug. 22, within 3 basis points of the widest spread since May 2009.
"The central bank is the only clearer left to settle funds between banks," said Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-income strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. "There is a mistrust between banks in general, between regions and with dollar providers overall."
Overseas banks operating in the U.S. may have cut dollar holdings by as much as $300 billion in the past four weeks as European banks faced a squeeze on funding and sought dollars, Jens Nordvig, a managing director of currency research at Nomura Holdings Inc. in New York said Aug. 18. Dollar assets declined by about 38 percent to $550 billion in the period, he said.
'More Nervous'
"Banks are becoming more nervous about being exposed to other banks as they hoard liquidity and become more suspicious of other banks' balance sheets," Guillaume Tiberghien, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, wrote in a note to clients on Aug. 19.
By contrast, banks in the U.S. are "flush" with liquidity, loan loss reserves and capital, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Richard Ramsden wrote in an Aug. 6 report. Large commercial banks combined holdings of cash and securities at large have climbed to 30 percent of managed assets, up from 22 percent at the start of the U.S. financial crisis in October 2007, Ramsden wrote, citing Federal Reserve data.
The Federal Reserve, which provided as much as $1.2 trillion of loans to banks in December 2008, wound down most of its emergency programs by early 2010. One of the few exceptions was the central-bank liquidity swap lines that provide dollars to the ECB and other central banks so they can in turn auction off the dollars to banks in their own jurisdictions.
Trichet, Bernanke
Banks' woes are again thrusting central bankers to the fore as ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet joins Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and their counterparts from around the world in traveling this week to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Kansas City Fed's annual policy symposium.
After increasing its benchmark rate twice this year to counter inflation, the ECB this month provided relief for banks by buying Italian and Spanish bonds for the first time, lending unlimited funds for six months, and providing one unnamed bank with dollars to satisfy the first such request since February. In doing so, it's maintaining a role it began in August 2007 when it injected cash into markets after they began to freeze.
Coming to the rescue isn't easy for the ECB. Its balance sheet is now 73 percent bigger than in August 2007 and its latest bond-buying opened it to accusations that by rescuing profligate nations it's breaking a rule of the euro's founding treaty and undermining its credibility. Policy makers are also divided over the best course of action, with Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann among those opposing the bond program.
Economic Threat
The central bank is acting in part because governments have yet to ratify a plan to extend the scope of a 440-billion euro rescue facility to allow it to buy bonds and inject capital into banks. Markets tumbled last week on concern policy makers aren't acting fast enough.
The funding difficulties of banks was one reason cited by Morgan Stanley economists Aug. 17 for cutting their forecast for euro-area economic growth this year to 0.5 percent next year, less than half the 1.2 percent previously anticipated. They now expect the ECB to reverse this year's rate increases, returning its benchmark to 1 percent by the end of next year.
The economic threat is greater in Europe because consumers and companies are more reliant on banks for funding than their U.S. counterparts, said Tobias Blattner, a former ECB economist now at Daiwa Capital Markets Europe in London. He says the ECB should eventually try to hand over fire-fighting duties either to governments, who would then inject capital into financial firms, or national central banks, who could provide short-term loans to lenders.
Longer-term solutions may involve the restructuring the debt of cash-strapped nations in a way that doesn't roil bank balance sheets, potentially in lockstep with a European version of the U.S.'s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Lena Komileva, Group-of-10 strategy head at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in London, said the central bank may have no option but to extend the backstop role it is playing for periphery banks to lenders elsewhere. Refusal to do so would risk a European bank default by the end of the year, she said.
"Markets are back in uncharted territory," said Komileva. "The crisis is a whole new story now."
© Copyright 2024 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.
Receive breaking news and original analysis - sent right to your inbox.
Newsmax, Moneynews, Newsmax Health, and Independent. American. are registered trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc. Newsmax TV, and Newsmax World are trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc.


text:
The 44th Annual American Music Awards (2016) 720p HDTV AC3 x264-NoGRP
The 44th Annual American Music Awards 2016 (TV 2016)
Awards | Music
The 44th Annual American Music Awards took place on November 20, 2016, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The 2016 AMAs fell 31% from 2015 among adults 18-49 and 26% among viewers, to 8.2 million watching last night, and all-time low in the show history.
Starring: Drake, Bruno Mars, Niall Horan, Fifth Harmony, The Chainsmokers, Halsey, James Bay, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, John Legend, Twenty One Pilots, Lady Gaga, Green Day, Sting, DJ Khaled, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Future, August Alsina, Maroon 5, Kendrick Lamar


text:
The resignation of both the director and an important deputy director of any large organization is noteworthy, but when that organization is the CIA we have an event of global interest.
Several official, and likely-embarrassing, reports concerning CIA activities–including one dealing with the Agency's generous estimates of Iraq's non-existent weapons–are expected to appear soon. The timing of the resignations may well reflect these coming reports.
You might think the men who resigned, Director George Tenet and Deputy Director for Operations James Parvitt, should have been fired long ago. Never mind the nonexistent weapons in Iraq or phony invoices for uranium, the Agency's failure around the events leading to 9/11 was stunning, but the intelligence business is one of the few where job performance is almost unconnected with keeping your job.
There are many examples, but the incredibly bizarre career of James Angleton, CIA's Chief of Counterintelligence during the 1960s and into the 1970s, is perhaps the most striking. The activities of Angleton, a man certainly suffering from paranoid delusions, came close to destroying the Agency in the 1960s, but his career didn't end until William Colby became Director and forced Angleton to resign in 1974. Even then, he was kept on as a consultant, in the typical generosity of an organization with unlimited funds and afraid of revelations by an extremely angry, sick old man.
The disconnect between performance and job in Big Intelligence exists for many reasons, but four key ones are the fear of discrediting or embarrassing the Agency at a time of difficulty, the organizational difficulty of holding particular individuals responsible for bad intelligence, the chummy, old-boy atmosphere that invariably pervades such a vast and privileged bureaucracy, and unavoidably-political nature of all work by Big Intelligence.
These points have been demonstrated many times. The CIA does not appear to have paid a price for its monstrous failings before and after President Kennedy's assassination (which included no anticipation of an event intimately related to its activities in Cuba and, afterward, acts like Angleton's destroying important evidence), nor does it appear to have paid for decades of wildly-inaccurate assessments of the Soviet Union's capacities. Since raw intelligence from many sources is digested and filtered through an elaborate bureaucracy, the second point is virtually axiomatic for Big Intelligence. Kim Philby's amazing career with Britain's SIS may be the greatest-ever example of the third point.
John Kerry's reaction to the resignations provides a perfect example of the political trash dumped time and again at the Agency's doorstep, "We must reshape our intelligence community for the 21st century and create a new position of 'director of national intelligence' with real control of all intelligence personnel and budget." What do you do with a cheap, gas-bag slogan like that?
I guess Kerry missed the fact that his suggestion closely fits the job description given the Director when President Truman created the CIA half a century ago. Kerry also seems unaware that the CIA has been reshaped and adjusted time after time in its brief history–after the nightmare revelations of the Church Committee, after James Angleton's reign of terror in counterintelligence, and after Reagan's election–to little meaningful or lasting effect. It remains the world's largest bureaucracy for the production of costly flops.
The ancient Greeks gave us many timeless legends and warnings, but the myth of Cassandra, who received both the gift of telling the truth and the curse of not being believed, fixes for all time a fundamental relationship in human affairs.
Governments always feel an irresistible impulse to obtain intelligence. You might call it the God Impulse, wanting to know everything that's going to affect you, yet governments are condemned by their nature not to want to hear truth on many subjects. That applies just as much to democracies as dictatorships. Government policies are shaped by attitudes, preconceptions, and wishes. When these confront disagreeable facts, the preconceptions generally prevail.
There is also an inherent conflict between the idea of an agency charged with providing facts and the needs of a government which more often than not involve actively hiding or manipulating facts for political goals.
But Big Intelligence is not exactly comparable to Cassandra. It has not been blessed with always knowing the truth, so that after spending frightful amounts of money, it often works feverishly to hide its ignorance and protect its image of godlike knowledge. The cloak of secrecy is used to protect Big Intelligence from embarrassment as much as it is used to protect genuine information.
Big Intelligence shares the same preconceptions as the politicians it serves. After all, its leaders are appointed from a pool of people friendly to a government's intentions. You do not get people like Ralph Nader appointed to high posts in the CIA. No, you get people like Daddy Bush, always.
If you want a whiff of the unavoidably bureaucratic and political nature of Big Intelligence, go find some of the op-ed pieces written by Robert M. Gates who served as Director from 1991 to 1993. The good old New York Times often published his puff pieces. Gates was a career CIA bureaucrat, I believe the only one ever given the top job. His pieces, bromides expressed in oily institutional prose, are not worth reading except for the sense they convey of a decades-long career of throbbingly-dull, inconclusive reports.
Later, John M. Deutch, an extraordinarily arrogant, plodding academic served as Director. He should have faced trial for taking top-grade secret material home and storing it on a personal computer later shown to have accessed many pornographic Internet sites. Some national security.
On the other end of the scale of Directors, there was a violence-prone thug like William Casey, 1981 to 1987, a throwback to the days of "Wild" Bill Donavon who ran the OSS, World War II forerunner of the CIA. Casey was a good chum of the late Great Communicator and relished the dirty-tricks part of Big Intelligence. He utterly failed in the CIA's great tasks, from understanding revolutionary developments then occurring in the Soviet Union to knowing enough about the Middle East to prevent Reagan's disastrous, embarrassing landing and blowing-up of Marines in Lebanon.
Intelligence agencies do succeed at certain kinds of tasks, but they are not necessarily tasks sensible people want done in a free society. The KGB was very effective at keeping the population of Soviet Union watched and intimidated. The FBI in the United States was pretty effective at the same task. Many members of the American government, in both legislative and executive branches, for decades lived in dread of revelations from the special files Director Hoover kept on them. As a part of its defensive arsenal against Hoover, officials at the CIA–the Agency and the FBI fought like wild dogs over every scrap of bone–are reported to have kept salacious items like a Peeping Tom photograph of Mr. Hoover having oral sex with his assistant Clyde Tolson.
The CIA has at times been successful at overthrowing, or contributing to the overthrow of, governments America doesn't like, even when they were elected, although it often fails here, too, the most notable example being its years of costly, stupid effort to overthrow Castro. The Agency also pays selected politicians, leaders, and parties all over the world both to assist them and compromise them should it become necessary later to apply pressure. The new Prime Minister of Iraq's so-called independent government is one of these CIA creatures.
Many of the CIA's most costly operations appear successful when viewed superficially. Its operation in Afghanistan during the 1980s, where it spent billions to help drive out the Soviets, is a good example. Eventually, the Soviets left and were embarrassed by their failure, but if you examine the operation over a longer time-horizon, you see that it was in fact a catastrophic failure.
The truth is, so long as the Soviets held sway in Afghanistan, no one had to worry about terror or instability from the region. The CIA's "success" gave birth to those very things. With no strategic foresight, the CIA was not greatly concerned about such matters–instead, it was concerned with staging a set of gigantic, deadly frat-boy pranks to embarrass and damage the Soviets. The horrible excesses of the Taleban (the British spelling for those ready to e-mail a correction) owe much to the CIA's "success." The Soviets, for all their flaws, always promoted secular government and practices such as women being educated as professionals, and they did this in Afghanistan. Their efforts were swept away by the terrible governments the CIA's "success" gave the country.
Not only was the Soviet Union already beginning to unravel during those years–again, momentous developments of which the CIA as an institution remained ignorant–but the training, money, arms, and incitement the CIA contributed to Afghan rebels virtually created the groups associated with 9/11. The CIA's practice of bringing shadowy characters back and forth by the hundreds to the United States on visas American embassies were forced to issue without examination unquestionably helps explain how nineteen suicide-bombers entered the country on legitimate visas. The shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles the CIA supplied wild mountain men to shoot down Soviet helicopters found their way later to various places for attacks on civilian airliners. How's that for a return on your tax dollar?
Most Americans have little idea how much money is wasted on Big Intelligence. The budgets are, of course, top secret, but, before 9/11, it was a common estimate that the CIA went through $30 billion a year. Of course, the U.S. also maintains an even more-secret, technical outfit called the NSA, various branches of military intelligence (pardon the oxymoron), intelligence sections in the State Department, the FBI (now spreading its tentacles around the globe with offices being established abroad–oh, wouldn't J. Edgar be happy! He and Clyde might have done weekends in London or Paris), and other lesser-known agencies. After 9/11, we can be sure that the dinner plates of all these agencies were so heaped with extra ladles of gravy, they slopped trails on their way back to the table.
For what America wastes on Big Intelligence, every beat-up classroom in the nation could be re-equipped or replaced over a few years. Were that ever to happen, the world might be blessed by a generation of Americans whose international behavior displayed a notable increase in genuine, effective intelligence.


text:
WASHINGTON -- Citing the "huge investments and sacrifices" Americans have made in Iraq, President Barack Obama said today that he has asked his national security team to prepare a range of options to help Iraqi security forces stop rapidly advancing Sunni insurgents who have overrun much of the country's north, control most of Anbar province and are now threatening the capital, Baghdad.
"I'll be reviewing those options in the days ahead," Obama said in a statement delivered on the south lawn of the White House, but he stressed "we will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq."
Obama said assistance for Iraq's security forces is necessary because of the "significant gains" Sunni fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria have made in the past several days, taking over the country's second-largest city, Mosul, and continuing to push southward toward the Iraqi capital while overrunning Tikrit and several other towns and threatening several of Iraq's Shiite shrines.
"Iraqi security forces have proven unable to defend a number of cities, which has allowed the terrorists to overrun a part of Iraq's territory, and this poses a danger to Iraq and its people," the president said. "And given the nature of these terrorists, it could pose a threat, eventually to American interests as well."
Obama indicated that any decision on U.S. assistance to Iraq is still at least several days away, would be made in close consultation with Congress, and would have to include Iraq's leaders working to resolve the sectarian differences that he said underlie the current situation.
"The United States is not simply going to involve itself in a military action in the absence of a political plan by the Iraqis that gives us some assurance that they're prepared to work together," he said. The government led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi military are largely Shiite, while the insurgents are primarily Sunni.
With diplomatic efforts set to intensify, Obama said, it will take several days "to make sure that we've gathered all the intelligence that's necessary so that if, in fact, I do direct an order [or] any actions there, that they're targeted, they're precise, and they're going to have an effect."
Even so, two and a half years after the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq, Obama made clear the United States, after having made "enormous sacrifices" in Iraq, including the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans, is "not going to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we're there, we're keeping a lid on things."
The president also said that despite the billions of dollars the United States spent to train Iraq's security forces during the eight-year war, the current collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of the Sunni insurgency indicates Iraq's military continues to have deep-rooted problems.
"The fact that they are not willing to stand and fight and defend their posts against admittedly hardened terrorists, but not terrorists who are overwhelming in numbers, indicates that there's a problem with morale," he said. "There's a problem in terms of commitment, and ultimately, that's rooted in the political problems that have plagued the country for a very long time."
The United States already has supplied Iraq with military equipment and intelligence. After meetings with his national security council yesterday, Obama decided the United States needed to take action to help, but he said that "ultimately, it's up to the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems."


text:
I love Jetplane Landing, let's make no bones about it. From the moment I saw them supporting Seafood at Camden's Electric Ballroom back in May 2002, they blew me away with their intensity, energy and passion. Almost two years to the day later I stood amazed at the Bar Academy in Islington, with the music scene still buzzing from the recent DIY uprising which saw bands like Distophia, Kill Kenada and Jarcrew make tiny dents on daytime music television, and that night Jetplane won my heart forever through their incendiary approach to live music.
Oh, an introduction for the uninitiated: Jetplane Landing are one of the best-prepared DIY bands you'll ever find. They have their own label, Smalltown America, dedicated to helping unsigned talent through their soon to be retired series of compilations, Public Service Broadcast, and it's not like they haven't been the other half of a band/label partnership – they formed from the ashes of Cuckoo after their split in 1999, and were signed to music giants Geffen.
Jetplane earned themselves a decent following and the support of various DJs through their riot-inciting live shows, and at one point their fanbase packed such a punch that they broke the Xfm switchboard, but more on that later. After releasing a couple of records (Zero For Conduct, 2001, and Once Like A Spark, 2003) and touring near-constantly for years, Jetplane Landing vanished.
If you'd have told me upon leaving London that night three years ago that this band would practically disappear from the radar for a couple of years, I'd have laughed - this band were unstoppable. Somehow though, it still happened, and to make matters worse an apparently teary-eyed countdown at the end of their Truck 2006 set led some to believe that Jetplane's days were numbered.
They were wrong, but this is not the same rock band that left us. The third record Backlash Cop is a considerable departure from their previous sounds; it's more funk-rock than punk-rock, and it's going to split the fanbase down the middle. Determined to find out where this band have been and where they go from here, I bothered the only two men who could answer these questions – or the only two men who did answer these questions, anyway: frontman Andrew Ferris and bassist Jamie Burchell.
It's been over three years since Once Like A Spark. Why did the writing/recording process for Backlash Cop take so long?
Jamie: I don't think it did. We toured Once Like A Spark like bastards for well over a year. Then we took some time off, which seemed like the right thing to do. That time off tuned into another year, we were working on songs on our own and then we came back together before Truck Festival in July 2006. We had about four songs finished then and played three of them at Truck. We recorded the record in December 2006, so it only took about six months to write and record the record… I don't even know if my dates are right. I am not too sure. I am probably lying. Those three years went so fast.
I guess it seemed a much bigger gap because there weren't any JPL live shows to distract me.
Andrew: It was nice to go away and reconsider what being in JPL meant - the longer you're about touring as we did, the less opportunity you have to surprise people.
Album #2, Once Like A Spark, was quite different to debut Zero For Conduct, and there's another obvious progression between OLAS and the new album. Was this a conscious thing? Did you go out to make something completely different right from the start or was it a natural progression from your previous sound?
Jamie: I am not sure Once Like A Spark was how we sounded, or that we sounded like Once Like A Spark when we toured that record. We sounded like Zero For Conduct when we toured that record, just nobody was there to see it.
Andrew: We've made a record miles away from what we've done before. The fact that it's me singing/rapping/talking pulls you back into older Jetplane stuff - possibly. I think Raife's (drum) and Cahir's (guitar) parts on BC have pushed us into brand new territory. It's really exciting for me to sing over that.
Insert stereotypical musical influences question here. What were they? Musical or otherwise?
Jamie: For me, musical: Mike Watt. Otherwise: David Purley.
Andrew: Diana Ross, Q-Tip, Joni Mitchell, J5... Some of the fun of this album will be discovering all the musical references littered through it. I don't want to spoil the journey for people. Check out the song titles, lyrics and album artwork as starting points and you'll enjoy the ride. Most of the songs are about fighters, underdogs and unsung heroes. ZFC is about love, OLAS is about death and BC is about life and how people choose to live it.
Once Like A Spark was outspoken, and happened during a time when world events were very tense and there was substantial political outrage, some of which was reflected in the record. Backlash Cop is lyrically a step away from all that, it's much more focused on history than current events, from influential black musicians to Les Savy Fav. They all sound like subjects you're very passionate about, but why the shift? Was it again just a case of doing things differently?
Jamie: I think Backlash Cop is about us. The words might mention these people but the songs are not about them.
Andrew: Lyrically, we've always trying to find different ways of expressing our ideas. Some of the characters we chose as backlash cops demonstrated characteristics that we admire: Copernicus, Sonia Sanchez, Tim Harrington. Others had interesting stories to tell, like Dizzy's presidential campaign of 1964.
The different approach even extends to the way the album is constructed: Backlash Cop noticeably flows from one track to another, with some tracks leading into each other without a break – it sounds like a complete body of work. Has this always been the plan? Help me out, I'm trying to avoid calling it a 'concept album' here..
Andrew: The last seven tracks on the album on side two are a complete suite - they were designed to link up. We carried that through on side one when we got into the studio and adjusted tempos so that tracks could run together.
Jamie: Yes. Backlash Cop is that oddest of 1970s odd things: a concept album. I admit it - go on, laugh at us. Ha ha. We may never be invited to play another skate festival again! The whole track listing was decided before we even went into the studio.
Moving away from the album, I'd like to talk about the general JPL attitude. You played just one warm-up show for Truck Festival last year in Devizes, out in the Wiltshire sticks for a group called Sheer, who despite being raised in a place overshadowed by the Bath and Bristol scene still manage to attract quite well-known acts, from Fickle Public to Frank Turner, to a town with a population of about ten. What made you choose them in particular, and not do any others?
Andrew: Kieran and his team at Sheer are the real deal - we totally believe in what they are trying to do and it was great to play a show for them. It's an inspiration to me that people in small towns are taking on big projects and winning. We've always been drawn to that maverick spirit of independence.
Jetplane Landing have always been pretty good at raising hell, especially with the younger crowds that promoters like Sheer attract, but how exactly did you stir up enough trouble to break Xfm?
Andrew: Our whole campaign on OLAS was built around single three, 'Brave Gravity', andwe felt it was the strongest shot we had at radio. We toured the album eight times in total and the Brave Gravity tour was about 30 dates long with a single release at the end of the tour. The (not earth-shattering) idea was to incite the crowd at every show to go out and buy the single on week one to see if we could chart and fuck a few people off.
A few dates into the tour the single went out to radio and the response was slow, so through our message board and mailing list we got people to bombard producers with requests. All good fun - Zane was into it, 6Music played it more - but once it got put on the XFM request show it all got a bit out of hand.
Basically, Camfield didn't like the fact that people were breaking his switchboard every night. So many people made text requests that the server kept falling over. Most of the telephone calls to the show were people from the previous night's gig asking to hear 'Brave Gravity'. Fundamentally, he didn't like the song and didn't understand why people were bothering about us. The fact that the show was meant to play the 'top ten most requested tracks' and we never charted once struck us as a little odd - so we turned up the heat.
Camfield got really narked one night with a guy that phoned in: "Why don't you guys just pack it in and stop emailing us?". It was brilliant to hear this complete stranger say, "Listen mate, we'll pack it in when you playlist them". Click.... Buzz. I went fucking ballistic; more rants from stage, hundreds more people texting - eventual disappearance of JPL in totality from the show.
Jamie: I think my Dad sent an email under a fake name calling Ian Camfield a "self-important prick". He shouldn't have done it but he just lost his temper. I don't think it helped in calming the waters very much. I apologise on his behalf.
Andrew: Guerrilla marketing will get you played pretty much anywhere, but you're only going to stay there for a short time if you don't have money to sustain it. We've always had zero money, so all we can really do is fuck with systems that ignore us. It passes the time when I'm at work.
Were you approached by any of the bigger labels at all after that incident? They always seem to be hanging around looking for bands with a sturdy fanbase. Or did your experiences with Geffen - they airbrushed out the bump in Andrew's nose in all the press photos - put you off? Have you ever been tempted?
Andrew: Jetplane has never been offered a major label deal, you have to fish for those - after ZFC came out we almost signed to Southern, but we decided to go it alone with our own label and distribution. I've since had extensive plastic surgery on my nose with all the royalties from the Fickle Public records.
Going it alone must be tough work sometimes though, were you never tempted to just call it a day and walk away? There were a lot of rumours around post-Truck.
Jamie: I never thought we should split up, and if we had who would have noticed? Okay, let's say we did split up for a week in April 2006 and this is just a reformation for cash, just like The Police.
Andrew: Stopping has never been discussed, that's not how this story will end. Touring is an inevitability, but we don't know what form that will take yet. At the moment all my spare time is taken up with getting the album produced, manufactured and into shops.
And after that's done, what next? What are your aims for Backlash Cop? Obviously breaking even would be handy, but do you have a specific goal to be aiming for when all is said and done – not necessarily in terms of sales, maybe in terms of how it's received generally?
Jamie: Anybody who likes only emo, or only Fugazi, or only hardcore, or only Biffy Clyro, or only underground bands… they are going to hate this record. We have been liked for a few years now. Being liked is nice, and I don't want to sound ungrateful for all of the brilliant, loving, support people have given us, but being liked can also become boring. Love or hate it, here it is.
Andrew: If this shakes people's opinion of what Jetplane are then that's a good thing. The fact that the album is coming out is all the success we want - we've never been ambitious in terms of sales. We just want people to enjoy listening and we're thankful to everyone that helps us by plugging us online, talking about us to their friends and buying our records. We write the songs but you own the band.
Finally, and I guess this is the most important question, after all this time, why are Jetplane Landing still relevant? Sell yourselves, as well as anything else that's important.
Jamie: Sell ourselves! That's one thing that Jetplane Landing are really bad at. In fact, I can't do it. Don't buy our record unless you want to. You can hear bits of it online. If you like what you hear or just feel intrigued by it, help out some old men - a large cut of your money goes straight back to the band when you buy our records. We have to pay for all the recording ourselves. If you like the new tracks get us back in the black.
Andrew: Smalltown America is in full steam at the moment. We have new albums coming out this summer by The Young Playthings, Fighting With Wire and Clone Quartet as well as Public Service Broadcast 9. If you haven't bought them already, check out the beautiful records on STA by Fickle Public and Oppenheimer. The fourth annual STA Charity All-Dayer will be held again this year on September 15th at London's 93 Feet East.
Backlash Cop is released on June 18th on Smalltown America. Distributed by Cargo Records.
Pictures by Graham Smith


text:
Density of Ocean Water
The density of pure water is 1000 kg/m3. Ocean water is more dense because it has salt in it. Density of ocean water is about 1027 kg/m3 at the top of the ocean.
Less dense water floats on top of more dense water. So, if you were to head to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine, the water would get more and more dense as you went!
Last modified August 31, 2001 by Jennifer Bergman.


text:
Greetings patient readers. Welcome once again to Twisted Conch in 60 Seconds, a series of articles in which I attempt to convey the simplicity of writing SSH applications using Twisted. For those of you who have been reading since the beginning, thank you for bearing with me through the unfortunate hiatus.
When last we parted, I had just explained how to accept input on a custom server channel. In this edition, I'll explain the various callbacks you can expect when your channel is not going to receive any further data.
Recall the channel class which echoes all of its input back to the client from the previous example:
class SimpleSession(SSHChannel):
name = 'session'
def request_pty_req(self, data):
return True
def request_shell(self, data):
return True
def dataReceived(self, bytes):
self.write("echo: " + repr(bytes) + "\r\n")
When the client disconnects, the SimpleSession
instance will get garbage collected (as long as we have no extra code of our own keeping a reference to it, thus keeping it alive). You can also receive a callback when this disconnection happens, though, before the instance is discarded. Actually, you can receive one or more of three different callbacks:
def eofReceived(self):
self.write("eof received\r\n")
This eofReceived
callback happens when the client sends an End-Of-File notification for this channel. You might see this if the client is invoked like this:
$ ssh username@host < input-file
After the contents of input-file
have been sent, the client will send the EOF notification and wait for server output. However, if the client is invoked in this more common manner:
$ ssh username@host
then it's more likely that it will exit via the magic ~.
sequence, or by being killed (explicitly or by a SIGHUP when the user logs out). In this case, there is no EOF notification. Instead, the SSH connection is just closed. This results in the channel being closed as well, which can be handled like this:
def closed(self):
print "Channel closed"
This notification may also happen after an EOF notification, so be prepared to handle them both. Finally, it's possible for the client to request that just one particular channel be closed. This can be handled like this:
def closeReceived(self):
print "Close received"
However, this condition is difficult to trigger with the standard ssh command line client (in fact, I don't know how to trigger it). A custom SSH client might want to do this, though - for example if it creates and destroys many different channels in the lifetime of a single SSH connection.
As a rule of thumb, closed
is probably the most commonly useful of these three callbacks. You can use it to reliably clean up resources when a channel is no longer in use and be confident that it is going to be called.
Here's a complete server using the echo channel definition from the previous post, plus the three new callbacks introduced in this post:
from twisted.cred.portal import Portal
from twisted.cred.checkers import FilePasswordDB
from twisted.conch.ssh.factory import SSHFactory
from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.conch.ssh.keys import Key
from twisted.conch.interfaces import IConchUser
from twisted.conch.avatar import ConchUser
from twisted.conch.ssh.channel import SSHChannel
with open('id_rsa') as privateBlobFile:
privateBlob = privateBlobFile.read()
privateKey = Key.fromString(data=privateBlob)
with open('id_rsa.pub') as publicBlobFile:
publicBlob = publicBlobFile.read()
publicKey = Key.fromString(data=publicBlob)
def nothing():
class SimpleSession(SSHChannel):
name = 'session'
def request_pty_req(self, data):
return True
def request_shell(self, data):
return True
def dataReceived(self, bytes):
self.write("echo: " + repr(bytes) + "\r\n")
def eofReceived(self):
print 'connection lost'
def closed(self):
print 'closed'
def closeReceived(self):
print 'closeReceived'
class SimpleRealm(object):
def requestAvatar(self, avatarId, mind, *interfaces):
user = ConchUser()
user.channelLookup['session'] = SimpleSession
return IConchUser, user, nothing
factory = SSHFactory()
factory.privateKeys = {'ssh-rsa': privateKey}
factory.publicKeys = {'ssh-rsa': publicKey}
factory.portal = Portal(SimpleRealm())
reactor.listenTCP(2022, factory)
By this point, I've explained enough to make a complete (if simple) SSH server application - authentication, output, pty requests, input, and disconnection handling. In the next entry, I'll explain how you can hook a normal Protocol
instance up to a channel, useful for abstracting your application logic somewhat away from the SSH details and (therefore) for re-using existing Twisted-based protocol implementations with SSH as their transport.


text:
Legislators scrutinize skyrocketing costs of air service
As lawmakers in Washington struggle to slash federal spending, a transportation program called Essential Air Service has received close scrutiny.
The program provides large subsidies to airlines that preserve flights to small, rural communities, including three in northern Minnesota. Few question the economic importance of air service. But critics ask if it's worth the skyrocketing cost.
A popular scapegoat for those who want to end the subsidy is the tiny airport in Ely, Nev. For Republicans, the airport is an attractive target because it is in the home state of Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid.
The program poses a difficult problem for members of Congress like U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack, who represents Minnesota's Eighth District. Cravaack has placed a priority on balancing the federal budget, but he will soon have three airports served by the program in his district.
Grow the Future of Public Media
MPR News is supported by Members. Gifts from individuals power everything you find here. Make a gift of any amount today to become a Member!
At a constituent meeting in Deer River in August, the GOP freshman and former airline pilot left little doubt about his position. He doesn't side with those who want to protect the subsidies from cuts, among them some Democrats in Congress.
"The main reason they were upset about it is because Senator Reid's favorite airport in Ely, Nevada, with — get this — a $3,700 subsidy per ticket," Cravaack told his audience.
Nationwide the program's price tag has grown to about $200 million per year. Taxpayers pay nearly $5.5 million to prop up flights into three Minnesota cities: Thief River Falls, and in the Eighth district, International Falls, and Hibbing. That subsidy is poised to grow to about $8 million.
Bemidji and Brainerd are now eligible for Essential Air Service as a result of Delta Air Lines' decision this summer to stop serving those cities.
Translation: Passengers like the service.
Among them are Bob Anderson and his wife, who frequently use Hibbing's tiny Range Regional Airport for their flights home to Seattle.
"It's great. No charge for the parking. It's secure. It's easy to get in and out," Anderson said. "Very reliable service."
Anderson said he makes several round trips here every year to visit his cabin in Ely, where he grew up. But he said he wouldn't come nearly as often — and would spend less in Minnesota — if the service stopped, forcing him to drive from the Twin Cities or Duluth.
Airport director Shaun Germolus said losing scheduled air service would damage small cities like Hibbing.
"It puts us at a competitive disadvantage to larger cities if we would lose our public transportation," he said. "It's a large economic development tool for rural America."
Germolus said air service provides a vital link for mining company engineers and executives traveling to the Iron Range, where unemployment generally runs a percentage point or more above the statewide average.
But Delta Air Lines' three daily flights connecting Hibbing and Minneapolis on planes that carry 34 passengers are usually only about a third full. Delta officials say that's not enough to break even. So the federal government pays the airline nearly $3 million every year — about $200 per passenger — to keep those flights going.
"What is the justification of spending all that money, for really a handful of people in Hibbing to use that service?" asked Dan Kasper, a longtime airline industry consultant with LECG Aviation. Kasper points out that flights from Duluth receive no subsidies, and the Duluth airport is only a 90-minute drive for people in Hibbing.
"They could do what people in the rest of the country do, which is get in their car and drive an hour to an airport that has a lot more service that doesn't need a subsidy," he said.
Congress enacted Essential Air Service when it deregulated the airline industry in 1978. Any community that had scheduled air service then was guaranteed a minimum level of it going forward.
But the price tag has skyrocketed as the cost of fuel has taken off.
As a result, airlines are pulling out of smaller markets. On top of Brainerd and Bemidji, Delta also announced plans to reduce or eliminate service to Hibbing, International Falls and Thief River Falls.
In April, Cravaack co-sponsored a bill that would have eliminated the program. The Republican-controlled House approved it. But the bill never came up for a vote in the Senate, Democrats hold a slim majority.
Cravaack led a working group that has tried to bridgethe two chambers' differences. He also has backed away from his earlier stance, saying rural Minnesota businesses need air service. He cites International Falls as an example.
"Boise Paper needs that airport, so I would have been fighting to keep that airport open," Cravaack said.
Congress preserved Essential Air Service funding in September, but that money runs out again in January. Soon once again, Congress will be debating just how essential rural air service is.


text:
To us mere mortals, the idea of fame is exhilarating. The life of a celebrity, we imagine, is a world where everyone knows you, worships you, and hangs on your every word. It's easy to forget that fame can also be a burden. Strangers come up to you while you're dining in a restaurant and speak to you as if they know you. Most celebrities ultimately wish they could just be regular folks again.
By the 1920s, Norman Rockwell was a major star. And, like many other public figures before and since, he relished nothing more than the opportunity to get away from it all. He needed to escape the shackles of celebrity to stimulate his creative juices.
He found that freedom at Gibson's Point at Louisville Landing—a town in upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River. It was a sleepy town with not much going for it aside from a small dance hall and the ferry dock where passengers boarded for the short voyage across the border to Canada.
Summering at Gibson's Point, Rockwell shed his big-city background and fame. He retrieved drinking water from stone wells, carried firewood, and swam and fished in the river. It made him feel like a character in one of his illustrations. "This place is like a series of living Post covers—and I'm in it," he told a young man who also visited there.
More than anything else, he enjoyed being treated like one of the local boys who sat on the porch of the general store in the evenings, listening to their elders expound on the comings and goings of the ferry. The stories told by these hard-working, honest men ignited ideas that later blossomed into Post covers. One of the themes that emerged was a return to innocence, as if the very process of quietly observing the elders of the town transported Rockwell back to his youth. It was while sitting on that porch that Rockwell was inspired to create the December 3, 1927, Post cover (pictured) celebrating the kid in all of us. The benevolent Santa is modeled on John Malone, a father figure to Rockwell and his host at Gibson's Point.
Become a Saturday Evening Post member and enjoy unlimited access. Subscribe now


text:
Your search for person:("Ruiz-Gijón, Tonny") resulted in 0 hits.
- Please check all words are spelled correctly
- Please check if your search result is limited by activated filters.
- Try alternate search terms or synonyms
- Search preferably English search terms resp. use the Boolean operator "OR" to combine search terms of different languages
- Try more general search terms using a wildcard
Need more information or help? Please contact our customer service:
Use the information you have available to place an order without search (Subject to charge; registration with TIB customer number required.)


text:
I went back to my post last July and reread it.
Yes. I am right about this.
Wherein Fr. Z explains what is really going on with the canonizations of John XXIII and John Paul II
Today, in addition to Francis' dedication of the Vatican City State to St. Michael (and does that place need defense of the attacks of Hell!) and in addition to the release of Benedict's final encyclical, which is Francis' first encyclical (thus perhaps shifting "Reading Francis through Benedict" to "Reading Benedict through Francis"), His Holiness confirmed the decree of the Congregation for Causes of Saints concerning a miracle worked through the intercession of Bl. John Paul II, thus clearing the way for his canonization.
At the same time, His Holiness of our Lord decided that he would go ahead with the canonization of Bl. John XXIII even though there is no additional authenticated miracle.
Let's be clear: Pope's can do that.
John Paul II strayed from the usual time line in the case of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, in 2002. There was eventually a miracle attributed to St. Juan Diego, one of the more amazing miraculous healings I have read about. I digress.
Here is what I think is really going on with these canonizations.
The decision to canonize Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II at the same time, at the time when we are observing the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, is a kind of "canonization" of the Second Vatican Council.
So, why does John Paul II have to be involved with that? Why is not Bl. John XXIII enough to do that?
Some will suggest that John XXIII appeals more to liberals while John Paul II appeals more to conservatives. Putting them together is an attempt to bridge the divide. I don't think so. This isn't quite like the double beatification of Bl. John XXIII with Bl. Pius IX, a move which probably sought to soften the Pian aspect.
This canonization has more to do with putting yet another stamp of approval on the Second Vatican Council. It is here to stay, if you were in doubt.
But wait, there's more.
The canonizations have even more to do identifying the proper lens or hermeneutic by which we are to interpret the Council: the pontificate and the magisterium of St. Pope John Paul II.
This move is intended to identify John Paul II as our helper in interpreting difficult and controversial aspects of the Council.
There are controversial texts in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. The whole of the Council itself is controversial. Enter John Paul II. He was a bishop at the Council who helped write important passages in Gaudium et spes. During his heroically long pontificate John Paul, in his magisterium, commented at some point on virtually every controversial or disputed point in the Council documents and on the event of the Council itself. He may not have solved, settled, definitively pronounced, on every controversial issue, but he offers commentary and insight on them.
Try to think of some controversial aspect of the Council or it's documents that John Paul II did not write about or preach about.
I think what Francis is saying by this is that, if you have a problem with any aspect of the Council, turn to the papal teaching of St. John Paul II for clarifications and help in interpretation.
Some who don't like the magisterium of Pope John Paul II will say, "No, Francis is pointing their personal virtues." That's because by the canonization, John Paul's magisterium is getting a boost. Ask yourself which documents of future St. John Paul II the LCWR (aka The Zittelle) rush to cite. Do they want to see canonized the one who issued Ordinatio sacerdotalis? No. In effect, the bodies of magisterial teaching of these two Popes are, by the canonizations, getting a serious boost.
I don't know what this means for reading Vatican II in continuity with Vatican I, with Trent, with Lateran V, with … with… with…. I know that I won't stop reading Vatican II without those other Councils, back to Nicea and Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, I think Francis steering us to John Paul II as an additional interpretive lens, for a proper hermeneutic of reform.
Agree with Francis' move or not, I think this is what the Pope is doing. Francis is firmly in the Benedictine, Ioanno-Pauline line. Furthermore, I think Benedict would have done the same thing! If anyone doubts this, she should reread Benedict's 2009 letter to bishops about the SSPX! For example:
One cannot freeze the magisterial authority of the Church in 1962 and – this must be quite clear to the Fraternity. But to some of those who show off as great defenders of the Council it must also be recalled to memory that Vatican II contains within itself the whole doctrinal history of the Church. Who wants to be obedient to it [sc. the Council] must accept the faith of the centuries and must not cut the roots of which the tree lives.
In effect, the Second Vatican Council is here to stay. What we make of the Second Vatican Council is, as Francis is signalling, is also here to stay.


text:
Metal Circles Mirror
As shared on Dollar Store Crafts, Debi of Debi's Design Diary knows how to get that Anthro-look on a dollar store budget. Debi created a very cool geometric mirror from paint can lids and mirrors that cost… you guessed it… one dollar! Some gold spray paint, and Debi's mirror looks like a million bucks instead of a budget-friendly $25!


text:
Phillip Carter on Chris Edley and John Yoo
From <>:
Convictions : Blame Berkeley: With all due respect to Chris Edley, whom I admire, and the University of California, to which I owe a great deal, I think Edley's position on John Yoo gets it exactly wrong -- and epitomizes why people deride the "Ivory Tower" as insulated from reality. Law schools have an obligation to do more than teach lawyers to offer legal advice without regard for the consequences of their counsel. I also think that law schools ought to model behavior for their students, and think very seriously about the pedagogical impact of retaining a man on the faculty whose legal advice and scholarship produced such disastrous policy, to say nothing of the suffering of those on the receiving end of Yoo's ideas. And, I think Edley's position wrongfully absolves lawyers, and the legal academy, of responsibility for when they get things wrong -- or when their counsel produces terrible outcomes. As my colleague Deborah Pearlstein points out, we wouldn't accept that result in molecular biology or medicine or many other disciplines. I don't think we should accept it in the law either -- not in practice, and not in law school either. Academic freedom should not be a dodge for personal or professional responsibility.


text:
0 Reviews
Columbia is the capital, the largest city, and the commercial, industrial and educational hub for the state. The city is laid out in a traditional grid along the Congaree River with a number of historic buildings, although many of the older ones were destroyed in Sherman's famous march. Columbia is home to the University of South Carolina, whose attractive and historic campus is in the south part of the downtown area adds a dose of college town feel, a few amenities, and sports-related entertainment to the area. The downtown is clean and attractive, with entertainment near the campus and in a restored waterfront area. Beautiful older residential areas extend east with a clear antebellum imprint and good home values, but this isn't the part of town with the best reputation for education and safety.
The best suburbs spread northwest towards Irmo and Lake Murray. The economy, while soft recently, is stable with a good future outlook. Cost of living is attractive especially for what is available, and buying power is strong. While a bit far away for air service and other city amenities, Columbia does enjoy a good central location relative to Atlanta 200 miles west, Charleston and the coast 120 miles southeast, and the mountains northwest.
Columbia is located at a river confluence. Surrounding terrain is rolling and slopes gently from north to south. The climate is humid subtropical. The Appalachian ridge 150 miles to the northwest frequently retards the approach of cold weather in the winter but offers little moderating effect on the summer heat. Long summers are prevalent with persistent warm and humid weather. The mountains and the "Bermuda High" summer high pressure system block cold fronts from the north and west. Typically there are about 6 days over 100 degrees and midsummer thunderstorms are frequent. Fall is the most pleasant time of year with relatively less rainfall and plenty of sun. Winters are mild with occasional short cold outbreaks. Spring is variable, with occasional storms and cold snaps.
90.4 / 100 TrueCost ScoreUnlock with Premium
28.8 / 100 Violent CrimeUnlock with Premium
Start Your Review of Lexington


text:
Fugget About It has landed on TELETOON at Night
Things are about to get shady in Regina. September 7, 2012 at 10 p.m. ET/PT marks the highly-anticipated premiere of the TELETOON at Night original comedy series Fugget About It. The 13-part series features voice guest stars Alan Thicke, Andrea Martin and Jason Jones (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).
Fugget About It tells the story of Jimmy Falcone, once a feared capo in the Gambini crime family. Everything changes when his associates insist he whack his good old Uncle Cheech. When Jimmy pleads for Cheech's life to Don Gambini, their meeting ends with Jimmy hurling the crime boss out of a 19-story window. With the mob out to kill him, Jimmy has no choice but to turn to the dark side and become a witness for the Feds. Jimmy and his family are sent into witness protection in cold, snowy Regina, Saskatchewan where it's hard for a quick-tempered goodfella to live as a regular schnook among naïve, kind and friendly Canadians.
"Fugget About It is a product of the TELETOON at Night Pilot Project, an outreach initiative to tap into the vast and rich talent within the Canadian animation industry," said Alan Gregg, Director, Original Content, TELETOON Canada Inc. "The result is a genuinely funny series that plays on Canadian stereotypes, while adding a charming dose of humour to our Friday night lineup."
Fugget About It was originally developed for the TELETOON at Night Pilot Project by 9 Story Entertainment, in association with TELETOON Canada Inc. When the contest officially launched in 2007, ten projects, including Fugget About It, were selected as finalists from over 200 submissions. TELETOON invested $1.5 million into creating the pilots, which straddled a wide range of topics, animation styles and comedic sensibilities. Fugget About It was officially green-lit for production in 2010.
Created by Willem Wennekers and Nicholas Tabarrok, Fugget About It was developed by Jeff Abugov (Two and a Half Men, Roseanne, Cheers). Executive producers are Willem Wennekers, Nicholas Tabarrok and Jeff Abugov and for 9 Story, Vince Commisso and Steven Jarosz.
Fugget About It will be available to viewers nationwide during TELETOON's free preview until Sunday, September 30.


text:
February the 21th 2011 will see Praying Mantis release. a special limited edition EP "Metalmorphosis" to celebrate 30 years since the release of their critically acclaimed Album "Time Tells No Lies" and include 5 songs some of which are from the original album re-recorded by the current Mantis line up.
PrayinMantisMetalmorphosis Praying Mantis Metalmorphosis EP
The songs the band have chosen are:
1. Children of The Earth 2010
2. Praying Mantis 2010
3. Lovers to the Grave 2010
4. Panic in the Streets 2010
5. Captured City 2010
All these tracks have been completely re-recorded.
PrayingMantis2011 Praying Mantis Metalmorphosis EP
Chris Troy – Bass & Vocals
Tino Troy – Guitars & Vocals
Andy Burgess – Guitars
Benjy Reid – Drums
Mike Freeland – Vocals
2009 saw the band release "Sanctuary" and the reviews and feedback have been fantastic. As a follow up and a celebration of 30 years of having the opportunity to perform, write and record the band have recorded "Metalmorphosis".
"Metalmorphosis" will be available via praying mantis's websites from 21th February 2011 as a special limited edition in a embossed digipack.
Praying Mantis selling the EP "Metalmorphosis" at £5.50 + posting to order via the website and on iTunes. The EP will also be available at the live shows throughout 2011.