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As in hundreds of cities and towns in the once-industrial Midwest, a ghost not only haunts but dominates North Canton, Ohio. It's a ghost of brick and mortar, glass and steel, of a smokestack that rises directly across the street from the City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce. The ghost's name is still painted on the smokestack, four years after the factory beneath it clanged to a halt. "Hoover," it says—as in Hoover Vacuum Cleaner, a company founded in North Canton in 1908 that was the town's largest employer, and leading citizen, for one year short of a century.
At its height, Hoover's North Canton empire spread over 17 factories and buildings, one of them a private hospital for local Hoover workers (as many as 7,000 during the company's flush decades) who took sick or were injured on the job. "This was Hooverville—our own version, not Herbert-Hooverville—a company town," says Doug Lane, a former city councilor who now heads the Chamber of Commerce. "If the city needed a fire truck, it went to Hoover. If it needed a new school, it went to Hoover." A city of 17,000 nestled among green hills an hour's drive south of Cleveland, North Canton was virtually an adjunct of the company. "Boss Hoover," whose statue rises in the park across from Lane's office, was also North Canton's first mayor.
"When I moved here in 1988," Lane says, "the company still had 4,000 employees in the plants here." But Hoover no longer controlled its own destiny. It had been purchased in 1985 by a railroad holding company, Chicago Pacific. Over the next two decades, Hoover was resold to Maytag, then to Whirlpool, and in 2006 to Techtronic Industries. The Hong Kong–based conglomerate promptly announced it would relocate the assembly line in the remaining North Canton factory, where employment had dwindled to just 800 workers, to Mexico and El Paso. In September 2007, Hoover left North Canton for good.
There was nothing exceptional about Hoover's abandonment of its hometown. The Hoover complex was one of 54,621 American factories to shutter its doors during the past decade, a time when Chinese exports rose fivefold while the number of Americans employed in manufacturing plummeted from 17 million to 11.5 million. What was exceptional in North Canton happened on September 6 of this year, when Suarez Industries unveiled, with considerable hoopla, a new production facility in one of the abandoned Hoover warehouses. Even more striking, Suarez was bringing back work—the manufacture of EdenPure heaters and air filters—that it had previously done in China, where 80 percent of EdenPure's products had been made for the past two decades. "We're going to reverse that ratio," said Hope Paolini, Suarez's production manager, as she gave me a tour of the plant one late September day, "to 80 percent here and 20 percent in China."
Bringing back production from China—reversing, as it were, the economics of globalization—is no small achievement. It invariably entails the substitution of capital for labor. Since no U.S.–based workers come as cheap as their Chinese counterparts, economies of productivity, of more efficient machines and processes, must make up the difference.
The economies of productivity in Suarez's North Canton plant are largely the creation of its chief engineer, Neil Tyburk, a low-tech industrial engineer of evident genius. "Neil re-engineered the Chinese heater," Paolini said. "It had 192 screws—he got it down to 31." Through many such redesigns, Suarez was able to greatly reduce the size of its labor force. On the day I visited, the plant, still in start-up mode, employed 80 people; the workforce will rise to 250 when it's fully staffed—a small fraction of what Hoover once employed, and not a particularly large labor force for a plant that will turn out 10,000 heaters a week.
Paolini says that when Suarez officials told business associates they intended to bring their manufacturing operation back from China and still turn a profit, "we were laughed at. People can't believe this kind of high-volume manufacturing will return to the U.S."
If they also can't believe EdenPure's new hires will enjoy the living standards that Hoover's workers once took for granted, they'll be right. When Hoover closed down in 2007, its employees were paid between $13 and $17 an hour, according to Nick Tomey, who headed the local union. EdenPure pays minimum wage: $7.50 an hour for its assembly-line workers. Except there's no assembly line. On the day I visited, the production workers simply stood alongside long tables, picking up heaters, turning screws, affixing components, then handing the heater on to the next worker, who turned his own set of screws.
Looking for the future of American manufacturing, I seemed to have stumbled upon its past (though the past paid better). Tyburk's labor-saving innovations didn't require Suarez to shell out much for machinery; the skill levels demanded of its workers didn't require Suarez to shell out much for labor. In this durable-goods factory in America's heartland, in this heartening example of reverse globalization, workers make what they'd make at Wal-Mart or McDonald's.
The very idea of returning manufacturing to the United States—even at EdenPure pay rates—would signal a clear shift in America's prevailing business models and economic vision. Ever since Jack Welch took the helm of General Electric 30 years ago and proclaimed that American companies should produce wherever the costs are low and the labor cheap, offshoring has been the watchword for both multinational corporations and small and midsized manufacturers as well. Particularly since Congress voted to establish permanent normalized trade relations with China in 2000, the United States has hemorrhaged manufacturing. Domestic employment at U.S.–based multinationals declined by 2.9 million over the past ten years, while their workforce abroad has risen by 2.4 million.
The decline in manufacturing employment has been qualitative as well as quantitative: the unionized manufacturing jobs of mid-20th-century America were precisely the jobs that created the world's first majority middle class. Even today, manufacturing jobs pay roughly 20 percent more than the median American pay level. As employment in manufacturing plummeted over the past decade, median household income declined with it, for the first time since the Great Depression. This was not merely correlation. It was causation as well.
Ordinary Americans clearly consider manufacturing the key to America's well-being. In a survey conducted this past June by a bipartisan group of pollsters, respondents overwhelmingly identified manufacturing as the sector most important to the overall strength of the U.S. economy. But only now is this common sense trickling up to the policy elites. During the past year, a growing number of America's leading economists, CEOs, and elected officials—groups that had long viewed the offshoring of American industry with serene indifference—have begun to acknowledge that America needs a manufacturing sector. The awakening has come partly in response to our growing trade deficit, but there's more to it than that.
"In the old days, the elites said manufacturing was a goner, and 80 percent of them said it was a good thing," says a former Treasury Department official. "They conditioned that on our keeping highly innovative manufacturing, like semiconductors. The U.S. had to remain tops in innovation—that was our calling card in the global economy. It was fine to invent things here and make things abroad: That was a proper division of labor. Today, the elites have finally realized that when manufacturing goes abroad, it takes research and development with it."
This turn in elite opinion was signaled in an influential article in the July 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review by two Harvard business school professors, Gary Pisano and Willy Shih. Nations such as ours, they wrote, are home to "industrial commons," regions like Silicon Valley or the greater Boston area, where R&D and high-tech manufacturing are concentrated. "Once manufacturing is outsourced," they wrote, "process-engineering expertise can't be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. … Without the ability to develop such new processes, they can no longer develop new products." Their conclusion: "An economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate."
For want of a nail factory, the kingdom was lost.
But it's one thing to acknowledge the need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and quite another to actually do it. This August, the Boston Consulting Group released a blueprint titled "Made in America, Again," which laid out how such a return from abroad—from China in particular—could and would occur. The key to this homecoming is the galloping rise of Chinese wages, the consequence of a labor force that, as a result of that nation's one-child policy, is no longer expanding as it used to. "Wage and benefit increases of 15 to 20 percent per year at the average Chinese factory will slash China's labor-cost advantage over low-cost states in the U.S., from 55 percent today to 39 percent in 2015, when adjusted for the higher productivity of U.S. workers," the study concludes.
The return of U.S. manufacturing to native soil is not, however, a given. American workers will have to come cheap. The Boston study speaks of "flexible unions/workers; minimal wage growth; high worker productivity," and asserts that "when all costs are taken into account, certain U.S. states, such as South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, will turn out to be among the least expensive production sites in the industrialized world." (An earlier draft of the study had compared wages in Shanghai to wages in Mississippi, but after I questioned in a Washington Post column whether Americans wanted to become globally competitive by reducing their incomes to Mississippi levels, the state was dropped and South Carolina inserted.)
Boston Consulting Group managing partner Harold Sirkin sees the recession's downward pressure on wages as a golden opportunity to build a low-wage manufacturing sector in America that could compete with China's—a halfway house between the Third World wages of East Asia and the high-wage production of Northern Europe. "With unemployment at 9 percent, the economy can flex in ways that people wouldn't believe!" he wrote. "Getting the work rules right, getting the wage scales right, the U.S. can be competitive on a global scale."
The wage scales at Suarez's North Canton factory certainly justify Sirkin's confidence in the flexing economy. Outside the factory, when I'd finished my tour, I spoke to one Suarez employee taking his break. When I asked him about the wage level, he immediately answered, "Hey, man, it's a job! I was out of work for two years!" To make ends meet, he works a second job for a caterer on weekends. He's living with friends, hoping eventually to have enough money to rent his own apartment.
Does the future of American manufacturing require competing with China (and McDonald's) on wages? Fortunately, the next factory I visited—which also had brought work back from China—looked nothing like Suarez's, and paid somewhat better, too.
Last year A123 Systems, a company that manufactures lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, opened a factory in Livonia, Michigan, a half-hour's drive from Detroit. From the outside, it doesn't look like a factory at all (it seems more like an office park); inside, it looks like no factory you've ever seen. This is a dream workplace, in two senses of "dream." It's a comfortable environment to work in, and as I tour the plant with Jason Forcier, the company's automotive vice president, I see an almost surreal vision of a techno-future brought into the present. In the sealed "dry room," battery cells coated with "magic pixie dust"—Forcier's term for the conductivity compound that A123 has commercialized, invented by a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—are assembled by a robotized process. A handful of workers, garbed in surgical attire, discreetly move around the chamber. The cells are transported by conveyors and robots to an "aging room" (battery cells, like wines, have to age), where they sit for 40 days.
Like Suarez, A123 brought this work back from China. Though the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, it had to begin production in Asia. Americans "didn't have the equipment or the know-how to make the batteries," says David Vieau, the firm's CEO. "Sony had been the first to commercialize lithium-ion technology. So the industry developed there, not here."
But it wasn't just know-how that originally drew A123 to Asia. Until last year, the company made most of its product in China, where cheap labor reduced its costs by 20 percent to 25 percent. (The greater part of A123's costs are in technology; labor constitutes just 25 percent to 30 percent of its total expenses.) But those savings carried their own price. "It was challenging for us to have R&D in Massachusetts and production in China," Vieau says. "The gaps that emerged in our learning process were big." But the gap between the costs of Chinese and American labor was bigger.
Then in 2008, with Michigan's economy reeling from both the recession and the crisis in the auto industry, Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm persuaded the legislature to authorize funds to attract firms in strategic-growth industries—including makers of electric-car batteries. One year later, the Obama administration's stimulus package included $2.4 billion to jump-start domestic production of electric-car batteries, more than half of which went to companies that, thanks to Granholm's program, were already considering building their factories in Michigan. One such company was A123.
"We had funded the company for ten years through venture capital," said Forcier, as he showed me around the plant. "Without the government incentives, it's highly likely we would have stayed in China."
Those incentives came to $249 million, with which A123 was able to build and equip both the Livonia plant and another in nearby Romulus. "In the U.S., you can substitute machines for labor," Vieau says. "But building a highly automated factory is very expensive up front." Having the government pick up those expenses, he estimates, "reduced China's cost advantage to 5 to 10 percent."
A123's Michigan operation employs 700 production workers and 400 engineers and managers, who work together in the same campus-like factories. Coming to the Detroit area during the depth of the economic collapse, the company could be highly selective in its hires: "As we were ramping up, we had 20,000 résumés," Forcier says. "We have guys with degrees in information technology working on the line."
However skilled its workforce may be, the production-worker pay scale at A123 is modeled on the United Auto Workers' lower-paying new contracts with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. New hires—and everyone either is or was recently a new hire—get $14 an hour, which works out to roughly $29,000 in yearly income. "If we had to pay $28 an hour [the rate for veteran UAW autoworkers], we couldn't do it," Forcier says. Like virtually every new American company, A123 offers no defined-benefit pension, just a 401(k) for which there's no matching employer contribution. But salaried employees are given stock options, and the company's benefit package, for salaried and production workers alike, is excellent. "I have the same benefits as Jason [Forcier]," Matthew Knox, a college graduate in public administration hired on as a production worker (and just promoted to supervisor) told me. Opportunities for promotion and raises, as Knox's experience attests, are real—provided, ultimately, that the market for electric cars continues to expand.
Currently, most of A123's batteries are produced for Fisker Automotive's Karma—a high-end niche car ("Leonardo DiCaprio owns one," Forcier told me). But the company is developing batteries for more-mainstream companies. In October, General Motors announced it would produce an all-electric car beginning in 2013 and that A123 would provide the batteries. The company's stock rose by 27 percent on the day of the announcement.
Share price notwithstanding, the American venture-capital companies that funded A123's operations in China were unwilling to fund its move to the U.S. "It's very hard to raise money for a capital-intensive manufacturing start-up" in the U.S., says Hank Notthaft, who's started and run a number of successful Silicon Valley companies. The conventional wisdom is that with growing markets and cheap labor in China, manufacturing in America is a sucker's game. The venture capital that's there for the Googles and Facebooks—software companies that don't make a physical product and don't employ all that many people— isn't there for companies that invent cutting-edge products and want to make them in the U.S.
That leaves government as the venture capitalist of last resort for manufacturing in industries it deems important to the nation's future. At least, that's the common practice in nearly every other country. All the 50 states also have funds they use to entice firms to relocate, but when Texas lures a business from Ohio, the American economy experiences no net gain. At the federal level, however, industrial policy is considered an encroachment of government on the prerogatives of the market. Conservatives abhor it for ideological reasons, except in the case of the oil industry, for which they favor permanent government support. Business elites, until recently indifferent to the fate of domestic manufacturing, have seen no need for it.
By investing stimulus funds in both advanced car batteries and solar power, President Barack Obama asserted that there was a need for federal industrial policy if America wanted to lay claim to the industries, the manufacturing, of the future. But his viewpoint has yet to carry the day.
Forcier is a believer. "I'm a Republican by nature," he told me, "and I know the Republican view is not positive toward this kind of incentive. But in this case, it worked. We have 1,100 new jobs. We've brought a new technology to the United States."
But new technologies alone can't revive American manufacturing. Then again, as I saw in an Indiana steel mill, old ones can survive by becoming new again.
When Larry Fabina who has the happy title of "Manager of Continuous Improvement" at ArcelorMittal's 3,300-acre steel mill in Burns Harbor, Indiana, first reported to his job there in 1974, he was given a shovel and immediately put to work. When a worker is hired today, Fabina told me as he guided me around the huge facility on the banks of Lake Michigan, 14 miles east of Gary, he is given a three-week orientation course in all aspects of the factory's production processes and safety procedures. The school—its curriculum devised and taught jointly by the company and the plant's United Steelworkers local—also offers a range of courses in the many specialized skills required to run the plant. We look in on week 37 of a 38-week course for electrical technicians, who are busy dismantling air-pressure valves. In another room, Will Ramirez, an electrical engineer, is teaching employees to operate the computers that customize the temperature, flow rate, and pressure levels for the plant's many and varied kinds of steel.
An integrated mill like Burns Harbor has to run around the clock—if it grinds to a halt, restarting it (particularly firing up its giant furnaces) could take weeks, even months. The plant needs workers who can fix things on the fly—these days, through adjustments entered on computers. In earlier times, Pete Trinidad, an official of the local, told me, a steelworker's job "was 80 percent back, 20 percent brain. Now it's the reverse."
Trinidad's ratios aren't just hype, as a tour of the plant's hot-strip mill—a nearly mile-long building that yearly customizes four million tons of steel to its clients' specifications—makes clear. At first glance, the steel-shaping process may look old-school. Slabs of steel, each ten inches thick, are heated by furnaces to 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, glowing a bright molten yellow, they're transported at speeds up to 40 miles per hour down a series of sluices and conveyor belts, during which they are reshaped to anywhere from 26 to 76 inches in width and as little as .03 of an inch thick. They are then cooled and coiled. Seventy percent of this coiled steel ends up in cars made by General Motors, Nissan, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, and Mercedes-Benz.
The role of labor in the steelmaking process has changed. While 18 steel workers are assigned to each shift in the hot-strip mill, hardly any are on the shop floor. They're on the walls—in monitoring booths positioned along the catwalks on the side of the mill, high above the molten steel racing down the center of the floor. The booths are filled with rows of computer screens that register what high-tech measurements say about the steel: its heat, tensile strength, thickness, whether it's conforming to the pre-programmed specifications, and whether the lasers and robotic tools that are shaping the steel are performing correctly. The plant also uses global-positioning technology to identify each slab of steel as it moves down the line, to ensure that it emerges, as a coil, with the alterations that the client specified.
Frank Munoz, who's spent 42 years at the plant, has been running one of these booths for the past two and a half years. Watching the screens as I look on, he adjusts several knobs. "We can see all the properties of the steel as it flows," he says. "I can tell if something is wrong, and if needs be, get in touch with the guys at the furnace, or with the techs," who are monitoring the computer programming that directs the flow of the steel in booths along the opposite side of the mill.
By some measures, the American steel industry has been dying for decades—a casualty of its failure to modernize and keep up with state-subsidized foreign competition. United States Steel, once the nation's largest private-sector employer, had more than 340,000 workers on its payrolls in the 1940s. Today, it has roughly 50,000, spread across the U.S., Canada, and Eastern Europe.
The entire American steel industry now employs about 160,000 people. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that number will drop by a further 13 percent before this decade is out.
But the industry is still alive, by virtue of the huge productivity gains it's made in recent decades—the result of the innovations on display at Burns Harbor. "Thirty years ago, it took ten hours per worker to produce one ton of steel," says John Surma, the CEO of U.S. Steel. "Today, it takes two hours. Our productivity is so high it negates China's advantage in labor costs. Their advantage is a state subsidy, which enables them to sell abroad at any price, even if it's at a loss."
Such productivity gains come with a cost, of course: It takes fewer steelworkers to make the product. When Bethlehem Steel opened what is now ArcelorMittal's Burns Harbor plant in the early 1960s, the factory employed many more workers than it does today; its labor force peaked at 6,600 workers in the 1980s. Today, it employs 3,400 production workers and 600 managers and engineers. The good news is that the steelworkers, who are unionized, still make a decent living. The starting wage for production workers at Burns Harbor is $19.56 an hour, which rises to $26.32 as workers gain seniority. With premiums and overtime, workers can make up to $73,000 a year. "You can earn a middle-class lifestyle working here," says Madhu Ranade, Burns Harbor's general manager. "And you don't have to take out student loans."
The challenge for plants like Burns Harbor, and for the whole once-mighty American steel industry, is how to compete in an age of global oversupply, particularly when Chinese steel is subsidized by the state. For now, Burns Harbor's solution is to continually upscale its product and production. The plant has its own power station, which is able to recycle the mill's byproduct gases to generate 60 percent to 70 percent of its own energy needs while also providing power to 30,000 homes in northwestern Indiana. Plant engineers work closely with researchers at ArcelorMittal's R&D center in East Chicago to produce stronger, lighter steel that will enable cars to meet higher gas-mileage standards. "We work with our own designers to see how you can make the Chevy Cruze lighter, how to take 30 to 70 pounds out of it," Ranade says. "Then we show the work to the auto companies."
Can all this innovation keep the Chinese wolf from the door? Productivity in U.S. manufacturing has increased at a fairly consistent 4 percent annual rate since 1989, when there were 18 million manufacturing workers in the U.S. Employment numbers held steady through 2000, when there were 17.3 million such workers. But then China won normalized trade status from Congress and the numbers declined precipitously. Lower labor costs and subsidized imports trumped productivity. Even though steel work is highly skilled, companies insist that new hires start at a lower rate with a reduced benefits package—though the Steelworkers' union has thus far largely been able to resist the establishment of a permanent second tier for new hires, now the norm in the auto industry. "With very few exceptions," says United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, "the employers all say [the lower wage rate] is because they have to compete with China."
Can manufacturing come back to America? Even if it does, the stories of companies like A123 and Suarez raise a second question: Can it, or will it, pay enough to re-create a sizable middle class?
America's policy elites—having now largely recognized that the decline of U.S. manufacturing was on the whole a bad thing—come at these questions with solutions that, while desirable in themselves, may not address the problem. Everyone agrees we should make the R&D tax credit permanent. Everyone agrees we should promote education in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and math. In fact, the educational reform that would most help manufacturing would be establishing technical and vocational schools that turn out a skilled workforce, as in Germany.
Beyond such affirmations of motherhood and apple pie, however, consensus breaks down. Not just elite, but mass opinion too, is divided over the need and merits of industrial policy. But as the recession refuses to end, the public's opposition to government support of manufacturing may be weakening. This June, the Democratic Mellman Group and the Republican Ayres McHenry firm conducted a poll asking whether the government should refrain from helping manufacturing or assist it any way it can. Respondents favored governmental assistance by a 5-to-1 margin.
Even so, President Obama will have to make a far stronger case for government intervention than the one he's sporadically advanced. The details of industrial policy are devilish, as the controversy surrounding the Obama administration's grants to solar-panel-maker Solyndra illustrates. The easier case for reviving manufacturing is that of economic nationalism, of favoring production within the United States, just as public policy in every other nation favors production within its own borders. But this is an argument the president has been reluctant to make, as evidenced by his silence on the issue of Chinese currency manipulation.
Wall Street and the leaders of multinational corporations remain invested, financially and ideologically, in business ventures that thrive on global arbitrage and cheap overseas labor. For them, economic nationalism is a nonstarter. But for a growing number of business leaders, troubled by the erosion of the middle class, promoting domestic production has become a new battle cry. The cry has also been taken up by such centrist Democratic organizations as the Progressive Policy Institute (an offshoot of the old Democratic Leadership Council) and Third Way.
With no prompting from their betters, however, the American people are already on board for a more nationalist economic program. In the Mellman-Ayres-McHenry poll, 90 percent of responders supported giving tax breaks to manufacturers that expand production and create jobs in the U.S., to be funded by eliminating the tax breaks companies receive for moving jobs abroad. The Senate's recent bipartisan vote to impose tariffs on Chinese imports in retaliation for its currency manipulation, and Mitt Romney's vow to do the same on his first day as president, attest to the growing strength of economic nationalist sentiment. Obama, who's declined to support such a measure, dismisses it at his peril.
At bottom, the decline of American manufacturing has deep systemic roots. The combined forces of technology and globalization have reduced the number of industrial workers in most advanced economies, but nowhere has the decline been so precipitous and profound as in the United States. What made us different is that these two trends coincided with the rise of the most extreme form of shareholder capitalism—elevating the concerns of investors, the primacy of profits and share value, over those of the workers and communities to which the earlier, pre-1980 form of stakeholder capitalism also paid heed.
It's no coincidence that Germany, the only advanced economy to expand and upgrade its manufacturing sector in the age of globalization, is also the primary practitioner of stakeholder capitalism. Corporate boards are composed of equal numbers of labor and management representatives, while an entire sector of banking is devoted to funding small and midsized manufacturing ventures, freeing them from the pressure of capital markets. The resulting quantity and quality of German manufacturing have produced an economy that's the envy of the world. "Germany is socialistic, it's green," says U.S. Steel CEO John Surma, "and it's kicking our ass by any capitalistic measure."
The United States is not likely to become significantly more socialistic or green anytime soon. But through trade policies and industrial policies that promote domestic manufacturing, we can begin to realign the practices of American business with the urgent needs of the nation and its people.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Has anyone created a passive mana shield ability? This was done in a few AoS maps but I'm not sure what the best way to go about doing it is.
Basically, the unit will lose mana instead of hp until it has no mana.
If anyone could point me in the right direction or help that would be appreciated.


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Yeah... they are... kickstarting... NOTD2... as a map for SC2...
I know, I know... "oh man, you can't be serious...*rolleyes*"
But it's not a fortune they're asking for, and if people are having fun enough to pay that... time is time, work is work. What makes this a bit more than an absurd fluke is this:
free to play -- no Starcraft II purchase necessary wrote:Yes indeed! With Patch 2.1, Starcraft II's Arcade is going free to play. All you'll need is to download the Starter Edition (which is free) to access NOTD II and the rest of the content on the Arcade.
Now that's an interesting move from Blizzard, and good try for NOTD guys.
Well let's see how that turns out.


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Houston woman involved in train crash in Spain dies
A Houston woman injured in last week's deadly train crash in Spain has died, according to El Pais in Madrid.
Myrta Lasalle Fariza, 58, of Houston was traveling with her husband
Robert in car No. 7 when the train derailed and tumbled in the crash
Wednesday. The couple had just arrived in Santiago de Compostela to
participate in the Apostol celebration after visiting relatives in
Robert told El Pais earlier this week that he saw the car veering off
the rails and people rolling on the floor. Among them was his wife, who
he said suffered severed wounds to her head.
Myrta had been treated at Hospital Clinico Universitario de Santiago de Compostela.
Sunday, a message left on a Facebook page created by friends and family read:
"Our sweet Myrta went to be with The Lord. We have truly lost a
wonderful person and heaven has gained an Angel. I can picture her
sitting at our Lords feet praising his holy name. With the high cost of
communicating from another country, please refrain from calling or
texting at this time and keep the Fariza's in your prayers. They need
our support now more than ever."


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This question already has an answer here:
Similarly between "Last month" and "The last month".
Last week implies, at some point during the previous week. Not inclusive of the current week.
What exactly does the last week mean? Is that inclusive of the current time? Same question for the last n weeks?
Or are phrases ending with ago the only qualifier for being for being inclusive of the current week? A month ago pretty obviously implies a period of 30 days going back from current time.
Thanks in advance!


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Eric Evans needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 614 designs submitted by 202 freelance designers.
The Cassandra community is a diverse group of software developers and enthusiasts collaborating to create a massively scalable, distributed database application (http://incubator.apache.org/cassandra/).
Geeks, software developers, systems engineers, technologists and IT decision makers.
Some themes pertinent to Cassandra are:
* Peer to peer networking
* Distributed computing
* Databases and data storage
* Robustness
Additionally, the name Cassandra refers to the Trojan princess in Greek mythology who was a prophet, or "oracle" if you will, so potential logos could also make use of this reference.
* Usable on a light background is preferable.
* Use of limited palette (i.e. for printing, etc) preferred.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Ikonium Studio is the working gallery of UNESCO honnored Turkish felt master Mehmet Girgiç and American textile artist Theresa May-OBrien Daily workshops with artists available by appointment. Traditional and contemporary textiles include carpet, kilim and felt. Natural dyemaking and hand paintng Contact: Ikonium Studio Binbirdirek Mahallesi Dr. Şevkibey Sokak No6B Fatih Istanbul, Turkey 34122 +90 212 5187353 GPS: N41 00.442 E28 58.426
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
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Nacchio, Rigas on Time's Top 10 Crooked CEOs
UPDATE: (01/14/2010 2:35 p.m.) As it turns out, the Crooked CEO list was published June 8, 2009, according to the date stamp on this page. I've called Time's PR department to get confirmation, but haven't heard back. Not sure why the information is only surfacing now. I don't ever recall reading about this list last June, and I pretty much notice anything that includes the words Joe and Nacchio.
Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio and Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas are on Time Magazine's list of Top 10 Crooked CEOs (there are actually only nine on the list).
Nacchio, serving a six-year prison term for illegal insider trading, is No. 5 and Rigas, serving a 12-year term for conspiracy, bank fraud and other charges, is No. 4.
The Denver Business Journal says the list was posted today, but it appears it was compiled last summer and hasn't been updated. The accompanying text says Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is awaiting sentencing and Nacchio's Supreme Court appeal is pending. Madoff reported to a federal prison in North Carolina in mid-July to serve a 150-year sentence and the Supreme Court rejected Nacchio's appeal in October.
Madoff tops the list, followed by former Enron honchos Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.
This week, a federal judge denied Nacchio's request for a new trial, his last pending appeal. He is slated to be re-sentenced sometime this year, and has argued his prison term should be cut to as little as six months. Nacchio reported to a federal prison camp last April.
Now-defunct Adelphia, which once Read more…


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Natural Order
This story appears in the November 2001 issue of Entrepreneurs Start-Ups magazine. Subscribe »
Within weeks of taking office, President George W. Bush sent out a message: Business growth will be a higher priority than the environment. Bush acted quickly in pronouncing the Kyoto Protocol dead in the United States, angering leaders of industrialized nations who, alongside the previous U.S. administration, had hammered out what was to become the foundation of a treaty among 178 nations promising to lower greenhouse gases. At the same time, he pushed energy production rather than conservation as the solution to the energy crises on the East and West Coasts. By the 30th anniversary of the first Earth Day this past April, the environmental movement seemed to be losing ground, with business growth coming possibly at the expense of the environment.
Playing With Rainbows
But entrepreneurs like 26-year-old Darren Patrick aren't headed in that direction. Patrick may not have been demonstrating in Genoa against globalization, free trade or corporate pollution, but he is acutely aware of businesses' impact on the environment as he runs his business in San Antonio.
Patrick founded Rainbow Play Systems when he was 20; three years later he was a millionaire. Rainbow sells redwood and red-cedar residential playground equipment in 14 Rainbow stores throughout south Texas and Mexico. The company will ring up approximately $6 million in sales this year, but it's that success that makes Rainbow one of the nation's largest consumers of redwood.
"Since the onset of our business, we have always been concerned about our lumber purchases and the mills that fulfill them," says Patrick, who purchases lumber only from mills participating in sustained-yield programs that protect the population of the nation's redwood trees. But Rainbow goes beyond simply making an effort to sustain its own natural resources. The company uses its marketing program to educate potential customers about the benefits offered by sustained-yield programs. "These programs have been successful environmentally and, for us, by creating a sustainable resource," says Patrick. "Today, we have more redwood trees than ever before."
Patrick has unintentionally embraced the concept environmentalist Amory Lovins calls "natural capitalism." In his book, aptly titled Natural Capitalism, Lovins notes companies that eliminate waste and become more environmentally efficient prosper while their competitors that are environmentally inefficient fail.
Patrick, along with hundreds of entrepreneurs like him, is forging the next industrial revolution by following-intentionally or not-the four principles of natural capitalism: increasing productivity of natural resources, modeling industrial processes after biological systems, selling service-based solutions for the environment, and reinvesting in natural capital.
|Learn more about social responsibility and business:
Green Makes Green
In the past decade, more companies have discovered that as they become more environmentally friendly, they become more financially attractive-a corporate makeover of sorts. As their numbers have increased, so has the evidence supporting their claims.
For example, a study by professors Michael Russo of the University of Oregon and Paul Fouts of Golden State University revealed firms with the highest return on assets went beyond competitors in terms of pollution control and waste reduction. Also, the environmentally sensitive financial analysts at the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index discovered stocks of companies that account for their social, financial and environmental impact outperform the stocks of companies that don't. That study was supported by one by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors finding companies with superior environmental performance generate superior financial performance. And Vanderbilt University found that 80 percent of environmentally sound companies financially outperform their higher-polluting counterparts.
As these studies shore up Lovins' claims, natural capitalism is pushing its way into the pantheon of strategic planning. Yet the concept remains young (read: relatively unknown); therefore, most entrepreneurs stumble onto it. What starts as a concern for the environment and for government regulation evolves into sound management strategy, as employees and franchisees of Brian Scudamore's $10 million 1-800-GOT-JUNK? discovered.
Each year, franchisees of the company pick up tons of junk, primarily from homeowners who want to throw things out-after spring cleaning, for example. They haul away old TVs, wood, appliances and furniture. If Scudamore didn't care, they could just take the junk to municipality transfer stations to get dumped. End of story.
So to protect the environment and earn more money, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? recycles cardboard, paper, concrete, sheet rock, metal, tires, furniture, garden refuse, and the list goes on. "Our target is to recycle a minimum of 40 percent of all loads," Scudamore, 31, says. But there's even more to it than that.
"We've turned our recycling system into a profit-share system," says Scudamore, noting that greed-once environmentalism's perceived nemesis-can potentially be its ally. "Our people get 20 percent of all the savings from what they recycle. Instead of paying $120 to dump a load, they may pay $70 as a result of recycling. It's win-win-win for the company, the franchisee and the environment."
|Effusive 28-year-old dotcommer
Josh Knauer laughs easily, especially about his prospects of
becoming a father. Not that the prospect is funny. There are issues
about diapers, sleep and time. It's not lost on him that come
the end of the year, he'll be balancing the demands of a new
family member with those of the company he founded in 1998,
GreenMarketplace.com, which is growing at 15 percent per month. By
the time his child is born, revenues from sales of 650 or so
environmentally friendly products such as organic cotton sweaters
and biodegradable laundry products should hit $3 million.
At least he'll have one less new-father anxiety: GreenMarketplace is promoting a better environment for future generations. Its products are made in ways that don't hurt the environment, are free of hazardous chemicals, aren't tested on animals, don't contain ingredients obtained in ways that harm or kill animals and are made by companies that respect their workers and pay fair wages.
Knauer didn't set out to be an e-tailer. He started EnviroLink, a clearinghouse of environmental information, resources and issues, in 1991 because he couldn't find sources for environmental research in college. That company quickly became the Net environmental portal of choice. Over time, Knauer heard complaints from the site's users about how hard it was to find enviro-friendly products. Sensing opportunity, he started GreenMarketplace.
From that first day, Knauer rested the company's foundation on a tripod: All corporate decisions must be beneficial environmentally, socially and financially. It's a strategy that has attracted attention in the dotcom world. Last year, when GreenMarketplace wanted to buy competitor EthicalShopper.com and relieve the space crunch in its 800-square-foot Pittsburgh facility, the company's mission attracted the attention of Sandra Bernardi, co-founder of Infoseek. She purchased a stake in GreenMarketplace that enabled the company to go through with the deal.
Who said it isn't easy being green?
Struggling to Be Green
Stumbling into natural capitalism isn't always an easy fall. Just ask Eloise Gonzalez-Geller, founder of Miami-based interior finishing contractor Commercial Interior Contractors Corp. (CIC). Her $1.2 million company does everything it can to help the environment. Employees write notes on waste paper. Recycled glass is used as an aggregate in the company's terrazzo floors, and CIC donates leftover tiles to a local school's art department. Then Gonzalez-Geller decided to expand her effort and successfully bid on removing carpet from government renovation projects, usually at airports, where it frequently contains trace amounts of jet fuel. But the program is a frustration: "No private companies will pay to recycle their carpets. It's cheaper to throw them in landfills," Gonzalez-Geller, 39, laments. "At this point, I'm losing both money and energy with the carpet-recycling project." Even so, she believes that in the long term, she'll overcome those companies' hesitation and earn not just environmental benefits but financial ones as well.
A Crackdown Cometh
Just can't bring yourself to care enough about natural capitalism's financial and environmental advantages? Take note: As an entrepreneur, you're the new target of federal and state environmental agencies.
Regulators increasingly view aggregate small-business waste as a potentially large source of air and water pollution, which experts say may lead to a crackdown. Therefore, it makes sense for entrepreneurs who aren't already thinking green to start.
As the environmental practices of small companies are placed under the microscope of regulators, you need not go it alone. A growing number of government and private-sector programs have been developed for the small-business market. For example, the EPA has a Web site tailored to entrepreneurs, marking an end to the purely adversarial approach of days past. It's a dramatic change.
On that first Earth Day in 1971, a canyon of enmity and misunderstanding sat between business executives and environmentalists. Thirty years later, that canyon has narrowed to a crack, which environmentalists and entrepreneurs easily hop. Maybe it's because today's entrepreneurs have greater control of their companies. Maybe it's because many of them are from a more environmentally attuned generation. Maybe it's because being environmentally sensitive is just the right thing to do. In the end, the reason doesn't matter. What does matter is that more entrepreneurs are discovering the benefits of natural capitalism. More are working to do what they can to strike a balance between business and the environment. In doing so, they'll not only preserve the environment, but they'll also create more efficient companies, a concept even Adam Smith would applaud.
Natural Resources
Natural capitalism has fostered the growth of organizations dedicated to environmental strategies that don't sacrifice profit:
- Business for Social Responsibility is an organization of companies wishing to sustain success while retaining respect for people, the environment and ethical values.
- Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics is a coalition of investors interested in companies promoting sound environmental management.
- Co-Op America is a coalition of consumers and small companies with social and environmental missions. The site has hands-on tools and resources.
- Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) was started by entrepreneur Bob Epstein for business owners who are concerned about the environment but don't know how to focus their energies. Hundreds of entrepreneurs have made the $1,000 donation to the Natural Resource Defense Council required to join E2. Periodically, Epstein asks them to write letters or to call influential individuals about environmental issues.
- Greenpages.com is an online listing of companies selling environmentally friendly products and services.
- Sustainablebusiness.com gives entrepreneurs information about companies it calls "Early Movers"-those businesses that are involved in eco-efficient practices.
- The EPA has a special site for small businesses: www.epa.gov/smallbusiness/geninfo.htm. It provides documents and guidelines to environmental regulations as well as opportunities to participate in EPA programs. At www.epa.gov/opptintr/acctg, the EPA helps small businesses determine their environmental costs through the Environmental Accounting Project.
|Have something to say about environmental issues? Drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.com or write to Letters, Entrepreneur, 2445 McCabe Wy., #400, Irvine, CA 92614
Joseph Conlin is a Fairfield, Connecticut, writer who specializes in marketing, management and the business side of the Web for several publications.
Contact Sources
- Commercial Interior Contractors Corp.
(305) 636-3700, firstname.lastname@example.com
- Political Economy Research Center
email@example.com, www.perc.org
- Rainbow Play Systems Inc.
(210) 764-1375, www.rainbowplay.com


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A worldwide airports group has named Indianapolis International Airport the best in North America for the second time since 2010.
The award from Airports Council International comes as part of the global airport organization's annual AirportService Quality awards. Indianapolis International beat out airports in Ottawa and Tampa. Indianapolis also was named the top North American airport in 2010.
Indianapolis airport spokesman Carlo Bertolini tells the Indianapolis Star reports the awards program identifies the most passenger-friendly airports throughout the world. Results are derived from year-round passenger satisfaction surveys conducted in gate areas.
Among the other top regional airports for 2012 were Cancun's for Latin America and the Caribbean and Abu Dhabi's for the Middle East.


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Top 5 Tips for a Healthier Holiday
Between all the pies, cookies, Christmas hams and latkes – it is easy to gorge on food during the holiday season. But you shouldn't let the holiday season be a time to overindulge. Here are some tips so you can have a healthier holiday season.


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Susan Granger's review of 'Hercules'
Sword-and-sandal is a genre unto itself. Often set in classic Greco-Roman or biblical history, it generally features a simplistic plot with a muscle-man hero. Its appeal is primitive. The men are bare-chested, the women are curvaceous and the villains are scheming royals/aristocrats. There's lots of physical combat, although the action can border on silliness and camp.
A series of 19 movies about Hercules were made in Italy in the late 1950s and early `60s, following Steve Reeves' highly successful "Hercules" (1957). The demigod has been played by Gordon Scott, Kirk Morris, Mickey Hargitay (Jayne Mansfield's husband), Mark Forest, Alan Steel, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, Reg Park, Peter Lupus (aka Rock Stevens), Mike Lane -- and now Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
In this revisionist version, Hercules is a restless mercenary whose devoted nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie) serves as his myth maker, weaving stories to enhance his image and reputation as the son of Zeus, who impregnated the mortal Alcmene, rousing the understandable ire of his goddess wife Hera.
Hercules' crew also includes the droll soothsayer Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), childhood friend Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), the Amazonian archer Atalanta (Ingrid Bolso Berdal who resembles a sturdy Nicole Kidman), and shell-shocked, feral mute, Tydeus (Aksel Hennie).
Responding to a plea from lovely Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt), they journey to Thrace, where they're greeted by treacherous King Eurystheus (Joseph Fiennes), who wants them to train his troops to fight an army of demons.
Based on Steve Moore's comic books, adapted by Ryan J. Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos, and directed by Brett Ratner ("X-Men: The Last Stand"), it slogs along, punctuated by impressive, computer-enhanced battle scenes and a few memorable moments -- like when Hercules, wearing the vanquished Nemean lion's head as a helmet, picks up a horse and rider, hurling them to the ground.
If you're willing to spring
for the 3D surcharge, the military formations are impressive as spears come whizzing by
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Hercules" is a frenetic, fitfully fun 4, a popcorn picture that becomes a tongue-in-cheek tussle.


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The holidays can be a stressful time. Stress makes you hungry.
But at least one lucky reader (well, from the lower 48 US States, that is) won't starve to death, because Sarris Candies was kind enough to offer some sweet booty for a giveaway!
Never heard of Sarris Candies? Too bad, because not only do they have delicious chocolates, but they come with a delicious backstory which includes both chocolate and love:
You might say it all started when Frank Sarris found a sweetheart. As a young man trying to win the affections of the lovely Athena, Frank presented her with a gift as sweet as she was, a box of chocolates. Athena's face lit up as she lifted the lid and Frank knew he was in love. He also knew he could make better chocolate.
And so he began, first producing small amounts in his basement for friends and family and then, as the word spread, he began making more and more candy for the local market. Frank and Athena married soon after and Sarris Candies was born in the basement of their Canonsburg (PA) home.
and it goes on...
To this day, Frank and Athena are still sweet on each other. One taste of Sarris Chocolates and you'll fall in love, too!
What could you win? Good stuff. The parcel will start with a one-pound assortment:
Our most popular assortment containing old time favorites such as freshly roasted nuts, double dipped in our rich milk chocolate, assorted meltaways, fresh fruit creams, toasted coconut, caramels and more all nestled in a beautiful gold foil gift box
But wait, there's more! Said reader will also receive a sweet and salty delight known as the Pretzel Bag:
In the kitchen, bakers hand-twist fresh dough into those old, familiar knots, then oven-bake them to just the right crispness. Each pretzel is then lovingly dipped into decadently rich milk, dark or white chocolate.
How do you put your name in the running? Simply leave a comment below saying what your favorite type of chocolate is when you receive an assortment. Do you dig in for the often square-shaped caramels, like me? Or do you try to find an elusive maple cream? Or perhaps you covet the chocolate covered cherries?
Of course (duh) if you can't wait, you can always order online here.
The giveaway will close on Tuesday, December 28 at 12pm PST!


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The vinyl record is spinning its way back into fashion
Published on by Luke Withers (author)
In the UK, this year's accredited vinyl sales came in at around 1.2m, more than 50% up on last year.
Sussex Police want you to feel Safer
Published on by Moinique Chambers (author)
How Sussex police plan on making Hastings and St Leonard's a better place for locals.
Council to face crippling cuts
Published on by Tom Howard (author)
Hastings Borough Council has been given the maximum reduction of Government funding for 2015/16
UPDATE: Zhao Jun wins Hastings International Chess Congress
Published on by Jordan Hogan (author)
Chinese national Zhao Jun won the International Chess Congress in Hastings with 8 out of 9 points.
Hastings International Chess Tournament wraps up, but fears for it's future.
Published on by Jonathan Lowe (author)
The historic competition concludes this evening with China's Grand Master Zhao Jun set to win, but future funding doubt could dampen celebrations


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Having Problems
with your car?
Give us a call: 610-252-6502 or
Make an Appointment
Welcome To
Easton Auto Body
Easton Auto Body a family owned and operated business located in Easton, PA. We've been in business for over 40 years and provide top quality automobile repairs, body work and towing services. We are AAA and NAPA approved and can handle automotive repairs both large and small. Our services range from state inspections, complete engine replacement, body repairs, customizing cars to towing vehicles large or small. Come in to Easton Auto Body today for a free estimate.
Contact us for an appointment or give us a call at 610-252-6502.
View Your Vehicle History!
Click here to view your vehicle history.
If you haven't already registered, contact us for your access code.


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When Tom Lee speaks, people make fun.
Lee, the top equity strategist at JP Morgan, has earned a reputation for being a perma-bull (i.e. someone who spends way more time being bullish than bearish).
And he has gotten a lot of grief for that.
Just over a year ago, Lee unveiled his 2012 stock market outlook, and as expected it was more bullish than the consensus.
His year-end target for the S&P 500 was 1,430, up 13 percent from where it closed in 2011.
"This is based on a target multiple of 13.0x estimated 2013 EPS of $110," he wrote back then. "From any historical lens, this P/E multiple appears conservative."
Well, the S&P 500 closed at 1,430 today.
Sure, there's still a few more days left in 2012. But at the very least, you won't be able to say that he wasn't close.
It's worth noting that 2011's most accurate forecaster, Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker, is more off than any of his peers this year. Parker was looking for the S&P 500 to end 2012 at 1,167.
Where Lee was right about market multiples this year, Parker was wrong.
"Only the hubristic deign to project the market multiple — and those who "accidentally" get it right for a year, like us in 2011, and potentially develop exaggerated confidence — as evidently we did this year in projecting another year of multiple contraction," wrote Parker recently.


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Lakewood's 342 acre park offers a diversity of habitat ranging from open meadows, brushy areas, hillsides, deciduous groves, coniferous woodland, and Waughop Lake. There are numerous foot trails throughout the park making excellent access for birding that has included 143 species identified within the park. Every season in the park has its birding rewards.
A monthly guided walk is being offered. Join Russ Smith and/or other co-leaders rain or shine (unless torrential). Contact Russ at email@example.com if you need further info. Reservations are not needed.
Birders of all ages and skill levels are welcome. Bring binoculars and a field guide if you have them. Wear footwear and clothing appropriate for the weather.
Meeting times: 8 AM, Tuesdays, 1st Tuesday each month.
Duration: dependent on desires of birders present but will include a loop around the lake as well as some of the surrounding meadows and woodlands at a leisurely pace, estimated to be 1-2+ miles and several hours. Month to month may experience different routes through the park dependent on best estimates of optimizing seasonal variances in bird species and their preferred habitat. Birders may leave at any time.
Meeting location: gravel parking lot between barns and Waughop Lake, west end of lot nearest lake. Enter Ft Steilacoom Park off Steilacoom Blvd, turn south at the traffic light at the northeast corner of the park at the intersection with 87th Ave SW, then turn right into the park and immediately left around the south side of the playfields, proceed to end of Dresden Lane to gravel parking lot past barns.
Russ Smith


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According to the recent report of the European Environment Agency (EEA), European grassland butterflies have declined dramatically by almost 50% over two decades. This study highlights an alarming trend for butterflies and complements the assessment by the European Red List of Butterflies conducted by IUCN.
17 grassland butterflies have dramatically declined between 1990 and 2011, according to the EEA report. The status of many other European butterflies is also of concern, as confirmed by the European Red List.
The European Red List of Butterflies, funded by the European Commission, has revealed that 9% of all European butterflies are threatened with extinction at the pan-European level (7% at the EU 27 level). Overall, more than 30% of the 435 species assessed have a declining population. The Lulworth Skipper (Thymelicus acteon) – one of the grassland species declining most rapidly according to the EEA report – is listed by IUCN as Near Threatened, which means that the species may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status.
Butterflies are a hugely important group of insects as they provide important ecological services such as pollination of wild flowers and act as a food source for birds, reptiles and other species. They are also excellent bio-indicators of habitat quality for sites, including within the Natura 2000 network.
Butterflies in general, and grassland butterflies in particular, are threatened by a number of different factors, including the intensification of agriculture. The conversion of grasslands to crop fields, the drainage of wetlands and various grazing pressures are examples of such threat. The abandonment of land and lack of grassland management on marginal areas also have an impact on butterflies' habitats, as they reduce the availability of suitable spaces for the species to inhabit. Other threats include climate change, poor woodland management (i.e. lack of open areas and clearings), habitat fragmentation, pesticides and herbicide use and invasive alien species.
The alarming results show that Europe is not on course to halt the decline of biodiversity. As we are approaching the half way point of 2020 – when the biodiversity targets set by the EU expire, efforts need to be intensified. Ensuring adequate protection, management and restoration of key habitats and their surrounding areas is crucial for improving butterfly populations. The recent reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy offers an opportunity to allocate funding for more sustainable farming practices in High Nature Value Farmland, which would contribute to reversing the current trends and meeting the EU 2020 Biodiversity Targets.


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Police Department
Marvin Carias Arrested for 1st Degree Murder
On March 28, 2009, at approximately 11pm, twenty year old Marvin Carias was arrested for the murder of Nathan Johns. On March 13, 2009, family members found 30 year old Nathan Johns in his apartment, 1338 D Street #6, with obvious stab wounds, not breathing. They attempted to resuscitate the victim with CPR, but he did not survive his injuries. Just twenty minutes prior to the discovery, family members spoke with Nathan Johns over the phone. There was no indication of danger; they just arranged to stop by for a visit.
During an investigation of the crime scene, clothing was found that did not belong to the victim. In addition, the victim's coat and a pair of shoes were missing. Nathan Johns lived in close proximity to a well traveled convenience store. Investigators reviewed surveillance footage and observed a man wearing clothing similar to what was recovered in the victim's apartment. The suspect had been in the store prior to the homicide.
Additional video surveillance, covering the alley north of the 1338 D Street, captured images of the suspect as he was leaving the building. He was wearing a coat similar to the coat missing from the victim's apartment. Marvin Carias was later identified as the man in the video surveillance images. His fingerprints were also a positive match to bloody prints recovered from the victim's apartment.
Marvin Carias was located in his home, 911 S 11th #22. He was subsequently cited and lodged for First Degree Murder.
|Marvin Eduardo Carias


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Tutto Mio
14496 Wicks Blvd.
Drop-off: E-mail First
Hours: M-F 10am-3pm
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: http://www.tuttomio.biz
Didn't find what you were looking for? Try searching Alameda County's Recycling & Reuse Options.
If it is not recyclable, please assure that you dispose of material properly through your garbage collection company or a permitted Transfer Station or Landfill. To report illegal dumping, call 1-800-NO-DUMPING.
Back to Contra Costa County Waste Reduction & Recycling Home Page
County Recycling Hotline: 1 (800) 750-4096 -or- email@example.com


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NFL DRAFT: UConn's Kendall Reyes selected by San Diego at No. 49
UConn defensive tackle Kendall Reyes will soon be heading to warmer weather.
Reyes was selected by the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the NFL draft with the 49th overall pick on Friday night.
"It's always a dream to make it to the pros," Reyes said in a conference call. "It's something I've trained for and have always aspired to make it to."
Reye had 46 tackles -- 13½ for a loss, including 4½ sacks -- last season. A three-year starter for the Huskies, he is expected to be able to fit in swimmingly with San Diego's 3-4 defensive front.
There was some talk that he could be a first-round pick. But ultimately, with the defensive tackle talent pool so deep, Reyes fell to the 17th pick of the second round.
"I wasn't expecting much (in the first round)," he said. "Today was finally the big day. I was just kind of anxious, nervous, excited, a whole bunch of emotions bottled into one. When I got the phone call, I was like, 'Is this real?' It was."
Reyes was at a house up in Maine with about 30 family and friends when he got the call from Chargers general manager A.J. Smith and head coach Norv Turner. The Patriots were thought to be high on the New Hampshire native, but Reyes never had any delusions.
"I really didn't think I would be (with New England), and, of course, I'm not," Reyes said. "I'm definitely happy to be in San Diego."
Reyes will waste no time joining his new team -- he has a 5:30 a.m. flight out to San Diego today.
"My bags are packed, and I'm ready," he said, adding that heading so far from home is no big deal. "It's alright. It's the same if I was going right down the street. I've got to do what I've got to do."
The Chargers apparently like UConn players, too -- last year, they selected Jordan Todman in the sixth round. Todman is now with Minnesota.
Follow David on Twitter @DaveBorges. To receive breaking news first, simply text the word nhsports to 22700. *Msg & Data Rates May Apply. Text HELP for help. Text STOP to cancel.


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We are writing to you to ask the community of Spencer County to support CASA (court appointed special advocates). CASA is a non-profit organization that helps abused and neglected children who have open cases in family court. Our volunteers advocate for the best interest of the child in court and make recommendations to the judge concerning the child. The CASA volunteer serves as an extra set of eyes for the family courts, so therefore the judge is able to make a better decision concerning the child's welfare.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the The Spencer Magnet, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
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CA Service Virtualization enables application developers to develop in parallel and find defects earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) process. It simulates constrained or unavailable systems across the software development lifecycle and within your existing development and testing frameworks and software integration tools of choice. From service virtualization and test automation to data and scenario management and data mining, CA Service Virtualization is a robust solution that can deliver critical functionality and faster results.
Increased demand for faster software release cycles require developers, testers and performance teams to work in parallel. However, defects and performance flaws remain costly and time-consuming to repair. Limited visibility makes it difficult to find root causes for software defects or performance declines once it is reported in production. Meanwhile, the complexity and constraints of composite application development can sideline efforts, even with an increased investment effort. And infrastructure costs can divert investments from resources and activities that could contribute to higher performance. To complicate matters further, availability and reliability challenges mount when multiple systems and components enter consideration from mergers, acquisitions or partner relationships.
CA Service Virtualization provides the ability to simulate constrained or unavailable systems that conventional virtualization cannot address. It is designed to enable customers to more effectively develop in parallel and to find defects earlier in the development process.
CA Services provides the expertise and support you need to optimize your solution. First, our CA Services experts collaborate with you to identify and document your requirements and establish a metrics baseline that enables you to measure improvements in service delivery, compliance and from newly streamlined processes. CA Services will implement and configure your solution and assist you with the design, implementation and testing.
The CA Services Team is committed to positioning you for success by utilizing best practices developed over thousands of engagements to meet business requirements and accelerate value. We begin with Foundation services designed to help reduce lost productivity while accelerating time-to-value. Next, CA Services experts can help you extend the value of your solution with Acceleration services.
CA Service Virtualization foundation services implement and configure a solution designed to reveal critical use cases for optimizing development environments. CA Services provides a customized set of support features to help each step of the way:
Acceleration services extend the value of CA Service Virtualization by adding components that deliver additional benefits based on your unique requirements. The following acceleration services are available for CA Service Virtualization:


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Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Education
Advanced Theories for Learning
Three semester hours.
A general survey of theories of learning as they apply to the modern classroom. The course is designed to acquaint the teacher with major historical and modern theories and their proponents of how children learn together, with implications for the schools in modern society. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
Home - General Information - Student Services -
Academic Undergraduate Regulations -
Undergraduate Degrees - Academic Graduate Regulations -
Graduate Degrees - Course Descriptions - Faculty -
Appendix A - Appendix B - Appendix C - Appendix D


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- Manufacturer: Maxxis
Maxxis MU01 Zilla Front Tire
When you're looking for superb mud traction combined with outstanding trail riding characteristics, choose the MU01 Zilla Front & MU02 Zilla Rear. Light and fast, the Zilla delivers a smooth ride even on rough trails.
- Extremely lightweight design provides quicker acceleration and mudslinging traction with great braking power
- Added center tread for smoother ride on trails
- Predictable high-speed performance
- Durable 6-ply rating


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AWS services or capabilities described in AWS Documentation may vary by region/location. Click Getting Started with Amazon AWS to see specific differences applicable to the China (Beijing) Region.
Namespace: Amazon.CloudSearchDomain
Assembly: AWSSDK.dll
Version: (assembly version)
public AmazonCloudSearchDomainClient(
AWSCredentials credentials,
AmazonCloudSearchDomainConfig clientConfig
AWS Credentials
The AmazonCloudSearchDomainClient Configuration Object
.NET Framework:
Supported in: 4.5, 4.0, 3.5
.NET for Windows Store apps:
Supported in: Windows 8
.NET for Windows Phone:
Supported in: Windows Phone 8


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This paper explores the learning and logistical outcomes of a history professor's incorporation of a computer game into his curriculum; specifically, the introduction of the historically-themed game series Civilization IV in a university survey course on the History of the Ancient World. The author, who had no experience working with gaming technology in the classroom, discusses the preparation for this project, its implementation, and its outcomes. Through students' verbal feedback, written reports, and survey responses, the author assesses his attempt to capture his students' historical imaginations with computer gaming technology and to enhance their critical, historical thinking about broad civilizational trends. It further analyzes both the anticipated and unanticipated learning outcomes, including the surprise responses from some students about the game's educational disutility, which prompted a swift recalibration of the project's final phases.
This project studied the learning and logistical outcomes of incorporating a computer game into a university course; specifically, using the historically-themed game series Civilization in a lower-division survey course on the History of the Ancient World. This paper aims to convey the preparation for, implementation of, and outcomes that followed my decision to incorporate this computer game into my Ancient World History curriculum. Oft-studied for their utility as teaching aides, Civilization and other computer games have garnered a great deal of attention by scholars who research teaching and learning outcomes (see the Selected Works, below). Foremost among them is professor Kurt D. Squire, whose research career has focused upon Civilization and similar games used by educators. Although professor Squire's research inspired this project, it is important to underline that I am a Japan scholar and my doctorate is in History, rather than in Education. As a result, my chief aim is to share the outcomes of my classroom experiment with fellow educators who may wish to incorporate historically-themed computer games into their own curricula.
Since 1991, when the first edition of Civilization debuted, its designers have worked to combine the principal elements of civilizational growth and development with strategic game play. The game, produced by designer Sid Meier and his software firm, Firaxis Games, permits single players the opportunity to found, develop, and manage a major world civilization in a chronological, turn-based format. I am not a gamer, per se, but as an undergraduate student and history major in 1991, I found the game's enablement of users to found, cultivate, and defend a major world empire to be captivating. Civilization left a deep impression, and though its graphics were rather simple at that time, its comprehensive approaches to land, agriculture, defenses, philosophy, faith, finance, taxes, and war more than compensated for the simple user interface. Much has changed since that time, and I have played very few computer games since, but Firaxis is still releasing more comprehensive versions of its game, including Civilization V in 2010.
This paper recounts and assesses my attempt to capture my students' historical imaginations with computer gaming technology, and it shares an array of student responses to the project. Rather than attempt to situate this classroom project within the already rich, very expert literature on gaming and learning theory, I chose instead to conduct a solo gaming experiment and to share an array of student feedback on how the project unfolded. This paper recounts what it was like for me, someone who has never incorporated a computer game into my teaching before, to introduce, manage, and assess the value of a computer-gaming assignment that was woven into my course curriculum. My approach, albeit open-ended and improvisational at times, generated a host of valuable and candid responses from my students, who gradually took the reins and taught me a great deal – both about using games in the classroom and about teaching World History in general. I must stress the independent, experimental nature of my effort, and I welcome debate from scholars and educators about my goals, methods, and interpretations. I hope that readers will find this frank, candid approach and my students' responses as informative as I have.
Pedagogical Inspiration for this Project and its Hypotheses
Over the last several years, my teaching has increasingly become a two-way dialogue with students, a format that has helped me to convey my course material more clearly. As an historian, however, there are often extraordinarily large concepts embedded in the lecture and reading material with which my students must engage. For example, in my World History course spanning ancient times through 1450 CE, students are faced with the significant challenge of identifying and understanding the reasons for civilizational growth, expansion, transformation, decline, and legacy. In the classroom, the challenge lies in finding effective ways to convey and to assess students' understanding of vast concepts like imperialism, decolonization, and civilizational progress. This was the impetus for this project, which aimed to assess the effectiveness of employing the computer game Civilization in my Ancient World History course as a tool for teaching students the fundamental principles of human historical development. My experiment hypothesized that my students would demonstrate and be able to articulate a clearer grasp of the broad principles of civilizational growth, development, and decline due to their scenario-based game play. I further hypothesized that the game would enable some of the students to better visualize and understand the lecture material and assigned readings. While I had no control group, I intended to assess the above hypotheses both directly and indirectly. In both respects, I ended up with more than I bargained for.
Edited by Susan E. Smith and Tracy C. Barrett
(c) 2013 The Middle Ground Journal, Number 6, Spring, 2013. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal's not-for-profit educational open-access policy.
Published by the Midwest World History Association (MWWHA), housed at The College of St. Scholastica. See also, The Middle Ground's curated Facebook Page.


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It's no wonder avid angler's have longed for Skeeter, and its no surprise the 20i continues this heritage. The i-Class 20i is the first bass boat in history to be so much in command of a 250 hp motor that it is certified for maneuverability by the NMMA. The 20i is based upon the reliable hull performance of the ZX Skeeter hull and is paired with drastically different interior. Compared to other 20 foot bass boats, the 20i significantly increases angler comfort with more space and better fishability.


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Via G. Maramotti 4 – 42124 Reggio Emilia - Italy
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Via G. Maramotti 4 - 42124 Reggio Emilia - Italy
Tel: +39 0522 927411, Fax: +39 0522 9274333,
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Via Mazzacurati 4, - 42122 Reggio Emilia – Italy
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Diffusione Tessile S.r.l.
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Teen Fire and Frost vs Slaver Sorority girlsKara and Tara Bishop AKA Teen Fire and Frost were investigating several disappearances at the state university campus: many freshman girls had gone missing since the beginning of the school year, prompting the super heroines to investigate. The investigation revealed that all of the missing girls had recently pledged the same sorority. Tri Kappa was known to be the most difficult sorority to pledge, their members were the richest and the most beautiful girls on campus. The red and white wonders decided to sneak in to their castle-like sorority house and snoop around.
As they approached, Kara stared in awe at the massive structure. "Wow," she whispered to Tara. "This is a sorority house? It's huge; a person could get lost in there for days! How are we going to find what we're looking for?
"Most of the secret stuff always happens in the basement," Tara whispered back. "We'll start there."
The teen heroines found an open door and made their