text:
Cracker Barrel Removes Duck Dynasty Products from Stores | Mediaite
While Walmart is doubling down on its relationship with Duck Dynasty following Phil Robertson's controversial comments about homosexual sex and the Jim Crow South, another popular chain has decided to remove certain items related to the show from its stores. Cracker Barrel made the announcement on its Facebook page Friday:
The suggestion that items related to Phil Robertson "might offend some of our guests" was met by some outrage by the company's conservative fan base. "Worried about offending gays? What about offending Christians???????????" one popular comment reads. Another person wrote, "After you are done removing the selected products, go ahead and remove a bunch of tables and chairs……you won't be needing them any more."
The decision by the company comes with some level of irony given the fact that it was held up as a symbol of the Republican Party during the 2012 presidential election. The Cook Political Report's David Wasserman described the presidential election as a contest between Whole Foods and Crack Barrel shoppers:
In 2012, the campaign might be a contest between these alternate universes of culture and cuisine: Whole Foods Markets and Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores.
In 2008, candidate Barack Obama carried 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods and just 36 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel —a record 45-point gap. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore won 58 percent of counties now containing a Whole Foods and 26 percent of those now boasting a Cracker Barrel, a 32-point difference. And in 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton won 60 percent of Whole Foods counties and 40 percent of Cracker Barrel counties — a mere 20-point margin.
Wasserman's prediction was borne out by the 2012 election results. While Obama's percentage dropped slightly to 77% in Whole Foods counties, his support in Cracker Barrel counties dropped even further, with less than a third of voters in those areas supporting the president.
Just as A&E risked upsetting Duck Dynasty's loyal viewers when the network decided to suspend Robertson, is Cracker Barrel turning off its conservative customer base by deciding to operate "within the ideals of fairness, mutual respect and equal treatment of all people?"
Note to Gay Server: 'Your Lifestyle Is An Affront To God'
All disgust aside, I'm happy that some of the real Christians in the area stepped up. Read on:
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. —A local server was thanked for good service during a recent meal at an Overland Park restaurant, and also received an anti-gay message with no tip.
KMBC 9 News found out about the incident on Facebook, where customers at the Carrabba's Italian Grill at 106th Street and Metcalf Avenue are rallying to the server's support.
Here's what happened: A server went to pick up a check from a meal, and found a message on the back of the bill. It read: "Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to God. May God have mercy on you."
Friends of the server and customers took to social media to spread the word about what happened, and have vowed to go to the restaurant on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. as a sign of support.
The server has responded to the incident, saying "The offers to help pay me back are much appreciated, but not at all needed. I'd prefer to let my work ethic and my service do the talking, nothing else."
Fast Food Worker Strikes Against Poverty Wages Spread To 50 Cities
Nine months after fast food workers in New York City walked off the job on "Black Friday," their efforts to change the industry's pay standards have gone national. Workers are striking in roughly 50 cities on Thursday in hopes of converting the trickle of strikes throughout the summer in cities like Seattle, St. Louis, and Milwaukee into a flood.
In addition to the nine cities that have already seen strikes this summer, places like Boston, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, and Hartford are joining the fight on Thursday. Organizers welcomed reports that one restaurant manager in Hartford plans to fire anyone who participates in the strike, saying that such illegal retaliation will only bring immediate high-profile pressure from workers and their supporters, further raising the profile of the effort to end poverty wages in food service.
Kyle King, a Burger King cashier in Boston, told the Boston Globe that he and the thousands of other workers expected to strike Thursday have to risk being fired if they want to change anything. "I don't know what I'll lose first," King said, "lose my job or lose my sanity." Thursday also brings the fast food strikes to major cities in the south for the first time. Unions are less powerful in the south, and legal protections for workers tend to be weaker in southern states.
Low-wage workers in the retail and fast food industries have been walking off the job since last year to demand a minimum wage of $15 and the right to organize into unions. The fast food industry's profits have soared, but those gains haven't trickled down to workers. Fast food jobs, like the other low-wage service sector jobs that have been the primary source of post-recession job growth, do not currently allow workers to support themselves financially. McDonald's recommends that its employees find a second job and go without heat or air conditioning in order to survive on the chain's typical wages.
As the strikes have spread, the drumbeat to raise the minimum wage has grown louder. One congressional proposal would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would barely catch up to the buying power the minimum wage had in 1968.
Fast food operations in other countries and a handful of chains in the U.S. that are committed to paying livable wages have shown that companies can still make healthy profits while paying substantially higher wages.
The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick | Alternet
Editors note: This is the first in a series of reader-supported—i.e. crowdfunded —articles about the powerful National Restaurant Association and the plight of low-wage workers who are being screwed at every turn by industry lobbying tactics and misleading propaganda. An amazing 387 AlterNet readers contributed more than $5,500 to support this ongoing investigative project. Many of the donors are listed at the end of the article.While thousands of fast-food workers were preparing to walk off their jobs earlier this summer to seek raises to $15 an hour, the industry's corporate lobbyist, the National Restaurant Association, was celebrating a string of political victories blocking state minimum wage increases and preempting local sick day laws.
In June, the NRA boasted that its lobbyists had stopped minimum wage increases in 27 out of 29 states in 2013. In Connecticut, which increased its state minimum wage, a raise in the base pay for tipped workers such as waitresses and bartenders vanished in the final bill. A similar scenario unfolded in New York State: It increased its minimum wage, but the NRA's last-minute lobbying derailed raising the pre-tip wage at restaurants and bars. The deals came despite polls showing 80 percent support for raising the minimum wage.
The NRA's lobbying didn't stop there. It also told members that it blocked a dozen states this year from passing laws that would require earned paid sick leave, which is what New York City and Portland, Oregon adopted. Meanwhile, it boasted that six states, including Florida, passed NRA-backed laws that preemptively ban localities from granting earned and paid employee sick time.
"These are horrible things, but there are amazing things that are happening to change it," said Saru Jayaraman, co-director and co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), which has been working a dozen years to slowly change the industry's exploitive business model and labor practices. "And there will be increasingly important stuff coming up."
As fast-food workers across the country prepare for a second nationwide walkout over wages on Thursday, most Americans have little idea how profitable and politically aggressive the corporate mainstays of America's second biggest employer have become. While labor activists have had victories in 2013, such as New York and Portland passing sick leave laws, and New Jersey poised to raise its minimum wage via a ballot measure this fall, the restaurant industry's lobbying powerhouse is at war with the industry's workers.
"It's an old-boy network. It's very old-school thinking. It's very, very conservative," said Paul Saginaw, founder of Zingerman's food companies in Michigan, which employes 600 people and unlike the NRA, supports better benefits for employees like healthcare. "There has to be some pressure put out to provide better lives for people."
Most Americans are unaware that millions of people who work in the industry—especially the 2.5 million fast-food preparers and servers who earn an average of $8.74 an hour, according to federal labor statistics—are not just teens in their first job, but adults with families to support. They may not know there's a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, $2.13 an hour, that hasn't changed in 22 years—although 32 states have raised it slightly. They may not realize that they, as the restaurant-going public, subsidize owners via cash tips, even as the NRA routinely tells legislators its industry cannot afford to pay better wages or basic benefits.
Most Americans don't know that restaurant salaries are so low that the industry's 12.2 million workers use food stamps at twice the rate of the U.S. workforce, and are three times as likely to be below the poverty line. Or that women earn less than men in similar jobs. Or that restaurants are among the biggest low-wage employers of people of color. Or that virtually every chain—except for In and Out, according to ROC—don't want to pay living wages and benefits or offer real opportunities for advancement.
Most tellingly, almost every national chain—from fast-food outfits such as Yum! Brands Inc. (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC) and McDonald's to full-service dining such as Darden Restaurants Inc. (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Capital Grille)—have reported higher revenues, profits, margins and cash holdings to Wall Street analysts despite the recession, according to the National Employment Law Project. Giants like McDonalds had 7.8 percent revenue growth over the past decade, according to Gurufocus.com, a financial reporting site. Yum had 10-year revenues of 8.7 percent, and Darden's 10-year revenues grew 9.1 percent.
But last winter, as the NRA was fighting minimum wage increases and paid sick leave, it was telling lawmakers that the industry could not afford to pay employees more. Yet this August, the NRA's newsletter was predicting another profitable year, where revenues would be up 4 percent compared to 2012. "Restaurant and foodservice sales are expected to reach a record high of $660.5 billion this year," another 2013 revenue forecast on its website said.
"The NRA is the worst employer lobby in the U.S.," Jayaraman said, speaking about its lobbying and PR operation that pretends it is not an industry dominated by Fortune 500 companies, but instead a rickety mom-and-pop operation teetering on the brink of ruin. "The [earnings] data does not bear any resemblance to what they say is true."
There are many reasons why America's restaurant industry, which employs nearly one in 10 Americans, gets away with underpaying its workers and blocking laws that would benefit employees. These reasons include the industry's longtime low-wage business mode; its longstanding fear-based lobbying that any wage or benefit increase would kill jobs; and a sophisticated political operation that nurtures ties to both parties, encouraging lawmakers to adopt anti-worker laws.
"The question is where is it coming from and who benefits," said Ben Goldfarb, executive director of Wellstone Action, a group that trains progressive activists. "We know who benefits. It's the Restaurant Association members and the electeds [legislators] who do their bidding… It's not about what's good or bad for the economy."
Exploitive Roots, Exploitive Lobbying
The business model—where almost everyone except for top management earns an average of slightly more than $11 per hour—is premised on paying workers the lowest legal salary and has not changed in decades. As theNew Yorker's James Surowiecki recently explained, many of today's largest service-sector companies, particularly restaurants and big-box retailers, were founded decades ago and sought to hire young people and housewives as low-wage, part-time employees, to give them work experience and spending money. "The reason this has become a big political issue is not that the jobs have changed; it's that the people doing the jobs have."
This summer's fast food walk-outs—which will continue this fall—are part of a campaign to challenge and change that status quo, particularly as the media is discovering that the largely non-unionized restaurant workforce is filled with people with families. One consequence of the Great Recession is that millions of middle-class jobs have been replaced by lower-paying service jobs—food sector jobs that are now filled by adults with children, and jobs that offer little opportunity for advancemment.
"On what I'm earning right now you have to choose between paying your rent and eating the next day," Christopher Drumgold, a 32-year-old father of two from Detroit who earns $7.40 an hour after a year at McDonald's, told reporters during July's fast-food worker walk-out. "Fifteen dollars an hour would be great. We'd be able to pay our living costs."
This kind of working-class struggle prompted President Obama to call for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 in his 2013 State of the Union speech. Some Democrats in Congress quickly responded by going higher, proposing it be raised to $10.10, and that the minimum cash wage for tipped workers be 70 percent of the federal (or higher state) minimum wage.
While polls consistently find that 80 percent of Americans, including majorities of Republicans and people earrning more than $100,000 a year, support a $10.10 wage, the industry's national and state-level lobbyists went to work to kill any increase at the state or federal levels. And if that didn't work, they sought exemptions for tipped workers in states where the increase was seen as passing.
What unfolded in New York, which raised its minimum wage but not for tipped restaurant workers, and in Maryland, where the NRA stopped a minimum wage increase in a legislative committee, shows just how the NRA wields its power and influence.
"The NRA is a very conservative organization… my values are so different," said Saginaw, who has been in the restaurant business for 31 years and was a former member. "They certainly weren't representing my interests. They talk the small business owner game a lot but their lobbying efforts are dictated by the large corporate chains. I'm a small businessman."
New York State: A Cautionary Tale
Many Americans are not aware that there is more than one minimum wage. There's the federal wage for non-tipped workers, which is $7.25 an hour or $15,080 a year and took effect in July 2009. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have raised that rate. A few states, such as New Mexico and California, allow jurisdictions to set locally higher minimums.
Then there's the tipped wage, for jobs where the public tips workers. The federal tip wage, which is $2.13 an hour, was last raised in 1991. Thirty-two states have raised it slightly. Employers are supposed to pay the difference between that base and other state or federal minimum. But, as ROC United said, that doesn't always happen. And then there are other minimum wages for immigrants, minors and people with disablities.
In New York, the minimum wage increase in 2013 fell prey to partisan games. "It could be seen as good intentions gone awry," said Frank Sobrino, press secretary for New York State Democratic Sen. Jose Peralta, explaining what happened as his state legislature raised the state's minimum wage this year from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour by 2016.
New York's Senate is controlled by an odd majority of Republicans and so-called independent Democrats—not his boss, Sobrino said. When the GOP agreed to raise the wage in secret last-minute negotiations—after blocking it for years—the final bill did not include a tip wage increase for waiters and bartenders, which is what the industry wanted. Tipped workers at car washes and airports will get a raise, said Working Families spokesman Joe Dinkin. "But hotel and restaurant waiters and bartenders, which are the largest group of tipped workers, do not get an automatic increase. Rather, the tipped minimum wage will go to the Wage Board, which is controlled by Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo, to do what he wants with it. And yes, this is because of the National Restaurant Association."
The bill also contained an unprecedented and alarming payoff to fast-food chains and big retailers: a tax credit offsetting the cost of hiring teenagers, but only for minimum wage. That subsidy drew the media's attention. A Wall Street Journal editorial, "Minimum Intelligence," said it provided an incentive to fire workers 20 years and older and replace them with teens. "For a teen working full time, the annual subsidy could be worth as much as $2,800 per worker by 2016," the Buffalo News editorial said.
Sen. Peralta, the Queens Democrat, has since proposed a bill to nullify the tax break that analysts say will be worth millions to big employers.
There were two features of this deal that exempifly how the NRA operates, ROC's Jayaraman said. First, NRA lobbyists keep telling lawmakers that their industry primarily employees teenagers and young people who don't need higher wages and benefits. Their PR shop has even absurdly claimed that raising minimum wages would kill entry-level jobs. That line apparently was bought by New York State's Republican senator who inserted the tax subsidy at the last minute.
But the brouhaha over the tax subsidy also helped the NRA keep its last-minute deal on excluding the minimum wage for food servers somewhat hidden. "They are worried about public outrage," Jayaraman said, noting that the same kind of secret last-minute deal excluding tip wages emerged in Connecticut when it raised its minimum wage. "That happened at the last minute with legislators and lobbyists for the NRA," she said. "Everyone who had been working on this was blindsided. Typically, they don't bring it [excluding tip wages] up at hearings."
Maryland: Sowing Fear Not Hope
But in Maryland, the NRA's lobbyists were more brazen. They did bring it up excluding tipped workers and they trashed them—but only after waiting six hours to testify, long after most labor activists had testified and the hearing room was almost empty.
First came Carville Collins, representing a regional Wendy's chain with 108 stores and 3,100 employees. He rolled out the NRA's standard "job killer" speech, which was also presented by NRA lobbyists in Congress this spring. Carville said that raising wages "imposes costs we cannot pass onto consumers." He said a proposed three-step increase to $10 an hour would cause "five to eight" stores to close, putting as many as 300 people out of work. Moreover, if Maryland's minimum wage was higher than nearby states, it would attract out-of-staters who would "come and displace Maryland workers." Carville then cited research from the NRA-funded Employment Policy Institute, projecting that a national $9.80 minimum wage would kill "256,000 to 768,000 jobs," including thousands of jobs in Maryland.
Melvin Thompson, senior vice president of the NRA's state affiliate, the Restaurant Association of Maryland, immediately followed, and opposed raising minimum wages "for all the reasons you have heard already." But then he attacked, claiming that servers often stole tips—saying they didn't need an increase. He said restaurant workers made two to three times the minimum wage and some waiters earned more money than owners. He concluded, "the tip portion doesn't need to be included in this bill."
Needless to say, progressive restaurant owners, activists and economists have thoroughly debunked each of these claims. As Zingerman's Saginaw said, "The workforce has changed. It's not just students and people out of college. It's much more diverse than that." Economists have pointed out that at McDonald's, for example, half of the cost of raising its minimum hourly pay to $10.50 could come by adding a nickel to the price of a $4 Big Mac. Other studies by ROC have found that a dime increase in daily food prices could support a 33 percent raise for minimum wage workers and a doubling of the base tip wage.
But, as the Wellstone Institute's Ben Goldfarb explained, NRA lobbyists seek to sow just enough doubt and gray areas that it becomes easy for legislators to vote against proposed wage-increase bills, or just exempt their industry entirely.
These fear-based scripts—which have been studied and rebutted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP)—prompted legislators, including a handful of Democrats, to vote against the Maryland bill in committee. The local advocates,Raise Maryland, are not giving up. They have analyzed how much Maryland gave away in business subsidies this year and written memos rebutting the NRA's testimony. Raise Maryland volunteers have been knocking on thousands of doors this summer to generate support and get people to write to lawmakers to change their minds and reconsider the issue, campaign coordinator Matt Hanson said.
Suppressing Wages Isn't Enough
The NRA did not respond to a list of questions from AlterNet beyond an initial phone call where a spokeswoman emphasized that the industry's profit margins are so slim—3 or 4 percent—it can't afford to do more. Yet the industry is America's largest low-wage sector and is filled with corporations that have been consistently profitable despite the sluggish economy, according to NELP's analyses of Wall Street earnings reports. Yet the NRA not only opposes raising wages and linking wages to inflation, it has another draconian priority: opposing local laws granting earned sick leave.
Despite protests by workers who have publically explained what it's like to have to go to work sick, the NRA has been lobbying in statehouses to preempt cities and counties from passing local laws that would require employers to grant earned paid sick leave. ROC notes that 90 percent of restaurant workers don't have paid sick days, and "two-thirds report cooking, preparing and serving food while sick." That reality, captured in videos by sick workers, helped a coalition led by Working Families in New York City and Connecticut to adopt local sick leave laws. These were significant victories. The New York City law will affect a million workers. (San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and the District of Columbia also require earned sick time.)
New York's passage of sick leave legislation grabbed headlines, especially as it became law when the city council overrode Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto. But in the past two years, NRA lobbyists have pushed eight states to preempt or repeal local labor laws that include requiring paid sick leave. The industry—helped by prominent Democrats such as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter—also beat proposed sick leave laws in Denver and Philadelphia.
This trend started in Wisconsin and shows how right-wing alliances spread anti-labor legislation. In 2011, Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker backed an industry-led effort to ban paid sick leave laws, like the one Milwaukee's votersadopted as a ballot measure in 2008 while Walker was county executive—its top elected official. Seventy percent of voters had backed paid sick leave. That spring, the passage of Wisconsin's bill preempting local laws was touted as a model by the NRA at meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the pro-corporate lobbying mill. ALEC members, almost all Republicans, introduced copycat bills in their states, Wellstone Action's Goldfarb said, saying this was how the NRA's priority spread and "scaled." These were passed by GOP-majority statehouses, sometimes using strongarm tactics that dismayed labor organizers.
This summer, for example, Republicans in Florida's Orange County—near Walt Disney World—were lobbied by fast-food giants, including Darden, which owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Capital Grille, and Disney, and intentionallydelayed acting on another sick leave ballot measure that had 80 percent support in polls. That tactic gave the restaurant lobby time to push its preemption bill through its legislature, which GOP Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in July. Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana and Tennessee have all passed bans on local sick leave laws. Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina are considering it.
The Arizona Restaurant Association lobbyist said last March that no one was proposing a sick leave law in her state, but "we're fortunate to get out in front if it." In Memphis, Tennessee, the prospect that Shelby County was considering a wage theft ordinance—because restaurants there hadn't paid $270,000 in back wages to workers that a coalition of lawyers and churches recovered in court—prompted its GOP-majority state legislature to act and preempt local labor laws. "That [wage-theft law]… would have been very harmful to local businesses," the Tennessee Hospitality Association told its members.
Public Health vs. Private Profits
In all these political fights, the question of who is being harmed is the critical question. The NRA is touting an old anti-regulatory script—trotted out by state chambers of commerce for years—that any cost that cuts into profits is a job killer and must be stopped. But advocates like ROC and Working Families say that argument is upside down. Low pay and no benefits not only hurts worker productivity, it also hurts families and undercuts local consumer spending.
"It's an old-school chamber of commerce attitude—it's anti regulation," Zingerman's Saginaw said. "We believe that by paying higher wages and benefits we will get better productivity from our staff and have more satisfied customers."
And when it comes to sick leave, there is another dimension: the public is at risk when food is prepared by workers who can't afford to take a day or few hours off to visit a doctor. ROC's 2012 report on Darden described a North Carolina Olive Garden worker who came to work in 2011 with Hepatitis A, prompting the county to vaccinate thousands of people and a class-action lawsuit.
"Almost no laws anywhere in the country require restaurants to provide paid sick leave for employees who come down with anything from the sniffles to a norovirus," noted Grubstreet.com. "On the other hand, pretty much every single municipal health department in the country has a rule or law requiring employers to keep sick employees away from food and out of the restaurants, and that's where things get problematic."
Problematic is not exactly the correct word. When it comes to the NRA and its state affiliates, greedy and shamelessly political are more accurate. And that is why thousands of fast-food workers across the country plan to walk out of their jobs on Thursday, in what organizers says will be months of continuing labor actions—including a focus in September on raising tip wages.
"The NRA is a lobbying machine—it is for the owners of restaurants and restaurant chains that are turning a profit off the backs of workers," said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labor lawyer and owner of the Just Crust, a pizza restaurant in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It doesn't have to be that way."
High Road Employers
Meanwhile, advocates like ROC have formed a progressive restaurant trade association, RAISE, and are encouraging people to sign petitions to raise minimum wages and benefits, as well as use its new National Diners' Guideidentifying which restaurants treat employees fairly. They're also encouraging people dining out to ask owners about paying fair wages, just as the public asked about organic and local foodstuffs and gradually changed menu offerings.
"We try to encourage that kind of economic inquiry," said Liss-Riordan, a RAISE member. "A few years ago, it was pretty revolutionary to ask, 'How fresh is your arugula?' Now we want people to ask, 'Are you paying fair wages?' It's just getting started. We are hoping that it's a powerful idea that will take off."
h/t: AlterNet
Five Guys Franchise Owner Tries To Avoid Giving His Workers Health Benefits Under Obamacare
Mike Ruffer, a Five Guys franchise owner who operates eight of the chain restaurants in the Durham, North Carolina area, has decided to join the restaurant industry's war on health care reform, claiming that the additional costs of providing his workers with health care coverage will raise the prices of hot dogs and burgers for customers who patronize his establishments.
"Any added costs are going to have to be passed on," Ruffer told the Examiner:
Ruffer was the star witness at a Monday Heritage Foundation seminar on the impact Obamacare will have on small businesses. He is typical of many: Because he has enough full time employees to activate the law, he faces either coughing up the money to provide health insurance or paying a fine of up to $3,000 per worker.
Ruffer initially thought he would escape the law because he created each restaurant as its own company. But the law doesn't recognize that distinction,so now he's trying to determine if he can fire enough workers, or cut enough hours, to slide out of the grasp of Obamacare.
As the Examiner explicitly states, Ruffer is actively trying to "escape" the health reform law, and has had his mind made up about it for a while. That's become an increasingly common position among large employers — particularly in the service industry, where large restaurant chains have been threatening to cut workers' benefits by shifting costs onto them, cut back on wages, cut back on hours, or raise their products' prices.
To date, these employers' efforts have not been met with much public enthusiasm, and have even resulted in massive PR backlashes. Employers who choose this route are also putting themselves at risk of driving away potential employees who would rather take jobs that offer more robust benefits, as the vast majority of employers plan to keep offering health coverage plans under Obamacare.
Cenk Uygur talks with Current correspondent Jacki Schechner about two fast-food franchise owners that are cutting workers' hours to part time so that they won't have to offer them health insurance. Though the Affordable Care Act's provisions don't kick in until 2014, many are trying to blame Obamacare now for the cutbacks.
"It's total baloney," Schechner says. "There's a larger influence here that doesn't have anything to do with the Affordable Care Act — but it's been demonized, and so it's a good scapegoat."
- h/t: Current.com
Mexican Restaurant Taco Cid Defends Racist Shirts As 'Witty And Comical'
On Monday, ThinkProgress reported about a Mexican restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina whose employees wear T-shirts (pictured below) showing a wooden trap with tacos as bait and the caption "HOW TO CATCH AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT".
Now, Taco Cid issued an equally offensive response on its website, flagged by the Palmetto Public Record. The eatery defended the shirts as "witty and comical," arguing that "Taco Cid and it's [sic] employees are not racist." The restaurant insists that the shirts, which show a pair of tacos under a trap and singles out "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS," contain "NO racial nor hate remarks towards any specific ethnic group."
But it also goes on to articulate a false political argument, claiming that undocumented workers cause everyone to "pay more in taxes in support of their illegal activities." In 2010 alone, unauthorized immigrants paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes and pump billions in purchasing power into the economy. This output and spending generates jobs and opportunity.
Must Pizza Moguls Be Republicans? - Yahoo! News
Can you raise Herman Cain when he's in defeat? The charismatic, long-shot GOP presidential contender's name is suddenly on the lips of pundits after his upset victory in the Presidency 5 straw poll in Florida on Saturday.
After a strong start, Cain—a political newcomer whose only previous run was a failed bid for the Republican nomination for Senate in Georgia—faded quickly following Rep. Michele Bachmann's June 27 entrance into the race. She stole much of Cain's Tea Party fire and brimstone. Until then, he was running second only to Mitt Romney in many polls.
Whether his Florida triumph proves a last hurrah or the start of a comeback for Cain, his unorthodox background spotlights a curious phenomenon: the overwhelming conservatism of the pizza industry. Although Cain rose to business prominence with Pillsbury, working for the baking giant's Burger King arm, his claim to fame is his time at the helm of Godfather's Pizza, of which he served as CEO from 1986 until 1996, even buying the company from Pillsbury in 1990. Cain's years at Godfather's marked him deeply, and he has said that as a politician he intends to use the insights he gleaned in business to steer his political course. On the trail, he has frequently scheduled appearances at Godfather's restaurants, and his signature economic proposal—the 9-9-9 Plan—even sounds a bit like a popular pizza special.
Cain also has been a generous giver to political causes over the years, donating nearly $400,000 since 1979, according to FEC records. Ninety percent of that—$359,000—has gone to Republican candidates and political action committees, with another 9 percent going to industry PACs and the remainder going to a few lonely Democrats.
But other pizza moguls have similarly generous records, according to an analysis of campaign-finance records by The Daily Beast. Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, is a staunch conservative Catholic who's poured money into Catholic initiatives including the controversial Ave Maria University, which is paired with a planned town known as Ave Maria. But Monaghan also has put a great deal of his money into politics, donating $371,000 to Republican candidates since 1979. He's donated $4,000 to Democrats—both recipients also have been Catholic.
The list goes on—Dan and Frank Carney, the founders of Pizza Hut, have given a combined $81,000 to Republicans over the last three decades. The trend is cross-generational, too. John Schnatter, founder of Papa John's and young enough to be the Carneys' son, has given $33,000 to Republican candidates, mostly in his home state of Kentucky. Even in the laid-back, arch-liberal Golden State, California Pizza Kitchen founders Richard Rosenfield and Larry Flax have each given $6,500 to Republicans—with only $500 apiece to a single Democrat, former governor Gray Davis. Little Caesar's founder Michael Ilitch is more bipartisan: he has given nearly $118,000 to Republicans, with $67,000 going to Democrats. But many of the Democratic recipients have been either in Ilitch's home state of Michigan or officeholders well positioned to help the gambling industry, in which he also has business interests, while many of his Republican donations have been to presidential contenders or PACs outside of Michigan.
So how did a food most commonly associated with college students and indolent marijuana smokers become a mainstay of the conservative movement?
To an extent, it mirrors dynamics in the restaurant industry as a whole. Like many large corporations, restaurant chains have a vested interest in low corporate tax rates and low labor costs, meaning they oppose traditional Democratic initiatives, such as a strong minimum wage, and support traditionally Republican ones, like lower tax rates and less regulation of business. According to numbers compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, donations from the restaurant and beverage industry have favored Republicans for years. In addition, the National Restaurant Association—a leading trade group—has given approximately 3 to 1 to Republicans in recent cycles—actually a slight evening out from the early 2000s, when the group favored Republicans by as much as 9 to 1.
It may be no coincidence that Cain himself was CEO of the National Restaurant Association from 1996 to 1999. Scott DeFife, the association's executive vice president for policy and government affairs, declined to discuss its political agenda during Cain's term, citing turnover and changed political circumstances at the organization in the intervening years. "We're always reviewing the policy priorities of the organization on a regular basis," he said. "Our top issues this past year have ranged from immigration and interchange to health care and labor issues. Next year it might be completely different. It might be the farm bill or tax reform."
The association says recipients of its political cash include elected officials with a strong record of backing causes important to restaurateurs, as well as candidates running against politicos with less industry-friendly records.
Like Cain, the National Restaurant Association staunchly opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, which was passed in 2010. The organization does, however, support comprehensive immigration reform, an issue that has backers on both sides of the aisle. Cain does not, although he says America needs more secure borders and stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
As to why Republicans are receiving such a big slice of Big Pizza's pie, as it were, industry experts scratched their heads. David Corsun, a former restaurateur who now directs the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management at the University of Denver, suggested part of the reason was the size of the companies in question. Large companies such as Godfather's, Domino's, and Papa John's have moved right as they have gone public, and have adopted practices similar to those of other large corporations.
"From the time that they became behemoths, they became conservative, and they're doing what supports the bottom line," Corsun said. "The more interesting question is the smaller operators—the people operating one, two, five restaurants—and who they support." Corsun also suggested that the small number of data points among the biggest restaurant chains could make the political leaning appear more pronounced: a small group of extremely dedicated givers—such as Cain and Monaghan—throw the numbers off.
h/t: Yahoo.com


text:
HIALEAH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say four men suffered burns when a leaking gas tank exploded at a South Florida barbecue.
Hialeah Gardens Police Lt. Carlos Sojo says the tank fed a custom-made grill and oven on a brick patio outside Luis Fabian Chirino's home. Chirino was hosting a Fourth of July barbecue to celebrate a son's homecoming when the tank exploded.
Sojo says Chirino suffered non-life-threatening, second-degree burns. Sojo says the burns were "from the head to the toes."
Three other men also were burned. Sojo says William Hernandez suffered second-degree burns across his body, while Juan Chirino and Guillermo Valdes suffered second-degree burns from the waist down.
Sojo says all four were airlifted to a hospital, but only Luis Chirino was in critical condition. It wasn't clear if all were related.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
My Profile
Glendale, California
Member since Jan 2008
Flag This ProfileFlag as Inappropriate
Reviewed Coleslaw With Peanuts
Jul 23, 2013 in on Food.com
"Easy and delicious - took it to a barbecue and it was gobbled up.""
Reviewed Spaghetti with Oil and Garlic (Aglio Et Olio
Apr 22, 2013 in Food Network Community Toolbox on FoodNetwork.com
"Fast, easy and delicious! I needed more than 1/4 cup of pasta water to loosen the pasta so am glad I saved a lot. I also used the parsley stems because I didn't have enough leaves for 2 Tbls. The lemon zest added a little lift and I squeezed a little of the juice into the dish. Finally, lots of Parmesan cheese - delish!""
Reviewed Pumpkin Oatmeal
Feb 2, 2011 in Food Network Community Toolbox on FoodNetwork.com
"Delicious and easy! I never thought of using almond milk for making oatmeal and now I use this instead of water for cooking oatmeal (pumpkin or otherwise) - thanks, Aarti, for this unique idea. Recipe makes a lot, so for a one-person household, I had tons leftover. But it reheated easily so morning breakfast was fast to prepare."


text:
Nathaniel Zillweger
Air Force men's and women's swimming sweeps duals
Both teams best Colorado School of Mines and Colorado Mesa
Air Force men's and women's swimming sweeps duals
Both teams best Colorado School of Mines and Colorado Mesa
Falcon men and women host meets, Oct. 24-25
Air Force hosts Colorado Mesa and Colorado Mines on Friday, Oct. 24, and Wyoming, Oct. 25
Nathaniel Zillweger named WAC Diver of the Week
Junior set a new school record on 1-meter board with 345.20 points
Men's Swimming sweeps duals in North Dakota
Air Force beat North Dakota and South Dakota in Grand Forks
2012-13 (FRESHMAN): Second team All-MPSF in 1-meter diving...second on team in 3-meter and fourth in 1-meter and platform...competed in the NCAA Zone E Diving Regionals in all three events.
HIGH SCHOOL:High school diving coach was Melynda Fenn...dove for AZ Heat, coached by Jeff Kunselman.
PERSONAL: Member of cadet squadron 38...has two siblings...nicknames are Z, Zilly, Ziggy and Taterz...major is aeronautical engineering...future plans are to become a pilot or engineer...son of Cliff and Mary Zillweger.


text:
What is your official title, and what are some of your general responsibilities?
My official title is Senior Research Associate for the Time-Based Media Collection. I am working on an exciting multi-faceted project funded by the A.W. Mellon Foundation. One of my main responsibilities is to ensure the long-term sustainability and accessibility of the museum's time-based media collection, which includes film, video, audio, and software-based artworks. To do this I am assessing the preservation needs of the holdings, determining what works need and can be migrated to digital formats, working with the artists, galleries, and estates to migrate the work according to best practices, and updating the collection records to document the preservation work. I will also be working with the new archival assistant to arrange and describe the related archival materials in order to gather more information about the collection and make it accessible to staff and researchers. Continue reading


text:
Digital Megaphone's Social Media Summits are Chicago's premier Social Media events. The summits features cutting edge social media strategies and case studies from top brand marketers. It's a power packed day of best practice Social Media case studies that go beyond typical tactics, paving the way for a new way of thinking. [/one_third]
Anyone interested in learning how to kick-start your brand's social media strategies and tactics by leveraging powerful digital marketing best practices.
V.P. Sales
Director, Digital Marketing
Director of Digital Marketing
Digital Megaphone
Digital Megaphone's Social Media Masters Summit uniquely places your brand in front of decision makers before, during and after the summit. Join a growing list of sponsors that have worked with Digital Megaphone to reach our audience in an interactive setting.


text:
Female, 37, utterly devoted to Peter Capaldi, The Thick of It, Stephen Fry, Have I Got News For You, Top Gear, Computer games, Computer Science and general geekery
(Master List of Fanfics) Smutty fanfiction writer.
I'm a geek by hobby and profession and once got out of a boring meeting by jamming pencils up my nose and saying 'wibble'. I love cups of tea.
My username isn't a slur and I'd be happy to furnish people with a full list of my disabilities if you need them. I just find them boring :p
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
That Stephen Fry idea, I fucking LIKE. Nothing like swearin' in governmental buildings to give me a bloody hardon.


text:
Disapproval of Congress hits new high: poll
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disapproval of Congress rose to an all-time high after weeks of rancorous partisan battles over raising the U.S. debt ceiling took the country to the brink of default, according a New York Times/CBS News public opinion poll published on Thursday.
A record 82 percent of Americans now say they disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job, compared with 14 percent who approve, the poll found.
The disapproval rating for Congress was the highest in the 34 years the question has been asked in the poll and up from the previous high of 77 percent set in May 2010.
Congress approved a $2.1 trillion deficit-cutting plan just before an Aug 2. deadline for raising the U.S. borrowing authority. The deal to lift the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling was signed into law with just hours to spare before the government was due to run out of money to pay all its bills.
Seventy-two percent of the poll respondents disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the debt ceiling negotiations, while 60 percent disapproved of the way Congressional Democrats acted to resolve the crisis.
Half of those polled said the debt ceiling agreement should have included increased tax revenue, which Republicans fought, as well as spending cuts. Forty-four percent said the agreement should have relied on spending cuts alone.
An overwhelming majority, 82 percent, said the debt ceiling fight was more about gaining political advantage than doing what is best for the country.
More than half said they think Republicans compromised too little while 34 percent said President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress did not compromise enough.
The responders were more evenly divided over how Obama handled the negotiations, with 47 percent disapproving and 46 expressing approval. Obama's overall job approval rating remained steady at 48 percent.
The nationwide telephone poll of 960 adults was conducted August 2 and 3 among 960 adults throughout the United States and has a sampling error or plus or minus three percentage points (here).
(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Eric Walsh)
If they wanted an accurate survey, they'd poll registered voters and there'd be a mix of Democrats and Republicans similar to who voted in the last general election.
But this poll was all adults including, almost certainly, a great many people who pay no attention at all to what Congress is doing. They get their news, if any news at all, from Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.
- Total CEO de Margerie killed in Moscow as jet hits snow plough
- Ebola crisis turns a corner as U.S. issues new treatment protocols
- Apple's iPhone sales beat Street but iPad volumes slide
- Obama makes rare campaign trail appearance, people leave early
- China's growth slowest since global crisis, annual target at risk
Editor's choice
Our top photos from the last 24 hours. Slideshow


text:
Juan P. Olano, M.D.
David H. Walker, M.D.
Judith F. Aronson, M.D.
Mahmoud A. Eltorky, M.D., Ph.D.
Vicki Jeanne Schnadig, M.D.
Gerald A. Campbell, M.D., Ph.D.
Alexander J. Indrikovs, M.D.
Barbara Jean Bryant, MD, FCAP, FASCP
Natalie Williams-Bouyer, Ph.D.
You-Wen Qian, M.D., Ph.D.
Anthony O. Okorodudu, Ph.D., MBA, SC (ASCP), NRCC (TOXI), DABCC, FACB
Hal K. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
Jianli Dong, M.D., Ph.D.
Smita Vaidya, Ph.D.
Bill A. Rampy, D.O., Ph.D.


text:
Q&A With Orlando City President Phil Rawlins
OCSC President Phil Rawlins gives an update on the club in our latest feature
Q&A With Orlando City President Phil Rawlins
It's been an exciting time recently if you are an Orlando City fan. There's been a lot of news, which means it can get confusing. We wanted to get every answer in one, simple place, straight from Orlando City President Phil Rawlins' mouth. Check out everything you need to know by reading below in our most recent Q&A!
Q: Where is Orlando City playing in 2014 and in what league?
In 2014 we'll be playing our final season in the USL PRO and we're delighted to say we'll be playing that down at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, where we're configuring a purpose built stadium with about five and a half thousand seats especially for us.
Q: Why ESPN Wide World of Sports?
Well obviously you know the Citrus Bowl isn't available to us in '14, so we cast a wide net looking at the different possibilities of where we could play in '14. We wanted somewhere where we had a really good field for the players to play on, somewhere that would give a good quality experience to the fans, and somewhere that was available for all the dates that we had throughout the season. The combination of all those things really led us to ESPN and it gives us the best combination of all those: fan experience, field quality, and availability.
Q: I've read that Louisville is one of the prospects that will be purchasing our USL PRO franchise. What does that mean and when will that occur?
That's a good question; it's a complex question to answer. Orlando City Soccer Club currently owns a USL PRO franchise. Orlando City will be moving up to MLS, but we, at the same time, still own this asset, this USL PRO franchise. We've agreed with the league that we can sell that franchise to another city and it's that franchise that we will hopefully be selling to Louisville. If Louisville takes over that franchise then they would be our affiliate partner for 2015 going forward just as we were Sporting KC's partner affiliate in 2013 and '14.
Q: What is Major League Soccer and when will the Lions play in MLS?
MLS stands for Major League Soccer and the league was developed about 19 years ago right on the back of the World Cup in the U.S. in '94. It is now the premier soccer league, the highest level of major league soccer in the country. It's done a great job of developing its brand, growing its footprint. We would be the 21st team in MLS when we enter the league in 2015 alongside New York City FC. The league is the leading league in North America and it's the third best attended professional sports league in the country outside of NFL and Major League Baseball.
Q: How long is the MLS season?
MLS season is actually a 9 month season, so we'll be beginning play in early March and will go all the way through to the first weekend of December, if we're successful enough to go to the championship game. Generally it runs all the way from March until Thanksgiving, really.
Q: When is the new, downtown stadium going to be built?
We have the location and we worked with the city to get what I think is the best location of any soccer stadium in the country. It's a great location that's right downtown on Church St., two blocks west of the Amway Center. We hope to break ground in late spring of 2014, take about 15 months to build the stadium and hopefully have it open by late summer of 2015.
Q: Where will the team play to begin the 2015 MLS season?
In 2015 we really have the opportunity to open two stadiums in one year. We'll spend the first half of the MLS season in the brand new Citrus Bowl and be one of the first people to ever play there. Hopefully about mid-summer, we'll move down the road to the new soccer stadium and play the second half of the season in the brand new downtown soccer stadium.
Q: How can fans get tickets for 2015 and will there be a price increase?
Well the best way to get tickets for '15, to guarantee yourself tickets and to also guarantee yourself the choice of where you're sitting, is to get a season ticket for 2014. Our 2014 season ticket holders will be given first choice and will be given preference over their seating choices for 2015, so we'll go back out to them first.
The ticket prices will go up slightly but I don't anticipate them going up by a lot. We are going to try and maintain the lower end for our supporter section. Obviously some prices will go up because the amenities and facilities will go up as well. We'll have clubs, we'll have suites and we will have a much higher quality of seating available and facilities available then we've had to date.
Q: Will purple continue to be the club's primary color upon entry in MLS?
Yes, absolutely. We plan on owning purple, everybody loves it. The league loves the fact that we play in purple and we want to own that color.
Q: Will MLS games be broadcasted on TV?
Yes, all the MLS games in 2015 will be broadcast either locally on TV or nationally on television.
Q: Will Adrian Heath remain as head coach when the team enters MLS?
Yes he will. Adrian negotiated a new contract with us just about a year or so ago. It's certainly our intention to keep Adrian, we're delighted he stayed with us and we're looking forward to many many successful seasons under Adrian's leadership.
Q: Which players are going to be on the MLS squad and how is that process determined?
So far we have three players that we've made commitments to be with us in MLS in 2015. One of them is a player returning to us, Yordany Alvarez. Yordany was MVP of the league in 2011, and since then he has had two years of experience playing in MLS with Real Salt Lake. We are delighted to get him back for the 2014 season and Yordany will be with us in 2014 & 2015 and hopefully again for many more years to come.
He'll be joined by Kevin Molino and Darwin Ceren. Kevin was out of contract at the end of the 2013 season and we were fortunately able to renegotiate a new contract with him, which includes him playing in 2014 and 2015 in MLS. We fought very hard to get Darwin, as several other MLS clubs were also interested in signing him. He's the captain of El Salvador, at only 24 years old, and will be a great addition to our team in 2014 and 2015.
Q: Will the club still be called 'Orlando City' and will the logo change?
The club will still be called Orlando City Soccer Club and the logo will change. It has to change because it has to be registered with Major League Soccer. We are going to keep the lion, we are going to keep the purple, and it will hopefully get unveiled sometime during the course of the 2014 season.
Q: Will there continue to be international friendlies in 2015?
Yes, and hopefully there will be an international friendly in 2014 as well. But certainly in 2015, when we've got a brand new Citrus Bowl and our own stadium. Our opportunities to host international games, exhibition games, and maybe even the men's national team will increase because we've got our own purpose built soccer stadium.


text: Al Sharpton: Clintons Know Some Black Voters Still Have 'Antipathy' Toward Them Print article Send a Tip by Tony Lee 1 Dec 2013 post a comment Al Sharpton, MSNBC host and president of the National Action Network, said Hillary Clinton is making an extra effort to reach out to blacks before a potential 2016 presidential run because the Clintons know there are some black voters who have "lingering questions" and are still hostile toward them after the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Sharpton told the New York Times that the Clintons are making an effort to "repair whatever damage they felt may have been done in '08" and that the couple knows that "that there are some who have lingering questions, if not antipathy, towards them." The Times wrote that since Clinton left her position as Secretary of State in February, "she and her husband have sought to soothe and strengthen their relationship with African-Americans, the constituency that was most scarred during her first bid for the presidency. "Five years after remarks by Mr. Clinton about Barack Obama deeply strained the Clintons' bond with African-Americans, the former first family is setting out to ensure that there is no replay of such trouble in 2016." Black voters turned on the Clintons after Bill Clinton referred to then-candidate Barack Obama's stance on the Iraq War as a "fairy tale," which some blacks interpreted as a shot at Obama's candidacy. Clinton made his remarks before the South Carolina primary in 2008.


text:
Mar 04, 2014 08:12 EST Oxeon AB Snowboard brand Jones Snowboards has been awarded best in class at the ISPO show in Munich, Germany, for their Ultracraft Splitboard reinforced by TeXtreme®.
Mar 04, 2014 08:12 EST Oxeon AB Snowboard brand Jones Snowboards has been awarded best in class at the ISPO show in Munich, Germany, for their Ultracraft Splitboard reinforced by TeXtreme®.
Mar 02, 2014 09:50 EST Fitnessdateclub
Feb 26, 2014 02:17 EST marketresearchreports-biz Researchmoz presents this most up-to-date research on"Basketball Wear Industry and Cycling Wear Industry 2014 Market Research Report". The report focuses primarily on quantitative market metrics in order to characterize the growth and evolution of the Remote Patient Monitoring Market
Feb 25, 2014 05:03 EST RnR Market Research China sport protection product manufacturing industry, 2014 is valuable for anyone who wants to invest in the sport protection product manufacturing industry, to get Chinese investments
Feb 19, 2014 14:00 EST Golf Media Golfers keen for tips on beautiful destinations and fantastic courses have a great new digital option. The iPad and iPhone magazine Golf Travel Journal – available at Apple's App Store – has been launched by the golf publishing company Golf Media.
Feb 05, 2014 09:08 EST Fitnessdateclub
Jan 22, 2014 11:37 EST RnR Market Research The publication updates readers on the progress of key World Cup-oriented projects such as stadiums, motorways, federal roads and tourism centres, and analyses the rail and air transportation infrastructure categories. To get more information on this report, please feel free to contact us on firstname.lastname@example.com / Call +1 888 391 5441.
Jan 13, 2014 15:21 EST Mixed Martial Mobile Los Angeles, CA / London, UK Bruce Buffer, the 'Official Voice of MMA' is recruiting a few dedicated Beta Testers for his new social casual game, 'MMA Federation- digital fighters & real rewards', a game based on the world of Mixed Martial Arts, set to launch in 2014.
Jan 13, 2014 15:06 EST Mixed Martial Mobile Nova União and AMA Fight Club, two of the top MMA teams in the world, have joined, Bruce Buffer's new social casual game MMA Federation – 'Virtual Fighters & Real Rewards' based on the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Set to launch in 2014, they join other global top team like Tristar, American Top Team, and Team Nogueira. Fans can join now by going to the MMA Federation Kickstarter campaign page.
Jan 08, 2014 12:20 EST Fitnessdateclub FitnessDateClub.com is an increasingly popular dating community that specializes in health minded singles throughout the world. Currently most members are living in the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and South Africa.


text:
Sapphire engagement rings possess a timeless and distinctive beauty.
Add a pop of precious color with sapphire earrings.
Nature's most beautiful hues make perfect pendants.
Partner with our design experts to create one-of-a-kind sapphire jewelry.
Understand the distinctive properties of these gorgeous gemstones, and how to select your ideal sapphire.
Brilliant Earth provides fine jewelry from
ethical, pure sources - jewelry that you
can truly be proud to wear.
Our non-commissioned jewelry experts are here to help, and will respond quickly to any questions you may have! Fill out the email form or contact us using one of the other methods below.
Please use the form below or call us at 1.800.691.0952 to schedule your personalized one hour visit with a jewelry specialist in our San Francisco showroom. We recommend you make your appointment at least three business days in advance.
Located near Union Square in downtown San Francisco, our showroom is an elegant and serene environment to privately view our collection. Our jewelry specialists are here to offer everything from technical gemstone expertise to explaining our ethical practices to full custom design. Knowing your gem or diamond preferences beforehand is exceptionally helpful, as each visit is personally tailored to you. Our ultimate goal is to provide you with the guidance and information you need to find the perfect ethical origin jewelry.
Mon-Fri: 9am - 7pmSat-Sun: 9am - 6pm
26 O'Farrell Street, 10th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
Subscribe now and be the first to know about alluring new styles, special offers, and updates.


text:
Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.
This quote is about vice.
Record how this quote makes you feel.
You can report quote corrections via the "Conversation" tab below
Search on Google Books to find citations of this quotation.
We don't have a biography.
wood dragon of Sol
I'm female, say nothing
I'm male, say nothing


text:
Ms. Chris Lopatosky
General Practice, Silver Strand Family Medicine
- 707 Palm Ave
Imperial Beach, CA 91932
- 1 Office Location
- Email a Friend
- (619) 429-7700
Ms. Chris Lopatosky is a practicing physician. Ms. Lopatosky practices medicine in Imperial Beach, CA and specializes in General Practice. Ms. Lopatosky is affiliated with Sharp Coronado Hospital. Ms. Lopatosky speaks English and Spanish.
Gender: Not Available
Years in Practice: Not Available
Languages Spoken: English, Spanish
Medical School: Not Available
Graduation Date: Not Available
Hospital Affiliations: Sharp Coronado Hospital
Specialties: General Practice
©2005-2014 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.


text:
Check out a sneak peak.... Viva la PINK!
It's Viva La Pink™ time! The 2nd Annual Zumba® Fitness event benefiting the Kansas City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® will take place on Friday, October, 18, 2013, at Swinney Recreation Center - UMKC. We expect over a 1,000 Zumba Fitness enthusiasts to participate in this two-hour class, all in an effort to help fight breast cancer.
We invite you to join us as a participant! Your support is crucial to help us reduce an alarming statistic: 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Over the past two years, we've sponsored "Party In Pink" benefit through the national Zumba® office and raised more than $2,000 to fund breast health education, screening, treatment and support programs at the national level. Last year, was the inaugural Viva La Pink benefit raised $5,563.00 and those proceeds were given to the Kansas City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®.
So prepare your teams and help us double what we did last year. Yes! We'd like to raise $10,000 this year. And we can't do it without your help!
Please register today!


text:
Fleet Photo // 737-900
By: Taking Off
A 737-900 in Delta livery is impressive in any light.
Fleet Photo // Mt. Rainier
By: Taking Off
Throw your winglets in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care! We love flying above 10K feet with views like these! View for yourself and book a trip.
Throwback Thursday // Circa 1983
By: Marie Force, Delta Archivist, Atlanta
Here's a classic air-to-air view of Delta's Boeing 767-200 Ship 112 flying over the Cascade Range.
Read More
Fleet Photo // 777
Here we are, face-to-face with one of the more beautiful species of avian, the 777, in her natural habitat. Ain't she a beaut? Such grace and poise!
Reason to Travel // The Northern Lights
Travel to Alaska to witness a real-life laser show in the sky! The Northern Lights are an awe-inspiring phenomenon observed since ancient times. Book your ticket now and observe them for yourself!
Delta Sky Magazine // Behind-the-Scenes With Christina Applegate
By: Amanda Welshons, Delta Sky Associate Online Editor
The very talented Christina Applegate graces the cover of the October issue of Delta Sky Magazine, fighting the good fight against breast cancer.
Discover Delta // Machine Meets Sky
Sometimes, there is nothing more beautiful than the intersection of technology and nature. We caught this engine blade outside Delta's Technical Operations Center in Atlanta on a perfect day. We're ready to fly- are you?


text:
Addleshaw Goddard
Practice Area
- Employment (119)
- Litigation / Dispute Resolution (99)
- Company/Commercial (76)
- Banking / Finance (69)
- Financial services (56)
- Regulatory and compliance (52)
- Information Technology (30)
- Insurance/reinsurance (26)
- Corporate (25)
- Real Estate (21)
- Funds (16)
- Pensions (15)
- Crime (13)
- Family (13)
- Media/Entertainment/Sport (12)
- Construction (9)
- Intellectual Property (9)
- Tax (9)
- Competition/EU (7)
- Insolvency & restructuring (6)
- Public Sector/Local Authority (6)
- Healthcare (5)
- Professional Indemnity/Negligence (5)
- Planning (4)
- Business Tax (3)
- Commodities (3)
- Energy (3)
- Privacy and reputation (3)
- Telecoms (3)
- Environment (2)
- Human Rights (2)
- Immigration (2)
- Other (2)
- Pharma/Biotech (2)
- PPP/PFI/Commercial projects (2)
- Transport (Including aviation and shipping) (2)
- Clinical/Medical Negligence (1)
- Personal Injury (1)
- Personal tax / Trusts (1)
- Private Equity (1)
Search results
290 articles matched your search
Sort By: Newest first | Oldest first
Data Issues Roundup — ICO issues new code of practice; 'revenge porn' to become offence; and more weblink
Addleshaw Goddard has released the 16 October 2014 issue of its Data Issues Roundup, which provides a weekly round-up of data issues.
Mediation round-up weblink
This round-up includes costs and unreasonable refusals to engage in ADR and four recent cases considering the refusal by one party to engage in ADR.
Who owns a bribe or secret commission? weblink
The Supreme Court decision in FHR European Ventures LLP & Ors v Cedar Capital Partners LLC provides a reminder that bribery also gives rise to civil claims.
Protecting confidential information in proceedings weblink
What mechanisms can be put in place to protect confidential information in proceedings?
Jackson reforms case management — all change, again? weblink
Without doubt the most significant decision in recent months concerning the courts' management of cases is Denton v White.
European Employment Law Update — September 2014: UK weblink
Addleshaw Goddard has released the September 2014 edition of its European Employment Law Update. This section focuses on UK.
Recent decisions from the Court of Appeal and EAT on territorial scope of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Equality Act 2010 weblink
A US employee working 49 per cent of his time in the UK failed to establish that he fell within the territorial scope of UK employment law to pursue claims of unfair dismissal.
Major pensions changes from April 2015: have you considered these five key issues? weblink
The government has recently published the draft legislation introducing the new pensions flexibilities, effective from 6 April 2015.
High Court considers whether assessment of bonus pool involved contractual discretion weblink
A recent case highlights the importance of ensuring that terms used in a formula to determine whether or not bonus payments are payable are clearly understood by the parties involved.
Employment law reforms coming into force on 1 October 2014 weblink
A number of employment law reforms came into force on 1 October 2014. Here Addleshaw Goddard reports on each of the reforms.
Acas publishes guidance on managing bereavement at work weblink
Acas has published new guidance for employers on managing bereavement in the workplace. This aims to be a good-practice guide for employers.
Failure to pay male employee enhanced additional paternity pay equivalent to enhanced maternity pay not discriminatory weblink
An employer's decision to pay statutory paternity pay during additional paternity leave, while offering generous enhanced maternity pay to women on maternity leave, did not amount to sex discrimination.
It's a question of trust — why do so many employment disputes arise from a breach of trust and confidence? weblink
Employers and employees often rely on the trust and confidence term when they wish to leave the relationship. The outcome is significant.
Shared parental leave: BIS publishes technical guidance for employers weblink
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has published further guidance on shared parental leave, covering some of the more technical aspects of the scheme.
Data Issues Roundup — new Irish data protection commissioner appointed; Racing Post falls short on IT security; and more weblink
Addleshaw Goddard has released the 15 September 2014 issue of its Data Issues Roundup publication.
Court of Appeal decision on repeat guarantees — September 2014 weblink
The Court of Appeal in has considered the effect of a lease provision requiring a repeat guarantee as a condition of landlord's consent on intragroup assignment.
Employee Incentive Update: August 2014 — case law, tax and financial services weblink
Welcome to the latest edition of Addleshaw Goddard's Employee Incentives Update, which contains a round-up of key developments in this area during August 2014.
Zero-hours contracts: new consultation on tackling avoidance of forthcoming ban on exclusivity clauses weblink
The government has published a new consultation seeking views on avoidance of the forthcoming ban on exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts.
Shared parental leave: regulations laid before Parliament and new guidance weblink
From 5 April 2015, eligible employees will have the right to opt into a new system of shared parental leave.
Proposals for reforming the taxation of termination payments weblink
The Office of Tax Simplification published its final report on the taxation of employee benefits and expenses and termination payments on 31 July 2014.
View results 10 per page | 20 per page | 50 per page


text:
- Follow on Tumblr - Follow citizendoug
Top Posts & Pages
- Gigapan Tranquility Park 400 Rusk St, Houston, TX 77002 by Douglas Robertson
- Citizen Doug Sound Mixer for Gillman Guy Rule #243 from Moffett Productions
- Calvin Owens Title Unknown 2 at KUHT 2000
- Town Hall, Teleconference, Satellite, Intercom, Phone Problem Solver at Citizen Doug Productions
- John Evans Band 'Out Of Control' at KUHT 3-26-03
- Soundcraft interviews Douglas Robertson about South Main Baptist Church's new mixer installation
- Douglas Robertson ENG mixer for Gillman Guy Rockstar Commercial
- Contact
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Doug Robertson records the interview NFL HIStory: WR DeAndre Hopkins
Doug Robertson provided location sound for the NFL Network interview of Texans Wide Receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins works with the Houston Food Bank and visited the GCCSA Food Pantry and it's Head Start program. Thanks to Sirius Video for … Continue reading
Douglas Robertson Field Producer and Production Audio Mixer for Anadarko: Heidelberg Topsides
One of the hat tricks that Citizen Doug Productions provides is field production combined with audio. This can save on the cost of the day. On this Anadarko TV project the challenges were not only engaging the subjects, but safely … Continue reading
Posted in Location Sound, Uncategorized, Web Audio Tagged Anadarko, construction site, Field Producer, industrial video, Interviewer, Keiwit, KK Media, location audio, location sound, Myriad Global Media, oil field, oil patch, petrochemical, production platform, production sound mixer, recordist, safety, topside, web Leave a comment
Douglas Robertson ENG mixer for Gillman Guy Rockstar Commercial
Citizen Doug Productions was honored to support this campaign with location sound. From the minds of Chris and Jeff War of Moffett Productions, this campaign is recorded directly to a Red Epic. Director of Photography is Richard Lacey and gripped … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Auto, Location Sound, Uncategorized Tagged advertisment, audio mixer, automobile, car, Citizen Doug, Citizen Doug Productions, cute girl, Douglas Robertson, ENG audio, ENG kit, ENG mixer, Gillman Guy, Gillman Nissan, lav, lavaliere, Lectrosonics, location audio, location audio recordist, Location Mixer, location recording, location sound, Moffett Productions, production mixer, production sound, recordist, Red Epic, Red Epic audio, Richard Lacey, second car, sound devices 552, sound mixer Leave a comment
Douglas Robertson recordist for First Community Credit Union ad with Brian Cushing
First Community Credit Union, featuring Brian Cushing. 2014 Location audio recording for this ad was provided by Citizen Doug Productions. Douglas Robertson is in the first few frames of the opening establishing shot. This ad is another successful collaboration between … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Location Sound, Sports, Uncategorized Tagged #56, advertisment, audio mixer, Brian Cushing, Citizen Doug, Citizen Doug Productions, Credit Union, Douglas Robertson, ENG audio, ENG kit, First Community Credit Union, football, Fun, houston, Houston Texans, lav, lavaliere, Lectrosonics, Linebacker, location audio, location audio recordist, Location Mixer, location recording, location sound, LTC Jumpstart, Moffett Productions, NFL, NRG Stadium, production mixer, Richard Lacey, Texans, texas, TX, You Squared Media, you2media Leave a comment
Douglas Robertson records Michael Sam for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award video
Douglas Robertson of Citizen Doug Productions provided location sound services for the production of Maggievision's ESPY's event video about Michael Sam's journey to become the first openly gay NFL player. It was played in house at the time of the … Continue reading
Posted in Documentary, Location Sound, Sports, Uncategorized Tagged 2014 Arthur Ashe Courage Award, 633, ASR-100, Citizen Doug Productions, coach, Digital Hybrid, double system, Douglas Robertson, ESPN, ESPY's, event video, extended family, first openly gay NFL player, high school, Hitchcock, Lectrosonics, location audio, location sound, Maggievision, Michael Sam, NFL, recordist, Red Epic, Sennheiser, sonotrim, Sound Devices, texas Leave a comment
David Craig "Herbie Mann" at KUHT 5-1-03
David Craig "Herbie Mann" at KUHT 5-1-03 Bassist David Craig performs his original jazz composition, "Herbie Mann" at KUHT 5-1-03, featuring Bob Chadwick (bass flute), Dennis Dotson (trumpet), Mike Wheeler (Guitar), Woody Witt.(sax), and Sebastian "Bash" Whittaker (percussion). More David … Continue reading
Douglas Robertson answers Kinky FRIEDMAN's questions on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse
While at HoustonPBS, I occasionally provided location audio recording for Innerviews with Ernie Manouse, a two camera interview show. In this one, I actually participate, which horrifies me when it happens. I figured they'd edit it out. Nope. Other Innerviews … Continue reading
Doug Robertson records South Main Baptist Church Choir, Organ and Orchestra 2013 Advent
Recorded by Douglas Robertson for Citizen Doug Productions ,this an excerpt from the Advent third Sunday service at Houston's South Main Baptist Church. This our first multi-track recording under the new music Ministry of Carey Joseph Canon. Location recording support … Continue reading
Gigapan Downtown Houston Dusk Memorial Dr 77002 10-27-13
Gigapan Downtown Houston Dusk Memorial Dr 77002 10-27-13 Copyright 2013 Douglas Robertson for Citizen Doug Productions Order a print up to 7 feet wide! See this gigapan on the gigapan site. See more Gigapans on this site.
Posted in Gigapans, Uncategorized Tagged 77002, cityscape, downtown, dusk, gigapan, gigapixel, houston, Memorial Dr, panorama, print, skyline Leave a comment
Greg Wood "Everything's Okay" take 2 at KUHT 6-23-03
Greg Wood sings his song "Everything's Okay" at KUHT on 6-23-03. This was a second take. Ken Jones guitar, Eric Dane guitar, Leesa Harrington-Squyres drums, Mopar Mike Sinclair bass. More Greg Wood: "Thinking It Over", '37 Years'
Citizen Doug Provides Location Audio for the 2013 All Star Game Cub Reporters
Doug Robertson was hired by NBA Entertainment to provide location sound as an audio operator with an ENG kit. The main assignment was to work with Ryan and Jayla, the 2013 All Star Cub Reporters . The resulting videos played … Continue reading
Posted in Broadcast Audio, Location Sound, Sports, Uncategorized Tagged 2013, 2013 All Star Game, All Star, areana, audio mixer, audio operator, Cub Reporters., Doug Robertson, ENG kit, Episode 2, Evan Gelber, Jayla, location audio, location sound, NBA Entertainment, NBA Legends Game, production mixer, production sound, recordist, Rockets, Ryan, score board, sound, sound mixer, Spivas Productions, the Slam Dunk, TNT broadcast, Toyota Center, videos, web audio Leave a comment
Thank you!
Thanks to the viewers at citizendoug.com It's been a great year!
Posted in Uncategorized Leave a comment
Mark Halata and Texavia "Moon Over Moravia" at KUHT 7-23-03. Mark Ḩālāt a Texavia vykonať "Moon Over Morave"
Mark Halata and Texavia perform "Moon Over Moravia" at KUHT on 7-23-03 More Mark Halata and Texavia 'Black Crow Polka', "The Night the Dice Were Nice", and 'Little Goose' The Texas state highway (957) in the song that dead ends … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged accordion, Akkordeon, akordeon, Bruce Brosch, Gänschen, Jeff Brosch, KUHT, Live na pásku, Live to tape, Mark Halata, Mark Rubin, Mesiac nad Moravou, Moon Over Moravia, Morava., Moravia, Slovak, texas, TX 957 Leave a comment
Greg Wood "King of the World" Take 2 at KUHT 6-26-03
Sometimes it takes two. Greg Wood performs "King of the World" Take 2 at KUHT on 6-26-03 Ken Jones guitar, Eric Dane guitar, Leesa Harrington-Squyres drums, Mopar Mike Sinclair bass. More Greg Wood: "Thinking It Over", '37 Years'
Drop Trio "Leftys Alone" at KUHT 2-5-04
Drop Trio performs "Leftys Alone" at KUHT on 2-5-04 More from Drop Trio:"Slap Jack", "Wreck of the Zephyr" and "Melody Melody"
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Big Dipper, Drop Trio, HoustonPBS, Ian Varley, KUHT, Leftys Alone, Live to tape Leave a comment
Clouseaux "Reum With a View" at KUHT 3-27-03
Clouseaux performs "Reum With a View" at KUHT on 3-27-03. More Clouseaux "Le Nuit", "Where Are We Now" and
Hilary Sloan "The Darker Side of Life" at KUHT 8-6-04
Hilary Sloan performs her song "The Darker Side of Life" at KUHT on 8-6-04 More from Hilary Sloan "Some Forgotten Sunday", "I Wish I Was a Highway", and "I Know the Way to Heaven" Check out more Houston Music.
Posted in Broadcast Audio, Houston Music, Uncategorized Tagged Citizen Doug, Country, fele, Fiddle, fiolin, gammel tid musikk, Hilary Sloan, Live to tape, old time music, original composition, original komposisjon, rett fram, Some Summer Sunday, straight ahead, The Darker Side of Life, tradisjonell country, traditional country, violin Leave a comment
Song "It's a Dream" at KUHT 1999
Song performs "It's a Dream" at KUHT circa 1999 'It's a Dream' was released originally on Song's In the Fireplace More music from Song 'Message' and "City Life" 歌はKUHT1999年頃に"これは夢だ"を実行 "それは夢だ'は暖炉で曲の上で最初にリリースされた Song effectue «C'est un rêve» à KUHT vers 1999 «It's … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged 2000 Suncoast Emmy Nominee, 4 camera shoot, 4 caméras tournage, 4カメラ撮影, Beta SP, Broadcast TV audio, Casserole édition, Citizen Doug, City Life, de diffusion audio du téléviseur, for achievements in the Craft of Audio, Houston Public Television, It's a Dream, KUHT, la télévision publique Houston, Live Mix sur bande, Live Mix to tape, music notes, musique originale, notes de musique, original music, pour les réalisations dans le Craft de l'audio, quite storm, Song, Song Byrd, vocal, Weeknight Edition, オリジナルの音楽, オーディオのクラフトの成果2000サンコーストエミー賞ノミネート, ソングバード, テープにミックスライブ, ヒューストン公共テレビ, ベータSP, 市民ダグ, 放送テレビオーディオ Leave a comment
Citizen Doug Mixes Webcasts Press Announcements and Teleconferences
These projects are often inward looking and non-disclosed. But occasionally a corporate client uses the power of their communication backbone to face outward and launch a product. Citizen Doug is on the end of the long tail of contractors as … Continue reading
Posted in Broadcast Audio, Location Sound, Uncategorized Tagged A!, audio, audio mixer, hybrid, intercom, mix minus, PA, phone bridge, product launch, reinforcement, satellite truck, sound mixer, teleconference, webcast Leave a comment


text:
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A bill that would allow a greater number of employees to be legally classified as independent contractors has passed the Kentucky Senate.
The bill would also shield primary contractors from liability for illegal activity conducted by the subcontractors they hire.
Sen. John Schickel, a Republican from Union, is the bill sponsor. He said the measure has the support of Kentucky's business sector and would be beneficial for them.
"It is a bill supported by businesses because what it does is it clarifies the rules about contractors," said Schickel. "In the past there has been a lot of confusion about the rules for the subcontractor."
Schickel also noted that a fiscal impact statement has not yet been prepared for the legislation.
Senate Democrats spoke at length against the measure. Among them Ray Jones from Pikeville.
He said the bill could arguably allow anyone employed by someone else to be considered a contractor. That could include "farmers, factory workers, even schoolteachers," he said.
"It undoes over 100 years of established jurisprudence in the Commonwealth of Kentucky."
All workers' compensation decisions regarding contractors and subcontractors would be handled by the Labor Cabinet under the bill. Jones also raised a concern that the Labor Cabinet would not be financially able to handle the additional caseload, given that there were no funds provided for it in Schickel's bill, and that another upcoming bill, expected to pass the Senate, would sharply reduce the group's funding.
After several unsuccessful attempts by Jones to remove the bill from the Senate orders, the measure passed out of the chamber Tuesday on a 24-14 vote. It now moves to the Kentucky House of Representatives for consideration.
The legislation is Senate Bill 81.


text:
You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your ReverbNation experience.
50% of sales go to the charity Half The Sky Movement.Browse more artists »
Sounds Like: Trace Adkins, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Toby Keith
Bio: Eric Geibel has been producing his own music for the past 3 years. Since then Geibel has accumulated a list of accomplishment including Artist and Songwriter of the Year nominations from MCTMG, Four #1 Indie Country Hit songs on Cashbox Magazine including Always Changing, Breaking Hearts In Heave... See Full BioMore Info
Mar 26
Mar 19
Mar 12
Mar 5
Feb 26
Ask Eric Geibel anything...
Asked by Bruce Taylor. Answered on Thu Sep 18 2014
Song Plays 10,842
Video Plays 450
Total Fans 925 +1
ReverbNation Fans 506 +1
Facebook Likes 145
Twitter Followers 50
Widget Impressions 91,461 +6


text:
Rockets' expecations soar as season nears
Harden: 'We have no more excuses'
A year ago, the Rockets didn't have James Harden. They didn't have Dwight Howard. They had a young team without much of a chance and without high expectations.
What a difference a year makes.
The Rockets traded for Harden just before last season and made it to the playoffs. This July, they signed Howard, the best center in the NBA and the biggest fish in the free-agent pond. Those two, combined with role players like Chandler Parsons and Jeremy Lin, have expectations soaring in Houston.
"The fact that it happened is very special and I think we're focused on winning now," said the mastermind behind the assembly of the team, general manager Daryl Morey said.
"Everything's about all-in right now. We know first-hand in Houston. We had Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady very young and it looked like that run was going to be a long time. And your chances to be very good in this league are very special. And when you have them, you have to focus 100 percent on getting as far as possible."
The season doesn't start for another month, but Morey said a Rockets team hasn't had this feel since Yao and McGrady were both coming into a season healthy. There's a strong buzz around the City of Houston and Harden said that buzz is being heard throughout NBA circles also.
The Rockets made the playoffs in 2012-13 in Harden's first year with the club, which had the youngest roster in the NBA. But they were the eighth seed in the West and were eliminated by Harden's former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, in the first round of the playoffs.
A first-round exit this season would be a failure.
"We can go as far as we want to go," Harden said on Friday. "We have a lot of chemistry to build with the addition of Dwight (Howard) but we have all the right pieces. We have a lot of talent in that locker room. We're no longer younger. Last year you could say we were the youngest team in the league; you could make all these excuses. We have no more excuses. Guys have been to the playoffs. They know what it feels like to be on the road, one of the loudest crowds in the NBA."
Howard is considered by many to be the best center in the NBA. He had a down year with the Lakers last season but still led the league in rebounding. Howard, in a down year with Los Angeles in 2012-13, still averaged 17.1 points, 12.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game. He's one of two players in the history of the NBA to average at least 18, 12 and two for his career.
The expectations are soaring for the Rockets going into this season. Lin, who has had to deal with plenty of high expectations before, said managing expectations will be paramount to the team's success.
"We understand that nothing's gonna be given to us," said Parsons, the starting small forward. "Right now, it's just a bunch of names on paper but it's some really, really good names."
Parsons said he thinks one of the goals for the team should be locking up home-court advantage in the Western Conference. It's a tough goal, he admitted, but one he thinks the team can accomplish.
But that goal means nothing to Howard.
"Seeds don't matter. We want a championship," he said. "That's the only thing that matters. Like I said, I believe in this team."


text:
Rest of Your Life
Wake Up Your Bedroom
No more sterile white paint. No more mile-high mattress on a creaky metal frame. Here's how to make the most important space in your home into the inviting refuge (you never knew) you've always wanted
Guys, when did our bedrooms become the sad, second-class citizens of the house? The living room gets the design love, the kitchen's stocked with hand-forged knives and IPAs, and the bathroom has the best reading material. Meanwhile, your bedroom is all bare essentials and bad lighting.
We know what you're thinking: Why go crazy if you're just going in there to turn out the lights?
Here's why, and it has nothing to do with impressing women (okay, maybe a little): If you make your bedroom into more than just a room with a bed, it becomes a sanctuary—the place where you go to find a moment's peace, whether that's from a shitty day at work or the house party down the hall. In other words: Give your bedroom a little love and you'll get it all back.
- Tags
- Bedroom,
- Wear It Now,
- Style,
- Interior Design,
- Furniture
- Suited, Booted and Silver: Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant Open the Season in Style
- The Complete Lazy Man's Guide to a Killer Halloween Costume
- GQ's Fall 2014 Boot Guide: The F#@k Winter Boot
- What to Wear Today: 10.31.14
- New Designer Jogger Pants for Fall
- Your Daily Eye Queue: Bennett and Gaga for H&M, Shogun Style, and More...
News + Politics
- GQ Style: Wes Anderson's Highly Influential, Slightly Tweaked Take on Reality
- Jerry Lee Lewis Will Not go to Hell
- Matthew McConaughey: America's Space Cowboy
- Logan Lerman Went to Bootcamp with Brad Pitt for Fury
- Under the Influence: How Def Jam's Early Days Inspired this Season's Look
- Outlaw, Artist, Wild Man, Style Icon: How Dennis Hopper Inspired this Season's Look
How To
Food + Travel
- David Chang's Kitchen: Don't Get All "Fresh" with Me
- David Chang's Kitchen: Your Idea of Bologna is Total Baloney
- Chart: The Family Tree of Bourbon Whiskey
- Recipe: Semi-Summer Salad - Chef Jeff Taibe of Oak + Almond
- The Great Franco-Italian Pasta Experiment
- How to Pick from an Overpriced Restaurant Wine List


text:
Beat the Heat with These Cool Treats
Best Ice Creams of the Upper West Side
by Megan Bungeroth, Annie Denes, Whitney C. Harris, Jon Lentz, Adel Manoukian and Amanda Woods
In honor of the scorching heat and National Ice Cream month, we scouted out a half-dozen frozen treat purveyors on the Upper West Side to find out who's got the best sweet and cold desserts. Going off the beaten path of national chains, our tasters sampled an array of types—ice cream as well as gelato, sorbet and frozen yogurt—as well as flavors both classic and wacky to give our readers the inside scoop. But we want you to decide who's got the very best frozen treats; vote for your favorite at nypress.com/best-ice-cream-uws.
Screme Gelato Bar
2030 Broadway, 212-362-2111,
One scoop coconut gelato; $5
Flavor: 4
Inventiveness: 3
Value: 4
Brain Freeze: 5
Melt Factor: 1
Presentation: 2
Creaminess: 4
This gelateria uses whole milk instead of the usual cream gelato is made with, a good note for those conscious about their weight. The tiny café holds a minimal amount of flavors that occasionally change and are all unique. If you want a refreshing mojito, look no further: The place has a virgin mojito sorbet. It tastes identical to the drink, with flecks of spearmint leaves. Other interesting flavors include butter cookie, chocolate chip cookie, Snickers and Madagascar vanilla. Screme's most popular flavor is the chocolate sorbet, probably because it tastes like ice cream but with fewer calories. Their coconut flavor had a nice hint of vanilla. Better save this place for a hot day, as the ice cream is very chilly—yet still creamy as it melts in your mouth. Take your gelato to go; the place has limited seating and no tables.
Emack and Bolio's
389 Amsterdam Ave., 212-362-2747, emackandbolios.com
Small salted caramel chocolate pretzel ice cream; $4.50
Flavor: 4
Inventiveness: 5
Value: 5
Brain freeze factor: 3
Melt Factor: 4
Presentation: 4
Creaminess: 5
Emack and Bolio's is a tiny shop, but that didn't stop many customers, young and old, from stopping in on a Sunday afternoon to grab a few bites of their award-winning ice cream. Emack and Bolio's has received a Best Dessert in New York City title and a Fruit Smoothie of the Week designation, among others. We tried the salted caramel chocolate pretzel ice cream—though it may seem unusual to combine the sweet and the salty, this is a must-try. The flavors of the chocolate-covered pretzel and the caramel swirl mix well together, and the creaminess of the ice cream doesn't take away from the pretzel's crunchiness. No need to worry about melting—this ice cream remained solid and cold, yet perfectly creamy, several minutes into eating it. Try the shop's popular "Sundae in a Slice," which looks like a pizza slice, made with a brownie crust, vanilla bean ice cream, hot fudge and marshmallow. If you're visiting with a group, be sure to try the Emack Attack, a gigantic 20-scoop sundae.
2165 Broadway, 212-362-1837, grom.it/eng
One scoop each of dark chocolate, tiramisu and espresso bean gelato; one scoop of pink grapefruit sorbet; $8.25
Flavor: 4
Inventiveness: 4
Value: 4
Brain Freeze: 5
Melt Factor: 4
Presentation: 3
Creaminess: 5
The stark, clinical aesthetic of this Italian gelato emporium stands in odd contrast to the earth-hugger vibe the company brags about on the wall, proudly proclaiming their organic farm sourcing and recyclable and compostable materials. The flavors, too, belie the cold setting in their ingenuity and similarity to their namesakes. The dark chocolate gelato tastes exactly the way a premium chocolate bar would if it were somehow melted and frozen at the same time, with just a hint of bitterness. It's best enjoyed along side a creamy, sweet flavor like tiramisu. The espresso gelato delivers a welcome jolt, and the egg-custard-based Crema di Grom flavor is delicious, if a bit too rich for a whole heaping cup. The sorbet selection is fantastic if only for its verisimilitude—the pink grapefruit is spot on and incredibly refreshing.
Épicerie Boulud
1900 Broadway, 212-595-0303,
Pistachio-black cherry swirl, one scoop; $3. Dark chocolate and blue lemonade, one scoop of each; $6
Flavor: 5
Inventiveness: 3.5
Value: 4
Brain Freeze Factor: 5
Melt Factor: 4.5
Presentation: 3
Creaminess: 5
Start to finish, Épicerie Boulud is everything you would expect from Daniel Boulud. The décor is clean and modern, with the sleek gelato counter accessable from the sidewalk. The staff was friendly and, most importantly, the gelati were well-executed—creamy, flavorful and made with fresh ingredients. The pistachio-black cherry swirl, one of the most popular options, had the right balance of sweetness and nuttiness. Most surprising was the value. At $3 a scoop, you receive a sizeable portion of excellent gelato at the same price as an ice cream bar from a street vendor, making Épicerie Boulud well worth the trip.
16 Handles
325 Amsterdam Ave., 646-861-1281, 16handles.com
10.7 oz of a Chocolate Love Affair-Coffee Break-Cookies & Cream blend, topped with brownie bites, cheesecake bites, chocolate-covered pretzels, cookie crumbs, Reese's Pieces and milk chocolate caramel chunks; $6.05
Flavor: 4
Inventiveness: 4
Value: 3
Brain Freeze Factor: 4
Melt Factor: 3
Presentation: 5
Creaminess: 2
If you're a control freak when it comes to frozen treats, rest assured: 16 Handles allows you to be the master of your own dessert destiny. This self-serve, pay-by-the-ounce frozen yogurt paradise lets you decide what, how much and in what delicious design your cold concoction is prepared. Not one to normally mix and match, I flew "off the handle" and combined three froyo flavors with myriad toppings, creating a symphony of chocolate, caramel, peanut butter and beyond. If you're a fruit fanatic, 16 Handles offers green apple tart and pomegranate raspberry, begging to be topped with blackberries, kiwi, mango and more. But the urge to indulge needn't be tempered—nutrition info is displayed above each flavor. Plus, without having to wait for some college kid to muscle your scoops into a cup or cone, you're in and out of the store faster than you can calculate the calories.
Momofuku Milk Bar
561 Columbus Ave., 347-577-9504,
Pink lemonade soft-serve; $4.50. Pretzel milk shake; $6.
Flavor: 2
Inventiveness: 4
Value: 2
Brain Freeze Factor: 4
Melt Factor: 4
Presentation: 4
Creaminess: 3
Momofuku Milk Bar, known for its inventive baked goods and addictive pastries, also serves a limited menu of soft-serve ice cream and milk shakes. Sadly, the Upper West Side outpost of the much-talked about East Village original did not live up to the hype. The pink lemonade soft-serve was far too sweet and tart, tasting more like a powdered mix than real lemons and sugar.
The pretzel milkshake, made with cereal milk soft serve, pretzels, salt and chocolate, was too thin and tasted like a melted fudge pop, with just a hint of the cereal milk flavor.
Don't forget to vote at nypress.com/best-ice-cream-uws!
Tags: Emack and Bolio's, Épicerie Boulud, gelato, Grom, ice cream, momofuku milk bar, Screme Gelato Bar, summer
Trackback from your site.
Pingback: new york concerts


text:
Let's All Go To the Movies.. Or Not: Broken City
1/25/13 in Locker Room | The_Real_Stoney | 25693 respect
Now onto the movie, and you're welcome or getting you there sooner than AMC did for me.
I know I've mentioned seeing the trailers in earlier articles and I couldn't walk into this thing being any more skeptical, especially with the cheesy description on imdb. "In a city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart seeks redemption and revenge after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure: Mayor Nicholas Hostetler." Now you know I don't like giving a plot summary full of spoilers, but it is so hard to do with this movie. On a somewhat positive note, this was a valiant first effort for writer Brian Tucker, but there is so much going on that you can't get a good handle on all the little subplots, and often times these stories within the story come out of nowhere and/or disappear without and kind of conclusion. It basically reminded me of a mediocre network drama that tried squeezing a 12 episode story arc into an hour and 45 minute movie. You have blackmail, double blackmail, shady business deals, a possible affair that's not really an affair after all, but another affair that's only alluded to because it involves two guys, and the blunt admission of another affair at the end that's never touched on once during the movie. Whew, then there's the romance between Wahlberg and his girlfriend, the sexy Natalie Martinez who plays an indie actress, who may or not be having an affair with her co-star. You had Wahlberg falling off the wagon for a night and ruining this relationship that was evidently doomed from the start, but there was no indication of it at all. There were just so many questions that were left unanswered and a lot of obvious ones that were never even touched upon. The more I think about it, the more it racks my mind trying to figure out what the hell did I watch.
Director Allen Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell, Book of Eli) tried his best with what he had for a script and in actuality a pretty decent cast, but there was only so much he could do. Throughout the movie, every time I saw Mark Wahlberg, al I could think about was him as Dirk Diggler as Brock Landers as Billy Taggert. Granted he wasn't as bad as the trailers made him out to be, but it was definitely nothing special. Alongside Wahlberg, you had Russell Crowe who did a decent job as mayor Hostetler, and Catherine Zeta-Jones playing his wife with an awful New York accent. On paper the supporting cast of Jeffrey Wright (police commissioner), Barry Pepper (Crowe's mayoral race opponent), and Kyle Chandler (Pepper's aide) has a lot of talent, but were mired in a muddled story where they couldn't be used to their fullest potential. I did think Pepper gave the best effort of anybody involved in this mess as he was playing the only character who got to show real emotion. At one point, Natalie Martinez has a pretty quick but graphic sex scene in her indie movie within the movie, but it was enough to make me want to watch THAT movie instead.
Overall, I think the movie was trying to be a smart, gritty, revenge/redemption thriller, but it got in its own way. They were trying to do so much and be so layered that none of the story lines had any real depth. Now I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be going in, but unfortunately it was close. If you were planning on seeing it, it may be best to wait for Redbox or Netflix.
Stoney's grade: C-
What have you seen lately? What do you want to see? Look for my next installment which will review either Movie 43 or The Impossible. Feel free to comment below with thoughts and requests or do so via twitter @StoneyinCO