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by Chairman Christopher Cox
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
Chairman Serrano, Ranking Member Regula, and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the Securities and Exchange Commission's budget request for fiscal year 2008.
Before I begin, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, on your new role as head of this subcommittee. I look forward to working with you and all the members of this subcommittee for the benefit of the nation's investors.
As you know, the President's budget requests $905.3 million for the SEC in 2008. I fully support this request for increased funding over FY 2007, which will allow the SEC to continue the important initiatives underway to protect and assist the average investor.
These initiatives all have in common that they are aimed at benefiting the average retail customer whose savings are dependent on healthy, well-functioning markets. Since I became Chairman, I have worked to reinvigorate the agency's focus on the ordinary investor. This is the SEC's traditional responsibility. Back in Joseph Kennedy's day, our first SEC Chairman was amazed that "one person in every ten" owned stocks. But today, more than half of all households own securities, and the median income for shareholders is a very middle-class $65,000. When you then consider all of the teachers, government employees, and workers in other industries who have pensions, it becomes clear that nearly all taxpayers have a personal interest in fair and honest securities markets.
In fact, when one considers the staggering growth in Americans' participation in the markets, the enormity of the SEC's task becomes apparent. About 3,600 staff at the SEC are responsible for overseeing more than 10,000 publicly traded companies, investment advisers that manage more than $32 trillion in assets, nearly 1,000 fund complexes, 6,000 broker-dealers with 172,000 branches, and the $44 trillion worth of trading conducted each year on America's stock and options exchanges.
These daunting numbers make it clear that, even if the SEC budget were to double or triple, the agency would have to carefully set priorities. That is exactly what we are doing in this proposed budget for FY 2008. We must continue to think strategically about which areas of the market pose the greatest risk, and which areas of potential improvement hold the greatest benefit for investors. And given the fast changing conditions in America's and the world's capital markets, we must remain agile and flexible enough to redirect our resources with little notice.
This risk-based and flexible approach guides the SEC's examination program as we focus the agency's energies on those practices in the marketplace, and those investment advisers and mutual funds, that are most likely to be high-risk. It also provides the basis for the selection of targets for comprehensive examination sweeps on cross-cutting issues that could present a significant threat to investors. And it drives the SEC's enforcement, rulemaking, and disclosure review functions as well. In each case, the objective is to apply the taxpayer's resources in ways that provide the biggest investor protection bang for the buck.
In recent years, the SEC has professionalized the culture of risk assessment that informs so many of our programs throughout the SEC. From relatively modest beginnings as a discrete office within the SEC established by my predecessor, William Donaldson, the risk assessment function is now wholeheartedly embraced in every major functional division and office of the agency.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would now like to discuss some of the major areas in which the SEC is currently focusing its energies, in order to provide the maximum benefit to America's retail investors.
Fighting Fraud Against Seniors
As you know, an estimated 75 million Americans will turn 60 over the next 20 years. And they will live longer than any generation before them. As the baby boomers turn 60 -- more than 10,000 of them every day for the next 20 years - they will need to continue to actively manage their investments for higher yield over their longer lifetimes, rather than switching into low-yield, safe investments as their parents did. This will have enormous consequences for our capital markets. Households led by people aged 40 or over already own 91% of America's net worth. The impending retirement of the baby boomers will mean that, very soon, the vast majority of our nation's net worth will be in the hands of our nation's seniors.
Following the Willie Sutton principle, scam artists will swarm like locusts over this increasingly vulnerable group - because that is where the money is. And it is already occurring. Nearly every day, our agency receives letters and phone calls from seniors and their caregivers who have been targeted by fraudsters.
That is why the SEC has focused its energies in this area, and why we organized our fellow regulators and law enforcement officials at the first-ever Seniors Summit in July 2006. This year's Seniors Summit, which will integrate even more of our national resources, will take place in just a few months. With our partners, the SEC has developed a strategy to attack the problem from all angles - from aggressive enforcement efforts, to targeted examinations, to investor education.
Fighting fraud against seniors means taking aggressive action. Over the past year, the SEC's Division of Enforcement has brought 26 enforcement actions aimed specifically at protecting elderly investors. Many of these were coordinated with state authorities.
For example, the Commission coordinated with law enforcement authorities in California to crack down on a $145 million Ponzi scheme that lured elderly victims to investor workshops with the promise of free food -- and then bilked them out of their retirement money by purporting to sell them safe, guaranteed notes.
In another case, we filed an emergency action to halt an ongoing securities fraud that targeted individuals' retirement funds. At "free" dinner and retirement planning seminars, seniors were urged to invest their savings in non-existent businesses with promises of alluringly high rates of return.
By bringing cases like these, and dozens more like them, the federal government is putting would-be fraudsters on notice that they will be caught and punished if they prey upon seniors.
SEC examiners are also working closely with state regulators across the country to stop abusive practices before seniors are actually injured. With our state partners, we're sharing regulatory intelligence about abusive sales tactics targeting seniors, and conducting focused examinations of any firms whose practices raise red flags.
For example, in Florida we initiated an examination sweep of firms selling investments to seniors, in cooperation with the State of Florida and the National Association of Securities Dealers. We subsequently expanded the sweep to include other states with large retiree populations - including California, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arizona. Working together with state securities regulators in those states, the NASD, and the NYSE, our goal is to see to it that the sales people at "free lunch" seminars are properly supervised by their firms, and that the seminars are not used as a vehicle to sell unsuitable investment products to seniors.
Another tool in fighting securities fraud against seniors is education. These efforts are aimed not only at seniors, but also their caregivers - as well as pre-retirement workers, who are encouraged to plan for contingencies in later life. The SEC is expanding our efforts to reach out to community organizations, and to enlist their help in educating Americans about investment fraud and abuse that is aimed at seniors. We have also devoted a portion of the SEC website specifically to senior citizens (http://www.sec.gov/investor/seniors.shtml). The site provides links to critical information on investments that are commonly marketed to seniors, and detailed warnings about common scam tactics.
Returning Funds to Wronged Investors
We at the SEC work diligently to uncover fraud against investors, gather the evidence needed to build a case, and then prosecute cases to bring fraudsters to justice. But our efforts do not end at the courthouse door. Once we succeed in convincing a court to order a penalty, we must ensure that as many of those dollars as possible go back into the hands of wronged investors as quickly as possible.
Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act created "Fair Funds," through which penalties in SEC cases can be returned directly to injured investors, the SEC has begun to develop a considerable expertise in using this important new authority. At the time I became Chairman in 2005, this authority was only three years old, and the SEC had completed the process of disbursing funds to investors in only a few cases. Since then, we have returned over $1 billion to injured investors, including significant distributions from cases involving WorldCom, Global Analysts Research, New York Stock Exchange Specialists, Hartford, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. In addition, several large disbursements are pending and will be announced shortly.
To completely fulfill the vision that Congress wrote into Sarbanes-Oxley, however, will require a sustained effort within the Commission to train professionals in this area, to develop consistent practices, and to routinize the execution of the Fair Funds function. Too much money is still undisbursed because of the complexities of the process, leaving investors uncompensated.
That is why I have ordered the creation of a new office that will focus the efforts of all of the SEC's offices around the country, and work full-time to return these funds to wronged investors. The creation of this specialized function within the SEC will ensure that investors' money is returned as quickly as possible, while minimizing the costs of the distributions.
The efforts of this new office will be aided by a new information system, called Phoenix. The system will more accurately track, collect, and distribute the billions of dollars in penalties and disgorgements that flow from our enforcement work. The efficiency of a dedicated tracking system will remove what had been a major hindrance in our efforts to quickly distribute Fair Funds.
The agency is taking other steps in this area as well. We are collaborating with the Bureau of the Public Debt to invest disgorgement and penalty funds in interest-bearing accounts. And we are working to consolidate funds from related cases into a single distribution, where appropriate, to potentially save investors hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The SEC is dedicated to doing the very best job possible for investors in handling this responsibility. We know that you in the Congress, who entrusted us with this task, expect and deserve no less.
Interactive Data
Another major initiative I want to bring to your attention holds great potential for investors. By using what I call "interactive data," we can give investors far more information, in far more useful form, than anything they've ever gotten from the SEC before. In the very near future, investors will be able to easily search through and make sense of the mountains of financial data contained in current company disclosures.
For years, ordinary investors have been stymied by the time and effort it takes to separately look up each SEC filing for a single company they might own, and then to do that again and again for every additional company in which they're interested. Even once the right forms are located, wading through all of the legal gobbledygook to find the right numbers has been nearly impossible for the average retail investor.
That is because the SEC's online system, know as EDGAR, is really just a vast electronic filing cabinet. It can bring up electronic copies of millions of pieces of paper on your computer screen, but it doesn't allow you to manage all of that information in ways that investors commonly need.
Not surprisingly, financial firms - who can afford it - usually end up getting the bulk of their information about companies not from the SEC filings, but from middlemen all over the world who re-key the information in SEC reports and put it in more useful form. This process is expensive and inefficient, and it also creates errors in the data. Worse, it feeds the notion that the rich and the highly sophisticated have a leg up in today's markets.
Interactive data will let any investor quickly focus on the disclosure they need. With a few clicks of the mouse, investors will be able to find, for example, the mutual funds with the lowest expense ratios, the companies within an industry that have the highest net income, or the overall trend in their favorite companies' earnings. It works by giving each piece of information a unique label, written in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) computer language.
The agency has taken a variety of steps to expand the use of interactive data. First, the Commission created a voluntary program for companies and mutual funds to submit disclosures using XBRL, and offered expedited reviews of disclosures if firms agree to share their experiences with the agency. More than 35 companies, including some of corporate America's biggest names, are already participating in this program.
Second, the SEC is working with outside groups to develop the standardized computer labels for different kinds of numbers that appear in financial statements. The collections of these labels for each industry - the so-called "taxonomies" - will be completed in 2007. With the taxonomies available to every SEC registrant, we will have in place the basic building blocks of
the universal language that explains the components of every firm's financial statements.
Third, the agency is modernizing the entire EDGAR system to convert it to one based on interactive data. As part of this effort, the SEC expects to rename the EDGAR system in 2007.
In all, the Commission is investing $54 million over several years to build the infrastructure to support widespread adoption of interactive data. Companies have told us that the costs of implementing XBRL are minimal, while the benefits are substantial. In addition to providing far more useful information to investors, we believe the use of interactive data will be more efficient for companies' internal processes, for their registration and compliance reporting to the SEC, and for the SEC's own disclosure reviews for regulatory and enforcement purposes.
Credit Rating Agencies
Finally, I want to discuss a significant new responsibility that the SEC is undertaking this year to oversee credit rating agencies. This new role was given to the SEC by Congress last year.
As you know, in 2006 the Congress gave the SEC both the responsibility and the authority to register and inspect the nation's credit rating agencies, including industry giants Standard & Poor's, Moody's, Fitch Ratings, A.M. Best, as well as several other large, medium, and smaller current and potential industry participants. Because of congressional concern that the industry faces potential conflicts of interest, imposes barriers to entry for new rating agencies, and has failed to warn the market of such significant impending financial failures as Enron and WorldCom even immediately before their collapses, the SEC is tasked with devoting significant manpower and resources to this area.
Under the new law and the SEC's proposed implementing rules, credit rating agencies will be required to register with the Commission. In addition, they will be required to submit to periodic inspections to insure that they are implementing policies to mitigate conflicts of interest, prevent leaks of material non-public information, and refrain from unfair or coercive practices. The SEC takes this new responsibility very seriously. We remain committed to finalizing the new rules by the statutory deadline, and we will assemble a team of staff to oversee the program and begin conducting inspections over the next several months.
Fiscal 2008 Request
With all of this as background, I'll take just a moment to provide some useful detail about the President's budget request for fiscal year 2008.
As you know, the request is for $905.3 million. That will permit the agency to maintain its staffing levels from 2007. This level of personnel strength, which as you know is significantly higher than five years ago, will permit the agency to vigorously pursue its mission and maintain strong regulatory, enforcement, examination, and disclosure review programs.
This funding level will allow the SEC to continue its commitment to information technology, which has the potential both to reduce regulatory costs and to give investors vastly more useful information than what they receive today. In addition to the SEC's interactive data initiative, the SEC is deploying new systems to better manage enforcement and examination resources, to help us manage a higher level of enforcement activity at existing personnel and funding levels. There is absolutely no question that these technology improvements will make the SEC more productive, and give both investors and taxpayers better value for their money.
Over the last two years, the SEC has made tremendous progress in improving its operations. The fiscal 2008 request will permit us to continue improving the agency's internal financial controls. The agency has poured tremendous energy into this area during my tenure as Chairman. I am pleased to say that these efforts have generated success: under the leadership of a new Executive Director, the SEC received a clean opinion on its audited financial statements for 2006 and, for the first time, there were no material weaknesses in internal controls. This is vitally important, Mr. Chairman, because the SEC must set the example not only for other federal agencies, but for all public companies whose financial statements and disclosures we review. For this reason, the SEC will continue to upgrade its financial system, and to beef up security over its information systems.
The President's budget request also will fund pay raises for SEC staff, in accordance with the SEC's pay parity authority and our collective bargaining agreement. This is a significant fact. Including cost-of-living increases, career-ladder promotions, and merit pay increases, these raises amount to between five and six percent each year. Given that from a budgetary standpoint the increases are essentially automatic, and given further that payroll represents about two-thirds of our budget, the agency's total budget has to increase by over 3.5% just to maintain personnel at a steady state from year to year.
Finally, and most importantly, the level of funding in this budget request will give the SEC the tools we need to address new, emerging risks in the nation's capital markets - including not only such known areas of concern as hedge fund insider trading, the safety and security of 401(k) plans, and the quality of disclosure to protect against fraud in the municipal securities market, but also those threats to market integrity and investor confidence that have yet to emerge.
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the SEC appropriation for fiscal 2008. I look forward to working with you on the best ways to meet the needs of our nation's investors, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.


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That is a Magic Taco Box!
For those of you who have a love for breakfast tacos and the Eastsaaeeed, you'll want to go to Taqueria Alayna's aka the MAGIC TACO BOX! Alayna's is located on East Manor in a small shopping strip; its actually part of the washateria and next to my favorite place to take my trokita for a little tune-up, Funk-a-motive. This is probably the only place I get a Huevos con Bacon ($1.75) taco in town. The tacos are big and plentiful with lots of bacon, but not strips, cuz that's lame, they do juicy bacon chunks and they good. The salsa is a bit out of the ordinary; its a green salsa heavy on the cilantro and pica pica! That's probably why I like it porque if it doesn't have a chispa, then it doesn't have flavor flave. Second best taco is a classic, the bean & cheese taco ($1.50). The taco basically melts in your mouth; the cheese is cheesy and the beans tienen saborrr de los pintos de las Americas and a must have, the refried taste of the border. I would also have to say that they probably have the best beans in town. I always say that if a place has good beans, then rest of the food will be good. I guess that's my litmus test. So next time you're thinking of going to that corner spot on Manor and Cherrywood (y'know what I'm talking about), just go 2 blocks further east, stick your hand in the magic taco box and magically, tacos will appear!
Alayna's Taqueria - 4.5 Estars - El Mundo de Mando
2611 Manor Rd

subset: commoncrawl


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In the past few years, iTunes has left its origins in the iLife suite far behind to become one of Apple's flagship applications. Apple now distributes the program for Windows as well as the Mac, due to the fact that it's the gateway to the iTunes Store, as well as the home base for iPods and the iPhone alike. Version 7.4.1 adds several new features, the most prominent among them support for creating ringtones for your iPhone.
With this ringtone, I thee wed
Feeling Marimba'ed out? If you've had the iPhone for any length of time, it's likely that you've quickly exhausted the excitement of its included twenty-five ringtones. While the phone lets you assign custom ringtones to your contacts, it's all too easy to quickly use up what Apple gives you. But with the release of iTunes 7.4.1, Apple's added the ability to transform songs bought from the iTunes Store into iPhone ringtones. As we've come to expect from Apple, the process is simple and smooth, but it's not without its share of byzantine limitations.
Creating ringtones is easy enough. The first thing you'll need to do is display the Ringtone column in your iTunes library if it's not already being shown. You can do this either by control-clicking on the column headers and selecting the Ringtone option, or by choosing View: View Options and checking off Ringtone. When you do this, Apple will offer to scan your library and mark tracks that are eligible to be made into ringtones with a small gray bell icon. Like any other column, you can drag the Ringtone column anywhere you like and sort the tracks in your library by whether or not you can make ringtones out of them.
Making a ringtone from an existing purchased song is a breeze. Simply click on the bell icon, or choose Create Ringtone from the Store menu. The first time you do this, you'll be prompted to login to your iTunes account and reread and accept iTunes's Terms of Service. Once you've done that, the bottom of the main window will slide up to reveal the ringtone editor.
If you've used GarageBand or any other music editing application, you'll grasp the concept of the ringtone editor pretty quickly. There's a waveform of the song you're editing and a blue selection "window" that shows the portion of the song that will be turned into the ringtone. The window's resizeable, allowing you to choose anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds worth of music, and you can drag it anywhere within the song. At the beginning and end of the selection are checkboxes that let you control whether you want the ringtone to fade in, fade out, both, or neither. The editor doesn't let you choose the speed of the fade, though, so you're limited to a simple yes or no.
At the bottom of the ringtone editor, you'll find a drop down menu that lets you choose how much silence there should be before the ringtone loops, ranging from 0.5 seconds to 5 seconds. Keep in mind that this gap of silence is actually part of the ringtone itself; it's inserted at the end of the ringtone file that will be generated. You can listen to your ringtone at any time by hitting the Preview button; iTunes will continue to loop it, complete with the selected gap, until you hit Stop.
Once you're happy with the ringtone, you can hit the Buy button in the editor pane to purchase it. iTunes will warn you if you haven't listened to the edited audio and prompt you to confirm your purchase. I did experience some errors when trying to purchase ringtones created from songs that I already owned, but purchasing new songs and creating ringtones from them worked fine.
After you enter your login information to verify the purchase, the ringtone file will be automatically generated by iTunes; you'll find it in the Ringtones item under Library in iTunes's source pane. You may need to update your iTunes authorization when you go to play a ringtone for the first time, but this won't change the number of computers authorized to play songs.
It's worth noting that ringtones, once made, cannot be edited or altered. Once you've bought a ringtone, it exists as its own separate song file. If you decide that you like a different part of the song better, you can certainly go back and create a ringtone of that section, but you'll need to pay another ninety-nine cents for the privilege.
That syncing feeling
Once you've made a ringtone, getting it onto your iPhone is just as easy as you'd expect. A new Ringtones tab is added to the iPhone's settings in iTunes, and it gives you the option of selecting all ringtones or only specific ones. Hitting the Apply button will transfer the selected ringtones to your iPhone, and you're all set.
On your iPhone, the new ringtones will appear with the rest of the default ringtones under Settings: Sounds: Ringtone. You can also assign any ringtone to a contact by editing their contact information and choosing Assign Ringtone.
Note that, like music and media files, you can only sync an iPhone with one computer's worth of ringtones as a time. So if you try to plug your iPhone into another computer, it will give you the option to overwrite your existing custom ringtones with the ringtones from the new computer.
Three ring circus
Making ringtones may be a snap, but there are substantial limitations, mostly regarding what music you can or cannot make into ringtones. At the special event at which ringtones were introduced, Steve Jobs said that there would initially be 500,000 tracks available to be made into ringtones. Sounds like plenty, to be sure, but remember that the iTunes Store has over six million songs. The number of ringtonable tracks will no doubt increase with time, but don't be surprised if your favorite artist only has a limited set of tracks available at present.
Finding those tracks can be tricky as well. There's no way to search the iTunes Store specifically for tracks that are ringtonable. You can turn the Ringtone column on in iTunes search listings by control-clicking on the column headers, but it doesn't stick; you'll have to turn it on every time you make a search. Some parts of the store will show a bell icon next to songs that can be made into ringtones, for example the Top Songs box shown when you click on an album, but this seems to only appear irregularly throughout the store at present.
You also can't buy just the ringtone for a song; because the ringtone editor only works on tracks in your library, you'll need to buy the song first. Clicking on the bell icon for a track in the iTunes Store will do nothing but wear out your finger.
Finally, don't expect to be able to make ringtones out of tracks that you've ripped from CDs or downloaded from other sources like eMusic or artists' websites. According to Apple's own Ringtone FAQ, "Songs imported from CDs cannot be used to create ringtones." There is a workaround for this restriction, but as it takes advantage of a loophole in iTunes, there's no guarantee that Apple won't close it in a future version.
Those looking for more versatility in their ringtone options, should probably investigate third-party solutions such as Ambrosia Software's $15 iToner, which lets you make ringtones from any compatible sound file that you own with no per-song charge. Ringtones installed by iToner seem to play well enough with the current version of iTunes, though again it's impossible to say what Apple might do in a future update.
Other features
iTunes 7.4.1 isn't just about the ringtones—no, sir. Apple's packed in a couple of other features into the upgrade as well. A new option lets you use the entire iTunes window to play back video instead of just the small cover artwork pane. You'll find the options for watching videos in the Playback section of iTunes preferences.
The update also adds in the ability to display closed captions on videos that support them, though none seem to be available from the iTunes Store as of yet. Once that content becomes available, you can enable the captions by choosing "Show Closed Captioning" from the View menu.
Music lovers who need to rate their entire library may be glad to hear that iTunes 7.4.1 also introduces album ratings. To rate an album, make sure the Album Rating column is being displayed by control-clicking on any column header and checking off Album Rating, or enabling it via the View Options dialog in the View menu. You might find that some of your albums are already rated with hollow stars: if you've rated the tracks in an album you own, iTunes will take the average of rating for those tracks and apply it to the album. If you assign a rating to album where some tracks have not yet been rated, those tracks will get the same rating as the album, but again will be displayed as hollow stars.
Finally, you might not notice one other nifty feature that crept its way into the latest version of iTunes, but the iTunes Music Store now offers a Spotlight-like search facility. When you start typing in a search term, iTunes will suggest a handful of possible matches in a drop down box; select any of those matches and you'll be taken to the corresponding search results.
[Macworld Associate Editor Dan Moren is a contributor to iPhone Central and co-editor of MacUser. ]


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Rising Health Care Costs are No Mystery
Over the last 50 years, real per capital health care spending has increased substantially. Certainly there are multiple reasons for this, but the most obvious one is seldom ever mentioned -- that the US has seen huge increases in personal wealth over this period, and unsurprisingly people choose to spend a lot of this extra wealth on their own health and life expectancy. In an age where consumerism is often derided as shallow and trivial, what could be more sensible than spending money on more and better life?
Many have pointed to the increased technological intensity of health care to explain rising costs. I suppose this could be true, though in almost every other industry in modern times, increased technological intensity has reduced rather than increased costs.
One issue that does not get enough attention is the prosaic act of shopping. I spend my own money, and I care about price. I spend someone else's money, I don't give a rip. Josh Cothran did a visualization of who is spending health care money. Just look at the 1960 and 2012 charts, and pay particular attention to the orange "out-of-pocket" number. Another way to rewrite these charts is to say consumers care about prices for spending in the orange band only.
Update: Health care cost inflation. Note cosmetic surgery, a field with significant increases in technological intensity over the last few decades, but for which almost all costs are out-of-pocket


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IBM Bolsters Cloud PortfolioOctober 10, 2013 No Comments
Singapore – 09 Oct 2013: Building on its $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a series of new offerings that fuse together high value cloud and analytics capabilities to further help clients drive business transformation and growth.
As part of this expansion, IBM is announcing new social business and mobile offerings for its 100+ software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution portfolio, integrated cloud capabilities with SoftLayer assets and new expert integrated systems for hybrid cloud computing environments.
With today's news, IBM is also announcing a series of global clients that are turning to IBM's cloud capabilities as a transformative growth engine in their industry. These include Surfline Communications, a telecommunications provider in Ghana; and TienPhong Commercial Joint Stock Bank, one of the leading financial institutions in Vietnam.
In the new era of computing, the opportunity for cloud is growing exponentially. In fact, 60 percent of all enterprises are predicted to adopt some form of cloud computing this year, according to Gartner Research. In addition, GigaOm Research forecast $158 billion in global cloud computing investment by 2014.
SoftLayer Infrastructure as the Foundation of IBM Cloud Portfolio
Since its recent acquisition, SoftLayer has already added 1,600 new clients to its existing roster of 21,000 clients in 140 countries. SoftLayer infrastructure will be the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio.
IBM is beginning to shift its cloud portfolio to SoftLayer infrastructure — first among many of these shifts includes the IBM Social Learning platform, a first of its kind social enablement platform that is part of its Smarter Workforce portfolio and is already in use under the nameOpenPediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital with 420 hospitals in 78 countries on six continents.
Today, IBM is announcing that is it commercializing the IBM Social Learning platform on SoftLayer technology to apply it across a variety of industries, such as retail, energy and utilities, government, healthcare and automotive. Now this unique combination of SoftLayer assets and IBM's cloud capabilities, built on open standards, is able to offer organizations the ability to share knowledge and expertise through real-time videos via a hybrid cloud computing environment. For example, doctors at Boston Children's Hospital can share training videos with clinicians halfway across the globe to demonstrate the latest life-saving techniques in child care. Planned to be available in December 2013, this new platform will be delivered as a service to clients.
Additionally, IBM's recent acquisition of Xtify, a leading provider of cloud-based mobile messaging tools that help organizations improve mobile sales, drive in-store traffic and engage customers with personalized offers, will also run on SoftLayer technology in the future.
"We believe cloud is going to be a transformational engine that is driving growth for our customers," said Dennis Quan, Vice President, IBM Cloud Infrastructure Services. IBM. "With today's latest offerings, IBM is continuing to move its cloud strategy forward by helping put the tools for business innovation directly in the hands of leaders tasked with reshaping their organization's vision."
SaaS Innovations for Social Engagement, Mobile Crowd-Sourcing and Retail Merchandising
Building on more than 100 SaaS applications delivered to clients today, IBM's new SaaS offerings being rolled out today are customized to meet the specific needs of lines of business leaders such as Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) spanning all industries.
Adding to its Smarter Workforce portfolio, IBM today is also launching the new IBM Mobile Feedback App, a cloud-based mobile application that allows human resources professionals and line of business executives such as sales, marketing or research to quickly plug into the opinions and ideas of employees. Executives can use this feedback to make informed decisions on productivity, retention rates, and employee engagement.
Available now, a new IBM Survey Analytics application uses text and visual analytics to automatically extract and display over one million pieces of anonymous unstructured data derived from employee surveys, including more than 4.2 million employee comments collected annually through surveys conducted by Kenexa. It then provides findings via a sentiment "heat map" of trends broken down by employee segments, which allows executives to tap into the pulse of their organization to improve performance and morale.
In addition to the new software and services, IBM also recently announced the availability of IBM SmartCloud for Social Business on SoftLayer's industry leading infrastructure in a new Amsterdam data center. Today more than 9,000 cloud clients, including Sika AG and SafeGuard World International, and 75 percent of the Fortune 100 are transforming their business operations with IBM enterprise social software.
New additions to IBM's retail merchandising cloud include a new capability to help multi-channel and pure play retailers increase sales and profitability, while maintaining a competitive price position. Merchandisers using IBM's DemandTec solutions can now benefit from automated updates to pricing delivered online or in-store. This new flexibility enables merchandisers to easily and rapidly respond to competitive price changes, providing both a better customer experience and improved control over pricing strategies.
With this release, IBM also expands its cloud capabilities for digital marketers and merchandisers with real time personalization to help organizations improve customer engagement and drive revenue. Analyzing multiple factors, such as the products digital consumers are browsing for and adding to their carts, the solution provides insights. to the marketer and delivers real-time, personalized cross-sell recommendations to the consumer. Innovations to IBM's cloud marketing suite also include the ability to deliver promotions to consumers when most effective such as live on the site or via email after they've left.
New IBM Systems and Solutions for Private and Hybrid Cloud Deployments
New systems and solutions being introduced today can also help clients and managed service providers (MSPs) build private and hybrid clouds to get the most out of social, mobile and Big Data workloads. These include new IBM PureFlex Systems and IBM Power Systems solutions that provide the flexibility clients need to quickly deploy clouds and cloud services. The PureFlex System – Express, available as a single chassis configuration only, offers an affordable entry price point suitable for small and midsize businesses. The PureFlex System – Enterprise, with selectable rack offerings, is designed for scalable cloud deployments with built-in redundancy for resilient operation. Both systems support all Power processor and x86-based compute nodes. The PureFlex Solution for SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure is optimized to deliver superior performance and flexibility to meet clients' unique desktop virtualization business needs. IBM also announced that its software patterns for PureApplication System, which are designed to radically streamline the set-up and management of hardware and software resources, can now be deployed on SoftLayer.
Additionally, new Power Systems solutions to further support hybrid cloud environments and simplify clients' ability to adapt to emerging business needs at a lower cost with greater flexibility compared to commodity servers based on decades old, PC era design. The new Power Systems Solution Edition for Service Providers enables fast go-to-market with a pre-built, pre-installed cloud solution based on OpenStack for SmartCloud Entry and PowerVC. IBM PowerVC offers leading virtualization to improve resource utilization and agility for OpenStack implementations. The new IBM PowerVP is a virtualization performance tool that helps clients respond to business needs faster by providing real-time insight into their virtualization performance through graphical display. For clients seeking open cloud environments, the new Power Integrated Facility for Linux enables clients to better exploit the reliability, scale and performance of enterprise class Power servers to improve quality of service and reduce the cost of managing their Linux ecosystem. In addition, IBM is also announcing support for OpenStack across all models of PureApplication System, including new models of PureApplication System on Power to enable lower entry points starting at 32-cores.
IBM Cloud Capabilities Helps Drive Client Transformation
TienPhong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TienPhong Bank), one of the leading banks in Vietnam, is using IBM cloud solutions to expand its business operations, drive growth and deliver a variety of new customer services. These capabilities are being applied to its core banking upgrade, mobile apps and e-banking services to target the individual consumer and bring better customer service. As a result, it has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of customers in less than one year.
Additionally, Ghanaian telecommunications provider Surfline Communications has selected IBM cloud solutions to help expand its mobile data services throughout the country. As a recent entrant into the competitive telecommunications landscape in Ghana, Surfline announced the first commercial deployment of a 4G LTE network in parts of Western and Central Africa earlier this year. Working with IBM's cloud capabilities, Surfline is able to provide excellent service deliver to customers, improve operational efficiency, and increase its return on investment.
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities. No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. Most recently IBM acquired SoftLayer with more than 21,000 clients in 140 countries to further build out its IaaS portfolio with an easy and secure on ramp to cloud integrating IBM SmartCloud.


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Comic books browse by: Shop category:
Artist BéduAvailable series in store category "Comic books"
Bédu (AKA Bernard Dumont) in the COMICLOPEDIA
" Bernard Dumont, better known by his pseudonym Bédu, is a comic artist who has worked for the magazines Tintin and Spirou since the 1970s. Born in Ciney in the province of Namur, he studied economical sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain. It was during his..." [ Read more ]


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Home | Docs | Premium | All themes plan | Plugins | Videos | Blog
AF Themes
The most flexible WordPress themes and plugins crafted for the future web.
Import live demo content, widgets, and settings swiftly. This plugin gives fundamental layout to build your website & accelerate the development process.
This plugin will create a page in AF Companion.
If there are no prebuilt import files in the theme you are using, then you will be given three file upload inputs. The first one is mandatory, whereas the second and third one is optional.
In the first one , you need to upload demo content XML file for the genuine demo import.
In the second one, it asks you for WIE or JSON file to import widgets. You can create that file using Widget Importer & Exporter plugin.
In the third one, you can import the customizer settings, choose the DAT file that can be created from Customizer Export/Import plugin (the customizer settings will be imported only if the export file was created from the same theme).
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AF Companion uses 'One Click Demo Import' plugin script
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Licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0,
AF Companion uses 'WordPress Importer' plugin script
(C) 2016 @humanmade
Licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0,
AF Companion, Copyright 2021 AF themes
AF Companion is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL
This program is free software; you can raftcstribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
From your WordPress dashboard
- Visit 'Plugins > Add New',
- Search for 'AF Companion' and install the plugin.
- Activate 'AF Companion' from your Plugins page.
Once the plugin is activated you will find the actual import page in Appearance -> AF Companion.
I have activated the plugin. Where is the "AF Companion" page?
You will find the import page in wp-admin -> AF Companion.
Where are the demo import files and the log files saved?
The files used in the demo import will be saved to the default WordPress uploads directory. An example of that directory would be:
The log file will also be registered in the wp-admin -> Media section, so you can access it easily.
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Update: There is now a admin error notice, stating that the minimal PHP version required for this plugin is 5.3.2.
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This happens, because your hosting server is using a very old version of PHP. This plugin requires PHP version of at least 5.3.x, but we recommend version 5.6.x. Please contact your hosting company and ask them to update the PHP version for your site.
Contributors & Developers
"Starter Sites Importer for WordPress: Build Websites Faster with AF Companion" is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.Contributors
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1.2.5 – 25/08/2023
Update – Compatibility with WP 6.3
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Update – Compatibility with WP 6.2
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Fixed – check_ajax_referer issue resolved
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Fixed – Unused functions removed
1.1.1 – 12/11/2021
Fixed – Unused functions removed
1.1.0 – 12/11/2021
Fixed – Required plugins setup functionality added
1.0.6 – 15/09/2021
Fixed – Demo Files not Accessed Issues
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Fixed – WP Importer Redeclaration Issues
Update – Added Some Essentials Links
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Update – WP 5.8 Compatibility Check
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Fixed – Import Success Message
1.0.1 – 18/04/2021
Fixed – Undefined Pro Link
1.0.0 – 16/02/2021
Initial ReleaseE


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WELL THE LAST DAYS are approaching, not in an apocalyptic sense, though it feels rather that way. We are tearing about like loons trying to get it all done. I am spending my days up in the attic animating, scrunched up into a crooked S shape, only knowing the weather changes by pattering or lack of it on the roof by my ear. Tui meanwhile has been rising at bird dawn to rush round to the dingy old garage and put all the final flourishes to his masterpiece of a truck-home. The cupboard doors are a marvel, and there are hinges and catches and little hinged shelf ledges. We have a fully plumbed in brass pump tap which makes the most interesting graunching noise as it delivers water, and all the gaps round the doors have been closed in with artistic knotted lintels and edges. I have taken the odd break from move-clicking my paper characters to make a curtain from an old pair of well-loved trousers and a brown-dyed decorators' dust cloth.
Today, by candlelight, I tiled the small area of wall behind the fire with terracotta floor tiles to stop the wood getting too hot when the fire is alight. Tui's hands are all a-blister from days and days with a screwdriver, and we are panicking about all the last minute things that need doing as a cold wet cloud creature sits plumply ontop of our village making all tasks much more difficult than we'd like. In our back pockets, we keep a golden nugget called Thrill Of Journey; it is warm and we peep at it sometimes in between stresses. We mustn't look at it too much just now, but we mustn't forget it either.


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The following is a list of this forums rules:
Don't forget to check out the articles in the (you guessed it) Articles Section (see the tabs at the top of the page). You will find it contains a lot of great information on writing poetry and short stories.
- Flaming, Bashing, and Trolling - Hate posts and personal attacks will not be tolerated on Rhymezone. Treat others on these message boards as you would expect them to treat you. Posting topics specifically designed to provoke a negative response from someone (aka trolling) is also asked to be avoided. There are however some posts that will cause debates that may offend you. If you are easily offended by discussions about race, religion, and other highly opinionated topics we suggest you stay out of those topics.
- No Discrimination - You may not insult members based on their religion, race, sex, political beliefs, or whether they are gay or straight. This is worse than flaming, because it also hurts other members of the board who fall into the category you insult.
- No Hacking - This should go without saying, but you are not permitted to hack the board. Guessing someone else's password and succeeding counts as hacking. Members who hack will instantly be permanently banned without any warnings.
- No Nudity or Obscene Content - Such content does not belong on Rhymezone. Please remember that this board is a 'PUBLIC' forum. There are 12 year olds here just as there are 50 year olds.
- No Plagiarism – Plagiarism of another person's work is not permitted. That includes both posing others work here and taking credit for it as well as stealing a members work posted here and reposting it elsewhere without permission or without giving proper credit.
- No Illegal Activity - You are not allowed to break the law using Rhymezone. This can get Rhymezone into legal trouble.
- Warnings will be issued to those members who violate the rules. Multiple warnings or serious offense will result in suspension or banning of your account.
- This is an English speaking forum, please type your post in English. If you don't speak English how are you reading these rules?
- Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
- No Spamming -We know it when we see it. But basically topics or posts that have no other purpose but to push a product, web site or service will be deleted and the poster may be banned, especially if the text doesn't even make sense and you are spamming on your first post. We can tell the difference between a member that is excited about a product or web site, etc. and wants to tell other members out it to be helpful and real Spam.
- The Admins reserve the right to add new rules as needed, although we hope we won't need to because we hate rules too.
Don't forget to check out the articles in the (you guessed it) Articles Section (see the tabs at the top of the page). You will find it contains a lot of great information on writing poetry and short stories.


text:
No gamepads detected. Plug in and press a button to use it.
Press Keyboard right side: Alt+Enter keys to switch to full screen game play, and Alt+Enter keys to return.
Rate it
How to play Schoolhouse
Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse.
Schoolhouse Description
Schoolhouse for DOS
Cheats/Hints/Walkthroughs for Schoolhouse
No posted cheats for this game yet.


text:
Welcome to Nellyville, where all newborns get a half-a-mill'
Sons, get Sedan DeVille, soon as they can reach the wheel
And daughters, get diamonds the size of their age - help me out now
One year get one carat, two years get two carats
Three years get three carats, and so on into marriage
Nobody livin average, everybody jang-a-lang
Nobody livin savage, e'rybody got change
Even the paperboy deliver out the back of a Range
It's not a game, it's a beautiful thang
Imagine blocks and blocks of no cocaine, blocks with no gunplay
Ain't nobody shot, so ain't no news that day
Ain't nobody snitchin, they refuse to say
Every month - we take a vote on what the weather should be
And if we vote it rains - know how wet we want it to be
And if we vote it snow - know how deep we want it to get
But the sun gon' shine 99 percent, in Nellyville
There's no.. way.. I.. I could explaiiiiin..
the way I feel right now
There's no.. way.. I.. I could explaiiiiin..
the way I feel about livin in Nellyville
I got that good at e'ry gas station, pull on up
Give me a half a ounce of that shit, fill it up
We got straws for the bottles, outlaw the cups
And we gon' make it happen, ain't no need for no luck
Ain't no lotteries, no pick 3's or pick 2's
Keep the money in your family, gamble amongst your crew
Cause the dice gon' do what the dice gon' do
And if you take a life, you gon' lose yours too
Ain't no trials, it's automatic, you drop 'em right where it happen
You do unto others if you don't want it don't do the cappin
Think that's cool? 40 acres and a mule
Fuck that! Nellyville - 40 acres and a pool
Six bedrooms, full bath with a jacuzz'
Six-car garage, pavement smooth
Both front and back deck 'nough room to land a jet
And you ain't reached the city, that's just the projects
Everybody, uh, now everybody say
Well I want to go, please let me go
I need to go - down to Nellyville
I need to see, what I can see
Won't you and me - go to Nellyville
I want to go, so bad
I just want to go and look
Won't you please take me on in
I just know I gotta be there
No unexpectancy, like teenage pregnancy
And physical mental attraction your only ecstasy
Your own destiny, create your own recipe
If you ain't livin accordin to dirty then you stressin me
"And who are you?" Who me? I'm the mayor
And any problems you got, I live up thurr
"Where's that?" The house on the hill, welcome mat of fur
When you pass by that thang, be polite and don't sturr
There's no.. way.. yeah
There's no.. way.. yeah
There's no.. way.. yeah
There's no.. way..
[thanks to email@example.com for these lyrics]
[Thanks to firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com for correcting these lyrics]
Copyright ©
Ěóçűęŕëüíűé Ďîđňŕë íŕ Ęóëč÷ęŕő
Đĺęëŕěŕ â Číňĺđíĺň


text:
LucasArts or Sierra: You could like both, but, more often than not, people tended to prefer one over the other in the golden age of adventure games. Though King's Quest VI was my introduction to the genre (and the Windows operating system it was bundled with), Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island series, and Full Throttle were the games I obsessed over and showed to visiting friends at any opportunity.
Daedalic Entertainment began as an interesting experiment but has quickly become one of the most recognizable names in modern adventure games, releasing The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav nearly a month ago and cult favorite The Whispered World a while before that. Its recent titles dealt with heavy subject matter and dark fantasy worlds that feel closer to Sierra's flagship series. Yet, Daedalic got its start with silly, colorful games that imitated LucasArts. Deponia is the developer's return to this style of adventure.
Although it doesn't hold up to LucasArt's best, Deponia is a reminder of why some of us loved those games so much more than their contemporaries.
Deponia (PC)
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment, Lace Mamba
Released: August 7, 2012
Deponia smells like garbage, because it's a planet made of garbage. Its citizens have made this supposedly uninhabitable junkyard of a planet into their home. Everyone except Rufus. Deponia to him is nothing more than the planet that his father abandoned him on. Now, he wants to return to his birthplace far away in the sky.
Deponia (the game) is a lot of things: It's an adventure, romance, and comedy all wrapped up into one goofy story. Rufus is a confident dope who bears much in common with Secret of Monkey Island's Guybrush Threepwood. While his ambitions are a bit less, he possesses a similar wit and cluelessness in any given situation. He describes himself as "a cool version of herpes" but his friends and neighbors on Deponia would leave out the cool part. Though he is sympathetic, it took me some time to become attached to him. The same can be said about the game as a whole.
Deponia has a lot more in common with Secret of Monkey Island than just sharing a similar lead character. Everything from the dialog to the comically-driven puzzles recalls LucasArts's classic. As a result, Deponia doesn't feel all that fresh. It doesn't help that the game has serious problems with pacing and puzzle design in its first act (the lengthiest of the three). Things are slow-going at first. The game soon gives you a lot of ground to cover in a large city hub, but you'll run into some obtuse puzzles that won't make much more sense once you stumble upon the solution. The logic behind some puzzles relies too heavily on a comedic mindset rather than that of a sensible human being.
LucasArts perfected their craft over the years, learning when to leave comedy out of the picture for playability. Deponia isn't quite so discerning in its use of comedy nor is its comedic chops quite as cutting. The game prolongs dialog with bad joke after bad joke, at times. I can appreciate the spirit but I expect an adventure game to be more sparing in its humor. When every dialog option with a character doesn't tell me anything about the game's plot or characters, I start to become disinterested. I can't stress enough though that these problems are mostly restricted to the first act. Even the comedy becomes stronger in the following acts — it's a very odd thing that makes me wonder what the production process was like behind the game.
Rufus' life becomes complicated once his plans to escape Deponia end up with him becoming responsible for a girl named Goal. He accidentally incapacitates her and decides to find a way to make her regain consciousness, hoping that she'll help bring him back to his father's home planet. While Rufus has some depth, he is a self-serving character that is hard to root for until the game's second half. The main reason the first half sags, however, is that Deponia is kind of a miserable place. Rufus' neighbors, ex-girlfriend, and even his best friend are all mean to Rufus and not very interesting characters.
Despite Deponia being a rather nasty place, it's brought to life through a gorgeous hand-drawn aesthetic that recalls Curse of Monkey Island. The animation is very sub-par, with characters and backgrounds barely moving, but the design and art of the game's locales are consistently interesting and eye-catching. Though the game is nice to look at, the dull animation is a constant reminder that this is developed by an indie with a modest budget. The same can be said of the English version's hit-and-miss voice cast — the game was originally voiced in German but there is no option to change to it. Thankfully Rufus sounds good and there are some quality performances later in the game, but it's not top-caliber stuff. The grating voice effect on the game's stormtrooper-esque Organon troopers is another chink in the game's presentation.
Despite a poor beginning and ending, I can't shake off the warm feeling Deponia left me with. It's a game with a big heart and some clever puzzles that recall a special time in the history of adventure games. The game lacks the consistency, quality animation, and hilarity of Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert's work, but Deponia is a charming and creative adventure that stands above many of its contemporaries. You can deduce the game to being a tribute to the golden years of LucasArts, but isn't that exactly what so many want right now?


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This site exists to challenge preconceived notions about the personalities of astrology signs. If you are tired of superficial astrology sites then you are in the right place.
Throughout my years as an astrologer I have seen reams of misinformation in regards to how the zodiac signs express their nature.
This site gives a comprehensive understanding of the astrology signs in isolation, the astrology of compatibility, and the use of celebrity birth charts to illustrate how the signs manifest through people we are all familiar with.
This is not strictly a sun-sign astrology site but rather a general overview of the personalities of astrology signs regardless of which planets or points are tenanting them.
We will learn about the difference between the sun and moon in astrology. Many people know their sun-sign but are unaware of what their moon-sign is. This can easily be remedied.
I am here to educate you and point you in the direction towards enlightenment. Astrology is the oldest science known to mankind and has much to tell us about how to live our lives in a deeper accord with our true nature.
I offer chart interpretations and consultations.
Use the navigation bar on the left to find the information you seek.
Read on and know thyself!


text:
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Mishimoto front mount intercooler products are constructed of 6061 aluminum and precision tig welding. Mishimoto's universal intercooler products provide the ideal cooling capacity for any small and large turbo application, while safely increasing horsepower and giving that extra boost that every driver appreciates. We also sell accessory silicone hose couplers for use with your intercooler.
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text:
on January 16, 2017
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Buy on Amazon
Add to Goodreads
Unspoken Promises are worse than lies.
Morgan Kennedy and Lincoln Gates have been in love since high school. Their friends have envied their devotion to not only each other, but also the life they've made together. From the
outside looking in, their relationship is perfect. One mirrored of fairytales. But behind the door, Morgan isn't feeling as fulfilled as she once did. She wants more. She wants the glass slipper and
the happily ever after.
What Lincoln and Morgan don't anticipate is that a horrific event is about to make them second-guess their wants.
"What happened to us, Lincoln? Where did things go wrong?" she mutters uneasily. Tears slowly find their way down her cheeks.
"I wish I had the answer, but I don't." My voice wavers.
"I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. I'm losing myself. I hate who I've
become," she shakes her head regretfully.
"I hate that I'm hurting you."
I get up and sit next to her. I place my hand under her chin, lifting her face so I can see her. "I love you. You know that, don't you?"
"I know you love me. That's never been the problem." Her faint smile holds a touch of sadness.
How do two people that love each other repair what has been broken? Can we? Seeing her sad is breaking me. I'm such a dumbass for not realizing how much she's hurting watching her best friend get something she wants so bad. Something that I'm not willing to give her.
The ride home takes about an hour with the city traffic this time of night. With Morgan's hand clasped with mine we enter my apartment. The sound of the door shutting echoes in the living room. I turn the lock and toss my keys on the table next to the door.
I follow Morgan in to the bedroom. I lean down and place a gentle kiss against her lips. The touch of her lips is a delicious sensation. I raise my mouth from hers and gaze into her eyes. Christian was right. They are sad. How haven't I noticed how much this is affecting her?
She pushes up against me to meet my lips again. Morgan showers kisses around my lips and along my jaw. Her breath smells sweet, like the fruity cocktail she was drinking at the wedding reception. The kisses are slow and sensual that drive me wild. My mouth swoops down to capture hers. She parts her lips granting me access to her tongue. Her tongue tastes sugary. My lips recapture hers, more demanding this time.
I pull away from her and gaze into her dark brown eyes. My hands make their way to her face, cupping her cheeks. "I love you, Morgan," I say against her hips.
She bites her lip, and a groan passes through my lips. My chest heaves uncontrollably. It's been a few weeks since we've been intimate.
Slowly my fingertips pull the zipper of her dress. Once it reaches the bottom, her strapless dress falls to the floor. Her flawless body stands before be in a lacey black strapless bra and matching thong.
I gently outline her nipples, causing her to suck in a quick breath. Her nipples harden immediately from being teased. I gradually work my way to the clasp at the back undoing it. Her bra falls to the floor and I can't help but lean down and take her nipple into my mouth.
Her hands pull on my hair. I press kisses, feathery and light, followed by little love bites as I make my way down her body. Morgan shivers and arches against me. I guide her toward the bed until the back of her thighs hit the mattress.
"Lie down."
Morgan complies and I take her breast into my mouth and suck hard. She moans, when I bite her nipple.
When I look up, I see a mark on her breast. I sucked a little too hard. I should feel bad, but I don't. Instead, I feel proud. Possessive. I love leaving my mark on Morgan.
I rip her panties off and throw them to the side.
Morgan gasps and looks down at me. "They were brand new," she says angrily.
"They were in the way… I'll buy you new ones."
I continue to torture her with kisses along her stomach, her hip, then her thighs. My hands stroke the inside of her thigh. I explore the sexy curves that lead to her tight little ass.
"Stop teasing me," she pleads.
When I find her clit, I suck on her sensitive bud. She cries out and grips my hair and grinds against my face.
I lick her, kiss her, torture her with my mouth until she is chanting my name.
"Lincoln, oh, God."
I smile as I bite her clit, then suck on it.
"Don't stop. Just like that." Her orgasm hits her hard. She pulls my face against her and grinds against my face. Her other hand grips the sheet as she cries out.
Her back arches off the bed and her body trembles.
I don't give her time to recover as I make my way up her body, trailing kisses along the way.
"Who do you belong to, Morgan? Tell me." My voice low and demanding.
"You," she moans "Always, you." Her voice unsteady. She closes her eyes.
"Look at me, don't close your eyes. I need to see your eyes. You need to know who is doing this to you."
She blinks, then her eyes blaze up at me.
"I'll fight for you. Don't give up on us." I kiss the tip of her nose and climb off the bed to quickly undress.
UNSPOKEN WORDS (Book 1, Unspoken Love Series)
Two lives…as close to perfect as they can be.
Camryn Townsend has everything she's always dreamed of…an amazing family, supportive friends, and the perfect job.
Everything a girl could want. Or is it? A trip back to her childhood home threatens to unravel her web of perfection.
Her problem…she's in love with her best friend and she's too scared to sacrifice their friendship for a love she's always wanted.
Jamie Banks' life is the epitome of perfection. His company is thriving, his band is on the cusp of stardom, and the girl he loves is returning home.
His problem…the girl he loves has been his best friend for as long as he can remember and he's not sure he's ready to sacrifice his best friend for a lover. Pursuing a relationship with the possibility of losing her has him second-guessing everything he knows.
Unspoken words are the only thing standing in their way.
Guilt, pain, and sorrow… emotions that can break you, if you let them. Sometimes it's not the events that ruin you, but simply your reaction to desolation in your life. In Unspoken Promises, we catch back up with two beloved characters. I couldn't wait to get inside Lincoln and Morgan. I was excited to peel back their layers, and see exactly who they were. Ms. Davenport has done a wonderful job of presenting two endearing, intriguing characters. I fell in love with this cast of characters in book one, as their dynamic was wonderfully illustrated. Book two picks that back up seamlessly, and we are given a glimpse into tragedy and how differently the same exact experience can damage people so conversely.
"Tell Your heart to beat again, Morgan. You need to live again. I know you feel broken. The life we knew shattered right in front of us and has only spiraled out of control since then."


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Luxury Outlook 2023
An ambitious exploration into high-end residential markets across the globe.
Property details
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Houston, Texas, has been dubbed the energy capital of the world. Energy doesn't just refer to the gas and oil industries, but to the buzz of the streets. The Lone Star State's largest city--as well as the largest city in the South--is a youthful one with a rising profile in art, culture and culinary pursuits.Show More


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On Feb. 12, 2012, Kotaku introduced "The Kotaku Network," which brings you the best that TV has to offer: regularly scheduled programming. We hatched segments like Off-Kilter, Melodic, Sportaku, and Panel Discussion, and dedicated blocks of time on the site to their topics. But soon into this idea, a problem emerged: How do we let people know when their favorite "shows" are on?
From this, we developed a solution. A ridiculous solution, a misunderstood solution, a pain in the ass of a solution. But it was the best solution: The Kotaku Arrow.
Beginning Feb. 13, 2012, Kotaku posted 284 arrows, a record for publishing images of pink arrows by a video game publication. Some were thought-provoking, even powerful. Others simply pointed to something above it, the arrow's centuries-old task, yet one still done with straight posture and basic dignity.
This is how they changed. This is how they changed us. This is the Year in Arrows.
The First Arrow
Brian Ashcraft, February 13, 2012.
Kotaku's longest-tenured writer ushered in the Arrow Era with this accurate report on the time Kotaku East would appear.
The Traffic Monster
Owen Good, March 30, 2012.
As you all know, we only do it for the clicks. This Arrow, which gathered 8,076 views for some reason, is by far the most efficient use of my time in four-and-a-half years with Kotaku. By comparison, I spent 17 hours reporting this 1,500 word NCAA Football feature, which raked in 3,642 clicks.
The Great Communicator
Mike Fahey, Feb. 13, 2012.
I swear Stephen Totilo told us at least nine times to deactivate comments on our Arrow posts. Did we listen to him? Hell, do we ever? When we left them open, most of the comments were like "WTF is this?" and "I click on the arrow and only see a bigger arrow??" and "I'm commander shardik and this is my favorite show on the kotaku." The record for most comments was set early on, Feb. 13, when Zavios popped in to ask "What's the safeword!?" which was entirely on-topic considering both Off-Kilter and Mike Fahey were involved in the creation of this Arrow. When the dust settled, there were 32 comments, for which ImmaLion helpfully provided an appropriate soundtrack.
Owen Good, May 31.
Most everyone else said something like, "[Block name] starts now," but not me. I try harder than my co-workers. And my barbed wit symbolized both the Arrow and its creative purpose with "Any Rebroadcast of Sportaku Without the Express Written Consent of this Arrow is Prohibited." As this console generation draws to a close, this Arrow boldly stood apart from its design-by-numbers brethren and left an emotional mark on video game website arrows for all time to come.
The Final Word
crunks (Kotaku commenter), July 17, 2012.
Crunks was severely disturbed by The Walking Dead's issue No. 100, but Evan Narcisse wasn't talking about that in his Panel Discussion on this day. In the last Arrow with comments enabled, Crunks managed to decompress with commenters Remember and willroyboy. The Kotaku Arrow: When you've got nowhere else to turn, it's always there. Pointing up.
The Arrow Era Ends
Evan Narcisse, Aug. 7, 2012.
By July most of us had given up on posting arrows. I just started phoning mine in like they were a roster update or something. ("Sportaku is above this arrow," was my last. I mean, really?) Evan was the final holdout, bravely firing off arrows as the rest of us abandoned him.


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The wine version of the RAML 327 boot is a perfect addition to your winter closet: Cool - Cozy - Comfortable. The initial boot (in black) is an initiative taken by Jean 327 in collaboration with the footwear brand Rana Cheikha.
Specifications: calfskin & scotch grain leather | 2 buckles to close | natural leather lining | padded leather insole | neolight sole | heels at 15 mm | handcrafted in Lebanon
Just love those boots for it's feminine and classic look ,so practical and comfy to keep them all day long !
Love the shoes


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There are several news they published that made me wonder about the real intention of this newspaper to publish such news. There are several examples ,the most recent is what they published yesterday Monday.
Last Sunday several streets in Cairo mainly down town "Talaat Harb st." were found to have certain unknown drawings , it became a national security issue for the state security , it does not make sense to have these drawings blocks away from the interior ministry down town. Needless to say nobody understood its meaning !!!
I saw the photos of the drawings in Youm 7 , my only guess it was a mad graffiti artist, of course I had my wonder on how he made such drawings in such area down town without beginning noticed.
Yesterday Monday at 11 :08 Am the newspaper published an exclusive news : The Egyptian Emos were behind the drawings downtown and that this drawing "which depicts a man with a broom , of course I did not know that" means unlimited feelings !!!!!!!!!!
According to a member from Egypt's underground dangerous Emo group it is a message to the state security that they are not affected by these arrests that followed "Al-Hakika show" and these drawings mean that the group is too big that we think. This news was published by Ahmed Mustafa who seems to know an insider in the Emos !!
I did not believe the story and I wanted to comment on it as soon as I read it but I got engaged in Sham El-Nassim. I felt that it was an attempt by the interior ministry to hunt down the Emos again.
Thank goodness that I waited because in 15:47 PM Youm 7 published another news , this time by Gamal Al-Shanawy , the news is saying that the interior ministry succeeded in arresting those who drew those drawings and guess what they are not Emos and may be they have not heard about them in their entire life !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are two artists from the town house gallery were trying to promote a new logo they invented to become the new logo of the state cleanliness campaign !! A car technician was helping them by holding their tools.
Now what bring the Emos in to the issue in the first place ?? Is not this a fabrication !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do not know why we do not put the Emos phenomena in its right size.
- Al Masry Al Youm mentions that there is confusion despite the arrest of those artists , a security source told them the Emos were behind it , not to mention that dangerous underground EMO cell in Egypt have announced their responsibility !! Did they send a statement to the major newspapers or what ??
- Al Shorouk today tried to hold the stick from the middle , the police arrested two EMO artists responsible for these strange drawings !!
- The authorities released the two artists for L.E 100 bail ,already they did not anything to deserve all that noise.


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Performance Materials
Performance Materials' CETCO business is the leading global supplier of Geosynthetic Clay Liners (GCLs) and has a full range of products to address design challenges such as hydraulic performance, shear strength and chemical compatibility. Whatever the containment application, CETCO can assist with the selection of the most appropriate solution for the project.
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(visited by Stephen Franks, Josh Cocker, Marc Lamontagne and Khalid al-Shahab)
20-Dec-2002 -- After successfully locating confluences 27N 36E and 28N 36E, we headed back south toward Yanbu`. We had wanted to try for confluence 26N 37E as well, but time was running short. We decided that we would have to forego the last Confluence, since it appeared that although it was near a highway, it was likely to be in the mountains we could see to the east, and, therefore, difficult to access. At the last minute, however, we decided to take a quick look, so we turned on the paved highway going east toward the mountains, watching our GPS and hoping we'd reach the point before reaching the mountains.
As it turned out, the Confluence was in a large flat plain surfaced with coarse-packed sand and pea gravel that made driving to it very easy. It turned out to be the easiest Confluence of all! The mountains to the East made a beautiful setting, but unfortunately a camera malfunction resulted in rather fuzzy photographs for which we apologize!


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Place potatoes in dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir. Dot with remaining butter. Add water to depth of 1/8" around potatoes. Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 1 hour, or until potatoes are crisp and brown on outside and tender inside.
Variation: Instead of adding water, grate 1/2 stick of butter over potatoes, sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Cover with tin foil. Bake 60-90 minutes at 350°. Can also be baked at same time as your meat, at a lower heat, for up to 2 hours. Just make sure it's covered.


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Apple kept to their 90-days word—it's January 6th, and the Mac App Store is ready for your custom. There's over 1,000 apps—both free and paid-for—for Macs, with all that's needed is Snow Leopard and an iTunes account.
You'll have to download the software update Mac OS X v10.6.6 to install the App Store, and as expected, iLife '11 programs (iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand) are sold individually through there for $15 each, along with Pages, Keynote and Numbers for $20 and Aperture 3 for $80.
True, 1,000 apps isn't that many—but as with the iOS App Store, we expect that number will grow quickly. We're going to take a big look at the Mac App Store later today, but in the meantime let us know what you think of it all, via the comments field.
Apple's Mac App Store Opens for Business
CUPERTINO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Apple® today announced that the Mac® App Store℠ is now open for business with more than 1,000 free and paid apps. The Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac, so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store is available for Snow Leopard® users through Software Update as part of Mac OS® X v10.6.6.
"With more than 1,000 apps, the Mac App Store is off to a great start," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think users are going to love this innovative new way to discover and buy their favorite apps."
The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews.
Entirely new apps, as well as current Mac favorites, are available from developers such as Autodesk, Ancestry.com and Boinx. iPhoto®, iMovie® and GarageBand® apps from Apple's popular iLife® '11 suite are available individually in the Mac App Store for $14.99 each, and Pages®, Keynote® and Numbers® apps from iWork® are available for $19.99 each. Aperture® 3, Apple's powerful photo editing and management software, is available for $79.99.
"We're delighted to bring our professional-grade paint and drawing app, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, to the Mac App Store on its first day of launch," said Carl Bass, Autodesk's CEO. "We've seen tremendous success on the Mac, iPhone and iPad with multiple apps. We're excited to offer SketchBook Pro on the Mac App Store so artists can easily create everything from quick sketches to high-quality artwork right on their Macs."
"By offering the Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker app on the Mac App Store, we're making it even easier for people to discover and access their family history," said Tim Sullivan, Ancestry.com's CEO. "The Mac App Store will drive a new generation of innovation on the Mac platform."
"We're thrilled to have our award-winning animation, video production and photography software available on the new Mac App Store," said Oliver Breidenbach, Boinx Software's CEO. "The Mac App Store makes it easier than ever for consumers to access all the innovative software designed for the Mac."
To get the Mac App Store, download the Mac OS X v10.6.6 Software Update or visit www.apple.com/mac/app-store. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit developer.apple.com/programs/mac.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.


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Using live online classrooms and guided activities, people are changing the traditional model and bringing the classroom to their students across India.
myEnglish teachers at the British Council, India are guiding adult learners to achieve success through interactive online English courses. Using live online classrooms and guided online activities they are changing the traditional model and bringing the British Council classroom to their students across India.
Huma, Avinash, Purbani, Rajul and Ellora work in cities across India and are teachers at the British Council. Unlike most teachers, however, their job comes with a twist – their classroom only exists in the virtual world! Read their responses to questions about their work and their students!
How did you get into this very 21st century way of working?
Purbani: "I was given an opportunity to be a part of an online teacher-training programme. The course opened new avenues for me and I realised that online teaching might just be the future of education".
Avinash: "I've always been interested in the use of technology in making learning engaging and more accessible. I'd had some experience as a student and was interested in the implications it had for a teacher. I felt there were several possibilities to be explored with online teaching."
Huma: "The excitement of doing something so new and the fear of the unknown meant it would expand my teaching skills as well as give the flexibility and convenience of working at my own pace in my own space – something I had been long wishing for."
Ellora: "I love teaching online. It allows me to work from home which saves time and allows flexibility".
Rajul: "I can see all my students; I connect with them online and deliver classes prepared for them in a relaxed, fun manner without feeling the need to travel and rush into class from home. I am teaching from home! Even the students don't have to go to class; the class comes to them wherever they are".
What's a typical week on a course like for your students?
Huma: "Interactive, practical, exciting, and demanding nevertheless! Everything that happens in a face-to-face class is possible here. The only thing different – the location, of course".
Purbani: "A student spends around five hours of study on online activities per week and meets the trainer and the classmates for two hours over a live online session. The study time can be spread across the week or can be spent on two consecutive days – the flexibility is key".
Avinash: "Students complete their online activities in order to prepare for the forum discussions and online classes as they're linked and build on each other. They respond to forum posts and add their own. This gives them a chance to practise the language they've learned and this gives me an opportunity to respond to their opinions and ideas and give individual feedback".
Rajul: "They also review videos to recap their learning, increase their vocabulary and access the website to explore and learn more. Unknowingly they learn to manage their time and study independently, overcome their fear of writing and gain confidence in their speaking. They communicate with others without hesitation in real life situations".
What are the benefits of teaching and learning in an online format? Have you faced and overcome any challenges?
Huma: "I'm neither a technophobe nor am I tech-savvy. Like some of my students, I've had to work my way through handling technology but it's been fun. I tell myself that I've been developing some 21st Century skills!"
Purbani: "In a face-to-face classroom, we often see that the learning stops once the learner leaves the classroom. On an online course, the possibilities of learning are limitless".
Avinash: "One of the main challenges both learners and I have faced as a teacher is time management. In my experience, setting realistic weekly targets and working frequently and for shorter durations has helped most students and me have an enjoyable and enriching experience on the course".
Can you share any success stories?
Rajul: There's a student who was not even ready to write or talk to anyone because he didn't feel confident. He's currently enrolled in an MBA class! Another student was unwilling to speak in class. He would just say 'I can't'. After the course he got selected to appear for a TV interview".
Huma: "One of my students has special needs and passed the course! This also goes to show that we are truly inclusive and the courses are meant for everybody".
Avinash: "I taught an award-winning actor. She wanted to develop her fluency and accuracy as she had upcoming projects in international films. Over 3 courses she has developed her accuracy to a great degree, especially in pronunciation, and is now so much more confident with intonation and emotion in the English language."
Purbani: "At the formal launch of myEnglish courses in August a former student of mine spoke to the gathered press in an eloquent manner about his wonderful experience on our online courses".
Ellora: "A student from my class wanted to speak better English so he could study International Law. When he joined my class he had scored a 5 in IELTS. He completed the whole level and took his IELTS again, he scored a 7.5. He's going to Canada in 2018 for his studies".
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For the first time in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Red Wings looked sad and old, while the younger, vitamin-eating Penguins skated circles around them to even the series. And none of us stayed up to watch "The Tonight Show."
After Detroit dominated the first two games, the tables slowly turned in Games 3 and 4, and now I don't know what to think about either team. They could do another 180 back at Joe Louis Arena this weekend, or Henrik Zetterberg could lay down at center ice and take a nap. By the middle of the second period last night the Penguins were two steps faster the Wings, scoring three goals in six minutes, mostly because the Wings couldn't get back on defense. Pittsburgh looked like a well-oiled machine and Detroit looked like a creaky, busted one, but they still have home-ice advantage, so maybe we'll get another seven-gamer out of this and NBC won't have to feel ashamed of itself.
Oh, and the two-headed Malkin/Crosby monster has finally awoken from its brief slumber so there's that too. How can both teams be so good, yet seem so unevenly matched ... and somehow we still can't tell which one has the advantage. Go the distance, as the voice says.
Penguins rally to tie Stanley Cup series with Detroit, 2-2 [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
After 2 home wins, Detroit allows eight goals on road [Detroit Free Press]
Crosby & Co. make this series no laughing matter [Albom]


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In the next few weeks we in Los Alamos have a choice; vote to keep our schools as they are or vote to make them better.
As the mother of two daughters attending Los Alamos Public Schools, it will come as no surprise that I am voting for the school bond.
But there are many reasons for all of us in White Rock and Los Alamos to vote in favor of this bond.
Los Alamos is known around New Mexico as having the highest quality schools for educating our children. It is something to be proud of, and we can thank the quality teachers and staff who make our schools successful.
But the fact is, they are effective in spite of the troubling conditions in many school buildings. Anyone who has visited our district's campuses knows several of our schools are functionally obsolete and in desperate need of improvement or replacement.
In this election we have the opportunity to fix this problem. This bond will not only rebuild Aspen, but also finish up projects at the middle school and high school, and do preventative maintenance at the other schools until such time as they can be rebuilt.
Los Alamos values education. We talk about that all the time. Whether you have children in the district or not, we all will benefit by passing this bond.
- By improving our schools we will make Los Alamos more attractive to young families and the top talent we want to attract for LANL and local businesses.
- Modern schools make a more desirable community which raises the property values of our homes.
- Studies have shown that students' academic performance is directly affected by the physical condition of the schools they are learning in. The more students and teachers have to deal with obsolete or worn buildings, the less time is spent on learning.
In short, better schools make a better community. Without any increase in property taxes, we can make Los Alamos an even better place to live.
When you receive your ballot in the mail, I encourage you to vote YES for the bond. Then mail it back or take it to the County Clerk's Office before Jan. 29.
We've talked the talk. Now let's walk the walk and vote to improve our schools by voting YES to pass this bond.