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DVD Ripper
free games downloads
C: \ Web Development \ Other \ FB Exchange Script 1
FB Exchange Script 1 - Detailed Description Page
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WebsiteForce, Inc. All programs by this author
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This script is a powerful exchange system for Facebook. For example, you have an Facebook Fan Page, but you dont have enough fans, with this system, you can increase your fans page.For every coin, you earn 1 Like, so this is the exchange system for Facebook. This system work the same for your websites.
Keywords: exchanger, facebook, facebook share, like, money, payments, paypal, php, php script, share, sharer, social network, websites, cheap scripts, easy scripts, Shareware, Web Development, Other, WebsiteForce, Inc., FB Exchange Script
Recent Changes: New Release
Install Support: Install and Uninstall
Supported Languages: English
Additional Requirements: Win, Windows
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What is the ruling on making up missed Ramadan fasts in winter when, as we know, the days are short?.
The one who does not fast some days in Ramadan is obliged to make them up before the next Ramadan comes, whether that is in the winter or otherwise, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
"but if any of you is ill or on a journey, the same number (should be made up) from other days"
[al-Baqarah 2:184].
And it is proven that 'Aa'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) had days to make up, but she did not make them up until Sha'baan came because of the status of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him).
And Allah is the source of strength. May Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and Companions. End quote.

subset: commoncrawl


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Chris Klein, who was engaged to Katie Holmes before she married Tom Cruise, is now a married man.
The "American Pie" and "Election" actor tied the knot with Laina Rose Thyfault, a travel agent, on Sunday in Montana, People reported.
About 115 people were on hand for the celebration at the Rainbow Ranch, the magazine said.
The couple got engaged in December 2014 after dating for 3 1/2 years, with a Klein buddy telling Us Weekly at the time, "Neither one is interested in a long engagement, so they're shooting for a summer 2015 wedding."
Klein, 36, popped...


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First baby of 2013 arrives in Blackfoot
Blackfoot's first baby of the year couldn't wait to get here. Baby Naomi Baye Rowbury was born six weeks early to become the first baby of 2013 born at Bingham Memorial Hospital.
Naomi was born at 3:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013.
She weighed five pounds, 10 ounces, and was 18 1/2 inches long. She has light brown hair.
Naomi is the first child of her parents, Jack and Loretta Rowbury, and the first grandchild of her paternal grandparents, Miriam and Paul Rowbury.
She is grandchild number five on her mother's side. Both of her mother's parents, Ron and Rhonda Birt, are deceased.
"I'm a little sore," said Loretta, who had 12 1/2 hours of labor before delivering baby Naomi.
Because Naomi was born six weeks early, she was taken by ambulance Wednesday evening to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) to have her lungs checked.


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Festive trouser pump wafts into eBay
While invisible Xmas tree wows the crowd
Ah, the evocative smells of Xmas - the alpine-fresh aroma of pine needles, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, the faint bouquet of granny's sweet sherry. And, of course, the deadly, nose-crippling whiff of the brussel-sprout-fuelled trouser cough, creeping across the Yule living room like a blanket of phosgene:
On Christmas day I will be bottling my first Brussels Sprout Trouser Pump of the afternoon.
The actual bottling of the fart will be videoed and quick time video of the main event will be emailed to the highest bidder.
although I cannot guarantee anything dramatic, I can assure you I will do my best to impress.
Be aware that any "follow through" from the trouser cough can be included in the sale if you wish.
The gaseous emission will be generated through consumption of the following items:
# Kedgeree for breakfast
# Champagne
# Real Ale before lunch
# A good Rioja or Nuits St George (we haven't decided yet)
# Roast Goose, Hazelnut Stuffing, Roast potatoes, Brussel Sprouts (at least 4), gravy, sausages wrapped in bacon, carrots, roasted parsnips, cranberry and bread sauce, Christmas pudding and brandy butter.
Happy Bidding and Merry Christmas to you all.
Very silly, and moving swiftly on we have another irresistible Yule item in the shape of the invisible Christmas tree:
A festive cracker of an opportunity to bid on this truly magnificent, and Completely Invisible, Christmas Tree.
This glittering and gorgeous Tree will be delivered fully decorated, every elegant bough laden with masses of twinkling Fairy Lights, miles of sparkly Tinsel, dozens of Sugar Candy Canes and literally hundreds of glittering Baubles and Novelties ~ absolutely breathtaking.
The crowning glory is the Star Performance of the Christmas Fairy, Miss Charity Volunteer, who will sparkle, twinkle and shine from the top of the Tree for the full Twelve Days of Christmas.
The current top bid for the invisible Xmas tree is a cool £1,800 - but this is no arboreal reworking of the Xbox 360 scam. Nope, the whole thing is in aid of Children in Need, with 100 per cent of the auction proceeds going to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Good show. ®
A festive ta very much to Steven Williams and Tim Jones for spotting these Yule eBay oddities.


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By Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday called the findings in a government report about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny intolerable and said he has directed his administration to hold those responsible for the agency's actions accountable.
"The report's findings are intolerable and inexcusable," Obama said in a statement on the Treasury Department's investigation. "The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test."
Obama was commenting on a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration into IRS practices that came to light in recent days. The IRS had used key words such as "Tea Party" and "Patriot" for picking out applications by groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny.
Lois Lerner, a senior IRS official, apologized for the actions last week, but the revelation has embarrassed the agency and put the White House on the defensive. The report said the criteria used to target conservative groups gave the appearance that the IRS "is not impartial in conducting its mission."
Obama said he has directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to hold those responsible for the IRS's actions accountable.
"Regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong," Obama said.
Lew said in a statement that the report found no evidence that any individual or organization outside the IRS influenced the decision to use these criteria. But he deplored the actions, and promised the tax agency would take actions to restore public confidence in its impartiality.
Lawmakers from both political parties heaped criticism on the tax agency this week, with some calling for the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, and the affair is likely get intensive congressional scrutiny in the weeks ahead.
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the issue on Friday, attended by Miller and J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
The probe has focused on the IRS's office in Cincinnati, which was responsible for examining whether non-profit advocacy groups that sought to qualify for tax-exempt status were entitled to it. To qualify for tax-exempt status, groups must limit their activity to advocating for issues or causes, and avoid endorsing political candidates.
The president said he first learned of the targeting practices from news reports. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House counsel's office had been given a heads up in April that a review of the Cincinnati office was in the works.
The IRS controversy, along with questions about the administration's handling of the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, and the revelation that the Justice Department has seized phone records from the Associated Press in connection with an alleged leak of classified information, have put the president's second-term policy agenda on the back burner.
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Lisa Shumaker)


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This is the first module in the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) Project Suite curriculum. Activities are self-directed by students or student teams using online videos and data from the SDO satellite to explore, research and build knowledge about... (View More) features of the Sun. Students build vocabulary, apply or demonstrate learning through real world connections, and creating resources to use in their investigations. Each activity comes with both a teacher and student guide with sequential instructions and embedded links to the needed videos and internet resources. Activity 1A: Structure of the Earth's Star takes students through the features and function of the Sun's structures using online videos, completing a "Sun Primer" data sheet using information from the videos, and creating a 3D origami model of the Sun. Students use a KWL chart to track what they have learned. Activity 1B: Observing the Sun has students capture real solar images from SDO data to find and record sunspots and track their movement across the surface of the Sun. Activity 1C has students create a pin-hole camera to use in calculating the actual diameter of the Sun, and then calculate scales to create a Earth-Sun scale model. Students reflect on their learning and results at the end of the module. An internet connection and access to computers are needed to complete this module. See related and supplementary resources for link to full curriculum. The appendix includes an alignment to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5
Learners will review the structure, content and size of the Solar System. This lesson is designed using the 5E instructional model and includes: teacher training, unit pacing guides, essential questions, a black-line master science notebook, a... (View More) student presentation booklet, supplemental materials, and vocabulary for both students and teachers. This is lesson 1 of the Mars Rover Celebration Unit, a six week long curriculum. (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5 per group of students
This activity explores how ancient Sun observers made use of natural and built structures to mark solar alignments observed at different times of the year, particularly around the solstices and equinoxes. In Part 1, the teacher prepares a horizon... (View More) table that represents the Earth's horizon. In Part 2, students create functioning models of an existing ancient solar observatory or design their own observatory. In Part 3, students test their model using the horizon table and a flashlight as the Sun. The lesson includes discussion questions, background information about Maya astronomy, a checklist for science notebook write-ups, and a math extension activity that measures shadows. This activity is the seventh lesson in the Ancient Eyes Look to the Skies curriculum. (View Less)
Learners will design and conduct experiments to answer the question, "how does distance and inclination affect the amount of heat received from a heat source?" They will measure heat change as a function of distance or viewing angle. From that... (View More) experiment, they will identify how the MESSENGER mission to Mercury takes advantage of these passive cooling methods to keep the spacecraft comfortable in a high-temperature environment. This is lesson 3 from MESSENGER Education Module: Staying Cool. Note: the student guide starts on p. 24 of the PDF. (View Less)
Learners will construct a simple device to measure how effective different materials are for protecting against sunlight, explain how heat relates to the motion of atoms and molecules, describe how heat can be transmitted from one place to another,... (View More) explain how sunlight arriving on Earth interacts with matter, and describe how MESSENGER is protected by a simple sunshade in the hot Mercurian environment. Materials required to do this activity include several commonly-found items (e.g., coffee cans, ice cubes, tape, ruler, calculators, stopwatch, and scale). This is lesson 3 of 4 at the Grade 9-12 range of "Staying Cool." (View Less)
Materials Cost: $1 - $5 per group of students


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Here is my entry for the LCC Winter Celebration Contest. It shows a military parade in the Garheim capital of Mikithdar.
Every year, the leader of Garheim, Jhirian Eindrik, holds a parade featuring troops from strongholds throughout the land. This year, A Lenfel nobel and his family are in attendance and are quite impressed with the show of military might.
A small contingent of South Garhiem wood elves have pledged their allegiance and are participating in the parade this year for the first time.
The people of Mikithdar love to come out and cheer on their brave troops. What a fun and festive distraction from the harsh winters of this, the northernmost region of Roawia.
Rayth and his friend Lief were already in Mikithdar on other business, so decided to come down and enjoy the festivities before getting back to more serious matters.
Comments and critiques welcome. I realize that the focus of this MOC is the figures, but I'm happy with the way the road and the royal viewing platform turned out as well.


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Table of Contents
Tone the legs, strengthen the core, engage the whole body and get faster with these five moves.
We all know the distance runner's body: lanky and lean. But lean doesn't mean weak, in fact, the most effective running machines are powerhouses packed with solid muscle, because the stronger the runner the faster, more efficient and more injury resistant the runner becomes. And this doesn't just hold true for the legs. "I really believe in training your whole body," says Jenny Schatzle, a runner and personal trainer in Santa Barbara, Calif., "because running is a full-body activity."
RELATED: Strength-Training Circuit For Runners
Performing exercises that smartly strengthen your core and upper body are just as important as strengthening your principal running muscles such as the glutes and hamstrings. With a lean but strong physique, a runner can hold off muscle fatigue and maintain optimally efficient form longer. "Your body is a connective chain," Schatzle says. "You can't just work one muscle."
Try these exercises two or three times a week and in no time you'll be stronger, more efficient and less prone to injury. You just might cross your next finish line with a new PR.


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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- What's that about being in the right place at the right time? Jack Hawksworth was in such position in the season-opening St. Petersburg 100 on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit.
Hawksworth, who earned the 2012 Star Mazda Championship, won in his Firestone Indy Lights debut for Schmidt Peterson with Curb-Agajanian Motorsports, saying thank you in passing Carlos Munoz and Gabby Chaves along the way.
Munoz, the Sunoco Pole Award recipient in the No. 26 Dialy-Ser-Andretti Autosport car, was battling Chaves in the No. 7 Schmidt Peterson with Curb-Agajanian car entering Turn 1 of Lap 11 when they made contact. Hawksworth made his way around the scene to take the lead, which he held the remainder of the 45-lap race.
Hawksworth led Peter Dempsey across the finish line by 4.9 seconds for the fourth consecutive victory at St. Petersburg for a Schmidt Peterson car. The past three winners (J.K. Vernay, Josef Newgarden and Tristan Vautier went on the win the series title).
Dempsey posted a personal high in his third season in Firestone Indy Lights and provided Belardi Auto Racing its best finish.
"I owe it to Belardi Auto Racing and Brian Belardi for giving me the opportunity to be here," Dempsey said. "I'm glad to bring the car home today because we are fighting for a championship. The car was good all race. We are not satisfied with second so we aren't going to be happy until we get that first win. But, for sure, it's definitely a good starting point and if we keep building on this I think we are going to be in the hunt."
Sage Karam, who started sixth in the No. 8 Schmidt Peterson with Curb-Agajanian car, advanced to a podium result in his series debut, while Juan Pablo Garcia in the No. 2 TMR-International-Euclid Chemical car held off Zach Veach to finish fourth.
"This is what we came here for -- try to get good points and make it to the podium, and that's exactly what we did," said Karam, who finished third in the 2012 Star Mazda Championship. "I can't thank the Schmidt Peterson crew enough. They really put the car dialed in there for a good race car. We just got to figure out a little bit more speed on new tires and we can be up there."
Listen to the INDYCAR Radio Broadcast
The 1.8-mile, 14-turn (5 lefts, 9 rights) circuit incorporates streets of downtown St. Petersburg and a section of runway of Albert Whitted Airport. After the long frontstretch, there's a tight right-hander into Turn 1 and then a quick left-hand turn. Plenty of drivers have gotten into trouble in these two turns over the years. There are two other long straights with heavy braking zones that afford opportunities to overtake.
Pole Position:1:00.0658 (107.882 MPH) - Will Power (2016)
Race Lap:1:01.8607 (104.751 MPH) - Helio Castroneves (2015)
Race Time:2:04:32.4153 (95.351 MPH) - Sebastien Bourdais (2017, 110 Laps)


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Gift Shop
Visit the Charlotte Motor Speedway Gift Shop located on the second floor of Smith Tower. There you will find a large collection of NASCAR, NHRA, Charlotte Motor Speedway, zMAX Dragway and The Dirt Track @ Charlotte-branded memorabilia.
Monday - Saturday: Open 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Sunday: Open 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Race Days: Open 8 a.m.
Call 704-455-3202 for more information or visit our on-line store


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Seven Questions We Have About Star Wars: Episode 7
Who will direct? And what does this mean for Indiana Jones 5?
When Lucasfilm announced out of the blue today that Star Wars: Episode 7 was in development for a summer 2015 release, we know that the first question to pop into your head was a confused one: "How should I feel about this?" And perhaps you're still puzzling out the emotional pros and cons of this unexpected new Star Wars installment, which will come as Disney acquires Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy replaces George Lucas as the head of the company. Still, as our initial shock settled, many more questions about the announcement popped to the fore, some of which we hope will be answered soon. Here are seven of the most pressing questions prompted by Episode 7.
Who will direct?
In a new YouTube video, Lucas says his involvement with Episode 7 will be limited: "I always said I wasn't going to do any more, and that's true: I'm not going to do any more. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to turn it over to Kathy to do more. I have story treatments of [Episodes] 7, 8, and 9, and a bunch of other movies." Kennedy then says she's been discussing those treatments with writers … but who? And if Lucas isn't directing a Star Wars film, than who might? Would his friend Steven Spielberg want to get involved? Would an A-list helmer like Spielberg (or even David Fincher, who began his career in the effects department at Lucasfilm) be willing to step into a franchise that another director has already put his definitive stamp on? Or will we get a shortlist of talented journeyman directors vying for the role, drawing from the same contenders who came up when both the Hunger Games and Planet of the Apes franchises dropped their original directors this past year?
Will Episode 7 begin a distinct new trilogy, or has the franchise become open-ended?
It looks pretty open-ended from here. Lucas says he has ideas for "a bunch of other movies" past Episode 9, and Disney executives said they're hoping to put out a new Star Wars film every two or three years. That means we might be looking at more of a James Bond–style franchise, with only a few aspects of the story carrying over from movie to movie. Could that actually refresh the series somewhat, since anything that doesn't deal with the main arc of the first six films -- the open and closed story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader -- will inevitably feel like an add-on?
Will any of the original stars come back?
Here be dragons. Does anyone want to see a septuagenarian Han Solo, or relive any of the profound casting disappointments of Episodes I, II, and III? We'll accept a cameo from Billy Dee Williams, but otherwise, here's hoping for a fresh start.
Will the movies be based on storylines from the Star Wars books that followed Return of the Jedi?
There's a ton of material in the so-called "expanded universe" (not to mention the staggering volume of unofficial writing), much of which is about characters never even mentioned in any of the movies. Some of the books follow marginal characters or cult favorites, like the series on Boba Fett. Others follow Han and Leia's children (Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo), some follow Luke's Skywalker spawn, and some include Chewbacca's extended family, in particular his nephew, Lowbacca. (Lowbacca! Oh man.) Among the better books is the Thrawn trilogy, but they're set pretty soon after Return of the Jedi and include a lot of main characters from the movies, which could be tough to cast anew. There are also the solid short-story anthologies, like Tales of the Bounty Hunters and Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but those don't hugely lend themselves to large-scale film adaptations. Still, would new writers feel beholden to the semi-canon established in these continuing stories?
Will Episode 7 have a dorky title?
The Phantom Menace. Attack of the Clones. Let's not forget how those semi-silly subtitles initially baffled fans. Will Lucas be able to bring that same wacky touch to Episode 7, or will Kennedy and her new creatives opt for something that's actually cool-sounding? We kind of want that, but … well, we kind of want another head-scratcher of a title, too, just for kicks.
How will Lucas walk back his previous comments about Episode 7?
"I'm doing this so that the films will have a longer life, so that more fans and people can enjoy them in the future," Lucas says in the video released today. However, just four years ago, Lucas sang a very different tune, telling Total Film, "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII–IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything." Even this past January, Lucas moaned to the New York Times, "Why would I make any more [Star Wars films], when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?"
Ask anyone involved in the Indiana Jones franchise whether there will be a fifth film, and they all defer to Lucas, a hands-on producer who comes up with the Indy concepts himself. But now, with Kennedy (who's also an Indiana Jones producer) in charge of Lucasfilm and Episode 7, and Lucas acting as a consigliere for the new Lucasfilm regime, will either have enough time to commit to Indy 5 in the near future? Lucas is about to enter his seventies and he still hasn't made the smaller, more personal films he's said he intends to direct; meanwhile, Harrison Ford is already 70 and can't wait much longer to play Indy if indeed there is a new movie. Then again, if Lucas is already envisioning a Star Wars franchise that continues on long after he's gone, perhaps he's started making the same contingency plans for an Indiana Jones sequel that wouldn't need him or Ford. Brave new world, folks ...


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The Long Realty Short Sale Resource Center provides you helpful information on short sales, the short sale process and how to search for short sale properties. Articles are provided by the Long Realty Short Sale Resource Group, a collaboration of Long Realty agents and managers with an expansive knowledge of short sales.
FHFA Announces New Short Sale Guidance
September 27, 2012
On August 21, 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA, the conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be issuing new guidelines to enhance and streamline the short sale process.
In general, lenders who service mortgages owned and/or insured by Fannie and Freddie will be allowed to approve short sales for borrowers with severe financial hardship with limited documentation without the requirement of going back to Fannie or Freddie for specific approval. Borrowers who are not delinquent on their mortgage payments may now be considered for a short sale if they face a financial hardship such as divorce, long distance employment transfer, or a severe disability. Active duty military personnel are now provided with special allowances and consideration for short selling their home. If a short sale is approved, the new guidelines allow for debt forgiveness of any remaining loan balance after the short sale is closed. Criteria to decide whether or not a borrower will be required to make additional cash payments and/or sign a promissory note at closing, is clearly defined in the new Guide. In the event there is more than one mortgage, the new guide allows up to $6000 of the sale proceeds to go to the secondary lienholders and requires them to release the borrower from any future debt obligation. Finally, lenders are now requested to provide borrower's real estate agents early on in the short sale process, guidance as to value of the home that would be required to gain approval of the short sale request. Servicers are required to implement the changes by Nov. 1, 2012 and these new guidelines incorporate the recent response time lines initiated by Fannie and Freddie June 15, 2012.
These new guidelines along with other recent changes announced by Fannie and Freddie should make the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac short sale process quicker and less complicated. However, one should still find a Realtor that is knowledgeable and experienced with the short sale process to assist them with the many "pitfalls" of short sales.
Short Sale Articles
December 12, 2013 Helpful Short Sale Tips and FAQ
The "Short Sale" in a Market Recovery
FHFA Announces New Short Sale Guidance
Many Homeowners Ask the Question: Foreclosure or Short Sale?
What's Happening in the Short Sale Market - June 2012
What's Happening in the Short Sale Market
Preparing for the Short Sale Listing Appointment
How Short Sales Affect the Market
Short Sale Resources
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VERBATIM: Article 50 author says Brexit is reversible
Opening Sequence
Jury enters Day 3 of deliberations in Manafort trial
Wall Street's bull market makes history
Cohen investigated for $20 mln in loans: NYT
Catholics stand by their faith after sex abuse report
Trump says 'nothing to hide' from Mueller
Greece exits bailout, but scars remain
Afghan leader calls for Taliban ceasefire
Trade tariffs put pressure on 'Made in China'
A beauty blogger defies discrimination in Myanmar
World in Pictures
Closing Sequence


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The phrase that you say when referring to work in a non-ironic way. On completion of said phrase, the speaker (and possibly those within earshot) immediately cease to listen and concentrate on what the phrase itself means. This process generally includes context abuse, giggling, and later, regret.
"I'm sort of a bridge shift between liasons."
by vex June 18, 2006
buy the domain for your pet site


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MyData (formerly called Automated Benchmarking) is a tool to request whole building energy usage data from PSE. Use it with your ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® account or simply request the data in an Excel spreadsheet for other purposes.
It is very important that you confirm your settings in your PM account before registering with PSE's MyData tool.
If you are benchmarking your building through EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager and DO NOT have an existing Portfolio Manager account, follow these steps »
If you are not reporting your usage data through Portfolio Manager and just want your data in an Excel file, simply start using MyData.pse.com.
To start using MyData, you will need to have the meter numbers or addresses of your buildings and signed release forms, if required. It will take a few days to receive your first report.
*IMPORTANT: Release forms are required if you have four (4) or fewer tenants in your building that each receive PSE service. Each account holder must complete and sign the PSE Customer Data Release Form. [Hide details]
PSE customers that need to annually comply with the City of Seattle Energy Benchmarking Ordinance must sign up with MyData to have whole-building natural gas consumption data updated directly to their Portfolio Manager account. Customers located in Seattle will also need to contact Seattle City Light for an "Energy Usage Report" to obtain their electric consumption data.
The monthly on-going updates will make complying with Seattle's ordinance faster next year, allowing you more time to track and manage your building's energy use.
If you have an existing Portfolio Manager account, visit Seattle's How To Comply web page and download the "Enroll in PSE MyData" steps under the heading "Updating a Building that Reported Last Year?" This tells you how to reauthorize and reconnect with PSE before registering in MyData.
Certain properties located in Seattle are required to report their energy consumption directly to the City of Seattle on an annual basis. For more information regarding reporting requirements, deadlines, and instructions, visit the City of Seattle's Energy Disclosure webpage at http://www.seattle.gov/energybenchmarking. Customers located in Seattle will also need to contact Seattle City Light for an "Energy Usage Report" to obtain their electric consumption data.
Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Johnny Dang has single handedly changed the way entertainers today wear jewelry. Known as "The Jeweler to the Stars", Dang created eccentric jeweled pieces that accessorized and defined the lifestyles of popular Hip Hop stars today. Best known for popularizing diamond encrusted mouth pieces referred to as "Grillz", Dang influenced the Grammy Award winning Hip Hop collaboration of Nelly and Paul Wall. Nelly and Paul Wall's song "Grillz" colorfully elaborated on the jewelry phenomenon that was taking over the entertainment industry. From Paris Hilton and Hugh Heffner to P.Diddy and Kanye West, everybody was rocking a grill!
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WASHINGTON — The Boston Marathon bombing marked a watershed moment that counterterrorism officials and specialists have dreaded for years: the use of multiple "improvised explosive devices,'' or IEDs, to inflict mass casualties on US soil.
Islamic militant groups routinely have used makeshift bombs — detonated nearly simultaneously — to kill civilian bystanders as well as military personnel from Iraq and Israel to Russia and Afghanistan. But until Monday's explosions at the finish line in Copley Square, such street-level detonations targeting sidewalk or marketplace crowds had not occurred in the United States.
"The sad thing is that finally someone has carried it out in a way that caused deaths and injuries," said former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, who is now a security consultant. "They appear to resemble something seen overseas. A classic method of foreign terrorists carrying out attacks is to have multiple explosions."
Just two months ago, the White House established an IED task force in the Department of Justice to apply lessons for domestic defense that have been learned from years of dealing with the phenomenon on foreign battlefields.
"The threat from IED use is likely to remain high in the near future, and will continue to evolve in response to our abilities to counter them," stated a strategy document approved by President Obama on Feb. 26. The intent of the new task force was to improve coordination "to best position the United States to discover plots to use IEDs in the United States, or against US persons abroad."
Whether Monday's bomb attack that killed three and wounded more than 170 was the work of foreign terrorists, or a domestic group or individual adopting Mideast terror tactics for their own ends, remains unknown.
Chertoff stressed that "I'd be cautious about looking at it as a particular signature of a particular group."
Homemade bombs have been a weapon of choice of the Irish Republican Army and antigovernment groups in the United States in past decades. But the dual bombings on Monday more closely resembled the modern playbook of Islamic extremists — both in technique and materials used, specialists said.
Two law enforcement officials said the devices were fashioned out of household pressure cookers, a relatively rudimentary but highly effective design used by insurgents overseas — especially in Afghanistan, where it is a common household item. Reports from medical staff at Boston hospitals who treated victims in the Marathon attack indicate the bombs were packed with BBs, nails, and other projectiles intended to maximize injuries.
Instructions for building a pressure-cooker bomb are contained in Al Qaeda terrorist handbooks and homegrown anarchist publications. One was built for the failed attempt to explode a car in New York's Times Square in 2010. They also have been used in attacks in Pakistan and India.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been particularly worried about pressure cookers in recent years.
A 2010 warning from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said "terrorists can exploit the innocuous appearance of easily transportable items such as pressure cookers to conceal IED components. Placed carefully, such devices provide little or no indication of an impending attack."
As forensics experts scrambled Tuesday to identify the bombs' makeup for possible clues to who made them, current and former counterterrorism officials said the tactics marked a new chapter in the struggle to secure public places from attack.
"We've seen this around the world, but what is so concerning about this is that it hadn't happened here, not like this," said a senior homeland security official in Washington.
A recent US intelligence analysis contained examples of domestic groups and individuals, their motivations, and how they might operate now. The review, by the US military's Northern Command, categorized "single-issue organizations" such as the Oklahoma City bombers in 1995; the so-called Olympic bomber, Eric Rudolph, who committed several bombings between 1996 and 1998; or the "Unabomber," Ted Kaczynski, who mailed bombs to professors and corporate executives over 20 years.
"These groups often try to challenge or change the government and its policies," said the paper. "They could utilize different techniques than the Islamic terrorist organizations, as many are able to blend in and use their knowledge about the homeland to increase their chances of successfully launching an attack.''
Improvised explosives are cheaper and easier to conceal than truck bombs but can still set off powerful explosions.
Pressure-cooker bombs have been a weapon of choice in recent years in Afghanistan, said retired Army general Montgomery C. Meigs, who directed the Pentagon's efforts to combat IEDs from 2006 to 2008. He said explosive material, such as the fertilizer ammonium nitrate, can be easily obtained. Other potential chemical ingredients could be found in a barber shop or hair salon.
"In the IED game, any household thing can contribute — cellphones, garage door openers for arming and firing," said Meigs, who is currently president of the nonprofit Business Executives for National Security in Washington.
How the bombs were made will likely act like a signature, telling authorities several things about the person or group behind the attacks, said Alexia Ash, head of risk forecasting in North America for Exclusive Analysis Ltd.
"What we can say is that the person who made this type of weapon had some type of training or at least some type of practice," Ash said.
Meigs agreed that identifying the content of the bombs shouldn't prove difficult.
"It doesn't all get blown up," he said. "They'll know pretty quick.'' Meigs added that he has long feared that what was commonplace in Iraq and Afghanistan would arrive on US shores.
"Clearly something like this was in the offing," he said. "This is just part of our brave new world."Bryan Bender can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeBender


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[54:54] -
A look at this year's dating landscape, plus Clarence Shuler helps singles stop self-destructing, and a listener wonders if she's "too spiritual" to date.
Featured musical artist: Jason Gray
Show sponsor: Courtship Journal and Keepsake
[21:58] -
Dating is alive and well in 2014. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. But to navigate the changing dating landscape, it's important to know a few important things. For example, what are the opinions of dating that are floating around today? How do single young adults feel about the potential to meet people in their current circles? What role is technology playing in new and potential relationships? Our panel of 20-somethings weighs in.
[23:07] -
Clarence Shuler got married in his 30s. That was several decades ago. As a father of now-adult children and an expert on relationships, communication and identity issues, Clarence is passionate about helping single adults find their purpose apart from their relationship status. He feels that getting priorities straight now will free you up to date and marry more biblically and with greater success. Listen in as this author of Single and Free to Be Me shares insights gleaned from years of walking the walk.
[7:21] -
She loves theology and doctrine. She's well-read and quick to discuss the deeper themes of Scripture. So why are guys passing her by and asking out her more theologically "simple" friends? Is her love for the biblical nitty gritty making her undateable? Andrew Hess offers advice.
Helping young adults mature in Christ and prepare for marriage and family. Learn more
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OXFORD United are putting together a bid to join the Women's Super League (WSL) when it expands next year, writes DAVID PRITCHARD.
The summer league, which contains eight teams, will incorporate a second division from 2014.
The ladies side, who play matches at United's Roman Way training ground, are top of the South West Combination.
Promotion would take them into the second tier of women's football, which would help their application to join the WSL.
Richard Blackmore, United's youth and community trust manager, said: "We're really excited about the WSL and will give it a massive push.
"There are a lot of criteria to meet, but we're talking to a couple of local clubs at the moment because the league say you have to play in a stadium – the type of facility at Thame United, Oxford City, Abingdon United.
"We're already putting everything in place and if we don't achieve it this time around we'll push for the next time."
The WSL would be a step up for United's ladies, but although it would see the team become semi-professional, the club would only have to cover expenses.
While there are no guarantees about the success of an application, the ladies' reserve side looks set to play at a higher level from next season.
They have been unable to play higher than a regional level, but have now been invited to join the reserve league of the Women's Premier League.
It means they will come up against the likes of Tottenham, QPR and Reading in Division Two.


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If you're a frequent command prompt user, you'll appreciate the way this trick simplifies your life. This tip will work on all versions of Windows 2000 and Windows NT. By default, the prompt that the system presents you in a command prompt window shows the current drive letter and the full pathname. This prompt is configurable. For a list of configurable options, go to a command prompt and type
prompt /?
I spend much of my day dealing with remote file systems, so I often find myself wondering exactly where the J drive is mapped to. To refresh memory, I use the Net Use command. To modify the command prompt to reflect the remote path, I typed the following text at a command prompt
prompt $m$_$p$g
where $m echoes the Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) name of the drive letter that the command prompt currently displays; $_ inserts a carriage return and a line feed; and $p$g are the standard drive and pathname. This command caused the system to display the UNC name of my network drive.
To make this change stick on a Win2K system, you must modify an environment variable. You can do so from the Control Panel System applet's Advanced configuration option. All you have to do is click the Environment Variables button, create a system variable named prompt, and set its value to $m$_$p$g. This setting causes the system to display the remote network path every time you open a command prompt.


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Parents in Utah say they're outraged after up to 40 elementary school students at a Salt Lake City school had their school lunches thrown out because of outstanding balances on their account.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports the move came Tuesday after the Salt Lake City District realized a lot of students in Uintah Elementary owed money for lunches. District spokesman Jason Olsen said cafeteria workers weren't able to see who was in debt until after the lunches had already been handed out.
He said the workers threw out the lunches because they can't be served to another student. The students whose lunches were taken away were given fruit and milk.
Parent Erica Lukes told the newspaper the children shouldn't be "punished or humiliated" for their parents' mistakes.
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News Tips: 608-273-2727 or email@example.com


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Identifying Nouns
Help your second grader learn to identify nouns and use them in a sentence with these worksheets.Download All (5)
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Click on a worksheet in the set below to see more info or download the PDF.
Identifying NounsDownload Worksheet More info
Help your second grader get a grasp on nouns by finishing this story about a girl who loves baseball! She'll fill in the missing nouns in each sentence.
Identifying Nouns in the ForestDownload Worksheet More info
Person, place or thing? Help your young reader get familiar with nouns with this fun and colorful worksheet, all about meeting animals who live in the forest!
Identifying Nouns: Scary StoryDownload Worksheet More info
Scary persons, place or things? Your second grader will have fun learning about nouns by filling in the blanks to complete this story.
Identifying Nouns: FruitDownload Worksheet More info
Help your early reader learn all about nouns with this fun worksheet about making a fruit salad!
Identifying Nouns: ArtDownload Worksheet More info
Give your second grader a chance to learn about nouns a fun way! He'll finish a story about art by filling in the nouns, and then find 9 more.
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December 01. 2013 3:59PM
Margaret Carlson: Is Obamacare challenging enough yet for President Obama?
Two statements explain the huge failure of Obamacare. One is by President Barack Obama, the other is about him.
The first was made in St. Paul, Minn., at the end of the 2008 primary campaign, when candidate Obama predicted that generations would look back and see his nomination as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Couple this with the assessment of his closest aide, Valerie Jarrett, about his exceptionalism. "He knows exactly how smart he is," she told Obama biographer David Remnick. "And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them."
Obama "has never really been challenged intellectually," she went on. "He's been bored to death his whole life. He's just too talented to do what ordinary people do."
Or what an ordinary President does, for that matter. A chief executive less bored than Obama would have stayed on top of his signature legislation. Those upset that he didn't are bed wetters, the White House says, nervous Nellies who can't comprehend the larger picture of health care reform that will, in due time, emerge.
White House spokesman Jay Carney intones the mantra that the President "is focused on delivering the access to quality and affordable health insurance" and isn't concerned "about the politics of that."
Shame on mere politicians who worry about the next election rather than the next generation. Obama's cool enrages even his allies. In 2010, after voting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 63 House Democrats lost their seats, a historic rout. And that was before the law actually kicked in and its inadequacies became apparent. (Not least of these flaws is Obama's broken promise that you could keep your plan if you liked your plan, a facile bumper-sticker line that has cratered the President's poll numbers — and those of government in general — for trustworthiness and competence.)
The mechanics weren't as promised. In August, many of the elements needed for HealthCare.gov to function were deemed not ready by the chief contractor, CGI Group Inc., a company hired by the administration despite a poor performance record. As of August, almost nothing worked as promised: Computer systems at the multiple government agencies involved were unable to talk to one another, code was plagued with errors, and the system couldn't handle even 500 users at a time. What's more, no one had tended to the even more complicated financial and accounting part of the insurance exchanges.
None of this was enough to rouse the intellectually restless President's attention. After the Oct. 1 rollout, he seemed as surprised as your average citizen that the exchanges weren't working. He keeps suggesting the failure should be mitigated by the fact that his opponents were wishing for it. It took him six weeks to apologize, he still hasn't held anyone responsible, and not one head has rolled. One reason he could say that the fiasco was "on him" is that his head can't roll.
As polls show Democrats losing to Republicans on a generic ballot and the Senate in danger of going Republican, Democrats are panicking about 2014. To protect themselves, 39 Democrats voted with Republicans to allow insurers to sell canceled plans through 2014, though that's down from the 100 Democratic lawmakers who had threatened to support the Republican bill before the President's admission that he'd fumbled the rollout. Vulnerable senators such as Mary Landrieu in Louisiana have written legislation that requires insurance companies to keep people on their current insurance.
Obama, meanwhile, is banking on delays. The first one was to buy time to fix the front end of the website. He's hedged on that. Last week, Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said the system "would be working much better than it did in October," an example for the ages of damning with faint praise.
The more important delay is the one to Nov. 15, 2014, conveniently after the midterm elections. This will be a critical passage, when companies will know whether enough of the unworried young healthies have signed up to offset the cost of insuring the older unhealthies and prevent an adverse selection "death spiral" for Obamacare. Early returns from states such as Kentucky, where the local exchange is working, are troubling. The old and sick are outnumbering the young and healthy.
Over Thanksgiving dinner, arguments over Obama's putative foreign policy success with Iran may have briefly displaced those over his domestic policy failure.
Come today, however, a nuclear pause won't be enough to divert attention from a website that isn't up to snuff or doesn't have the right mix of people to save premiums from rising faster than the oceans. Looking back on shepherding Medicare into existence in the mid-1960s, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Wilbur Cohen said the signature program for the elderly was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent implementation. He wasn't so easily bored.
Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist.


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I certainly hadn't until I met Palaeontology Curator Tim Ewin. Scelidosaurus was the first whole dinosaur ever to be discovered (before that, only parts of dinosaurs had been found, and no-one had discovered any skulls)....and what's more, it was found right here in England, along the coast at Lyme Regis.
Scelidosaurus wasn't a massive dinosaur, diplodocus and the like were all ALOT bigger, but it had some fantastic armour plating which may have helped protect it from predators but also may have acted as a form of display, to deter opponents or attract a mate.
But what's so special about the Scelidosaur remains in Lyme Regis (which are continually being discovered as the cliffs slowly erode) is their quality. The fossils have been brilliantly preserved and scientists are able to study the bodies of these animals in great detail, including their skin which remarkably has also been fossilised.
So next time you're talking about your favourite dinosaur, spare a thought for the often (and wrongly) forgotten Scelidosaurus. The first whole dinosaur ever to be discovered, found right here on our fair isle and with fossilised skin too - you don't get much better than that!
Scelidosaurus is the dinosaur at the bottom of the picture. Megalosaurus is at the top.


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Recovering from Bulimia
by Christine Kane
In my song The Way Clouds Do, there's a line that says, "Back in Fairfax, Virginia, me and the girls grew up in homes they built on battlefields. In ponytails and panic, we were bad, bored and bulimic. We longed for something real." It wasn't just alliteration, I really was all three. Some of my friends who have had or still have eating disorders are shocked that I'm essentially admitting to thousands of people that I had been bulimic. Bulimia has lots of shame attached to it.
If you branded it, it'd be Bulimia: The Embarrassing Addiction.
Recovering alcoholics will occasionally tell horrific stories of drunken stupors that lasted for days and ended with them passing out in an alley while someone's stereo above played Aretha Franklin all night long and the whole thing takes on the mood of a Jim Jarmusch movie. Recovering drug addicts will talk all about binges and felonies and thieving and though it's horrible, it's also poetry — it's John Coltrane, it's filmed in grainy black & white, it's what life did to you and oh my god you made it, look at you!
Recovering bulimics do not talk about the night they ordered three pizzas from Domino's, devoured two of them with a liter of Coke, followed by a bag of Doritos, another bag of Cheetos, another one of Oreos, finishing with a half gallon of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough (the only poetry being that every food ends in the same vowel sound) all while watching "Pretty Woman" in a basement apartment, letting the answering machine pick up the calls, and then spending a half hour throwing up, cleaning up, sitting on the bathroom floor letting their hearts race until they couldn't keep their eyes open any longer so they passed out on the bed and slept til too late in the morning and got up and pretended everything was okay when they showed up at work the next day. Not so much on the John Coltrane there. More like Paula Abdul.
So, yes, I was bulimic for about ten years of my life. And though that picture isn't exactly a scene from those ten years, it gives you the general idea of your basic binge.
I'm no longer bulimic. This fact is number one on any Gratitude List I ever make. Contained in that gratitude is also a gratitude for having had bulimia at all. When I committed myself to healing, I was required over time not only to reconcile my relationship with my own body and with food, but with other people, with my past, with my family, with God and spirituality, and with my emotional take on life. These other elements were essential to the process, and the expansion and learning have been powerful. The road continues now, of course, but I'm a totally different person.
I'm convinced that commitment to anything reveals everything. But it reveals it in very tiny doses and steps. The exact doses you are able to handle at the time. It's like the process of making art. It's not linear. There is grace, there is inspiration, and there are times when you think you're right back where you started.
That brings me to the good news: when you commit to healing, when you set your intent, when you pray in whatever tiny way you can, the door does open. Light does come in. People do show up to help you. New friends who have "been there" show up and walk beside you. Books appear. A song lyric will open your heart. Grace happens.
The bad news is this: The door opens gradually. At first, imperceptibly. This news is like a prison sentence for someone with an eating disorder. Bulimic personalities want answers, they want it done, they want to either have it over with or not do it at all… which is precisely why the spiritual direction that they necessarily must go through involves learning how to live in process, progress, gratitude, and presence. None of this is good news if you're still dealing with the disease. If you had told me on my worst days that someday I would be writing this, or that I'd even think in this way, I would have puked. And I could too. On command.
In the next blog, I'm going to write about some steps I took that were helpful in the healing of my own bulimia and my own relationship with food and life. In the meantime, if you have any questions or thoughts, post a comment or send me and email. I'll try to address it in a future blog on this topic.
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Panama: plan, prepare, mitigate – key actions for disaster prevention
Also available in: Español
Tiny homes made of non-reinforced concrete blocks, without columns in the corners or ties where the walls and roof and the walls and foundation meet. These are dwellings that can collapse like a deck of cards in the event of an earthquake. Photo: World Bank.
I have lived in Panama City for nearly two years and there are two things that still capture my attention: the traffic that gets worse by the day due to the more than 36,000 new vehicles on the road every year and the pace of construction.
The number of new buildings popping up in the city daily is amazing.
Huge, luxurious, expensive buildings in fashionable areas, but also housing projects promoted by the national government and a large supply of houses for the Panamanian middle class responsible for the private sector.


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US National Parks News
News on US National Parks continually updated from thousands of sources around the net.
US National Parks news is powered by NewsRank ®
You'll Never Guess What These 34 Celebrities Are Actually Allergic To
You Won't Believe The Dumb Reasons These 31 Stars Were Mom-Shamed
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Heavily Distressed, Silver Champagne With A Light Gray Glaze. Design Is On Both Sides.
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GPSOLO March 2010
Calculating Attorney Fee Awards
Under what is known as the "American rule," each party to a legal dispute bears its own fees and expenses. However, the American rule does not apply when case law, a contract, or a statute allows a successful litigant to obtain attorney fees and other expenses from the losing party. In this article, we assume that the fee applicant has an underlying statutory, case law, or contractual basis to seek an attorney fee.
The lodestar method. The lodestar method of calculating attorney fees is a two-step process. First, courts multiply the hours an attorney works by the attorney's hourly rate—this process yields the lodestar—and then courts adjust the lodestar up or down "to reflect the characteristics of a given action." The lodestar method raises three questions: (1) how do courts determine a reasonable hourly rate? (2) how do courts determine a reasonable number of hours? and (3) once courts come up with the lodestar, on what basis do courts adjust that figure up or down?
Setting a reasonable hourly rate. A reasonable hourly rate must conform to the prevailing market rate for a similar attorney in the "relevant legal community." Courts assess the fee applicant's skill and experience and then determine what rate a similar attorney with a similar reputation would charge in the relevant community. What is the relevant community? The overwhelming weight of authority leans toward the "forum rate" rule, which creates a strong presumption that the relevant community is the community where the court sits. The forum rate rule is subject to two exceptions: "first, when the need for the special expertise of counsel from a distant district is shown; and, second, when local counsel are unwilling to handle the case." In either situation, courts look to the fee applicant's community to determine a reasonable hourly rate.
Determining a reasonable number of hours. The general rule is that fee applicants can bill their opponents for the same number of hours that fee applicants would be able to bill to their clients. Hours may be excluded from compensation under three circumstances: (1) they are "excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary"; (2) they "relate to distinct claims on which the applicant did not succeed"; and (3) they "are inadequately documented."
Courts have broad discretion to decide whether the hours claimed by a fee applicant are reasonable and may rely on "its own knowledge" to evaluate a fee request.
Fee applicants "must make every effort to submit time records which specifically allocate the time spent on each claim. [Time records] should attempt to specifically describe the work which the fee applicant allocated to unsuccessful claims so as to assist the district court in determining the reasonableness of the fee request." Time records must also "fully explain" the individual tasks for which the fee applicant is billing to ensure that the court is not "at a loss to determine the reasonableness of the task." The general rule is that where a court cannot determine the reasonableness of a task, the fee request for that task is deducted from the overall fee request. Courts also require that billing records be kept contemporaneously with the work done.
Courts generally do not compensate fee applicants for time spent on unsuccessful claims. The issue is how to determine the appropriate award of attorney fees in a case in which the plaintiff does not achieve complete success but does achieve a nominal victory. Whenever a plaintiff recovers only nominal damages because of failure to prove an essential element of the claim, "the only reasonable fee is usually no fee at all." However, in cases of a nominal award for other reasons, many circuits look to the test proposed by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's concurrence in Farrar v. Hobby (506 U.S. 103, 113 (1992)).
Adjusting the lodestar up or down. There is a strong presumption that the lodestar figure is a reasonable fee; courts will adjust the lodestar only in "rare and exceptional cases" when the "lodestar amount is unreasonably low or unreasonably high" in light of the results obtained. In arguing for an adjustment of the lodestar—up or down—the burden is on the party seeking the adjustment to show that the results obtained by the fee applicant do not warrant the fee provided by the lodestar:
Where the plaintiff's claims involve a common core of facts or will be based on related legal theories, the attorney's time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis.
In these cases, full compensation is unreasonable, yet reducing the hours expended is artificial because the hours spent on successful and unsuccessful claims are inseparable. In such cases, "[c]ourts may take [a second] look at the billing invoices, excising additional entries, or simply award a lump sum. The latter approach is preferable." Thus, in cases where there is a common core of facts, courts may reduce the lodestar itself to account for limited success.
Courts tend not to make reductions in direct proportion to the amount awarded; they do not "adjust counsel fees to reflect a certain ratio between the fees and damage awards. . . . [T]he amount awarded in counsel fees should reflect the extent to which the litigant was successful."
In general, an upward adjustment to the lodestar is allowed for two reasons:
First, the district court can make an appropriate adjustment for delay in payment—whether by application of current rather than historic hourly rates or otherwise. Second, the district court can adjust for quality of representation but only in very rare circumstances where the attorney's work is so superior and outstanding that it far exceeds the expectations of clients and normal levels of competence.
Determining what else courts will compensate fee applicants for. Parties can be compensated for all the expenses that "are normally charged to a fee-paying client, in the course of providing legal services." The ability to recover fees such as copying costs, secretarial fees, and online legal research fees depends on the jurisdiction.
A number of courts have addressed whether attorneys can recover fees for secretarial and paralegal time. A Chicago court observed that paralegal work is reasonable for research and other sophisticated tasks. However, "it is unreasonable for such tasks as making flight reservations, confirming court reporters, copying documents and delivering envelopes." Some courts hold that "support staff" "are customarily not billed to clients at hourly rates." These costs are rather covered as overhead. In other jurisdictions, courts hold that secretarial costs may be compensated. Neither lawyers nor paralegals can bill at their full hourly rate for clerical tasks. At least in some jurisdictions, paying expert witnesses well above their hourly rates is considered reasonable.
Time spent on research is another area of contention. In the Seventh Circuit, online legal research fees are recoverable attorney expenses. However, courts draw a distinction between two kinds of research, one compensable and the other not. "To the extent that time spent maintaining competency to practice law is part of the cost of doing business," that time is not compensable. In contrast, lawyers may be compensated for case-specific research as long as the research is relevant and reasonable.


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MaryEllen Holden wants to honor her ailing mother's wish to stay in her longtime Sullivan's Island home.
But she might not be able to because of soaring flood insurance costs.
"I think I may have to sell, I don't have the money for the increase," Holden said Tuesday.
Holden describes a clerical error while taking out a reverse mortgage last year to help pay for hospice care for her 85-year-old mother, June Garrison. During that process, the flood insurance was dropped on the two-story home, requiring her to buy a new policy that would cost a staggering $43,000 for a year.
Holden only discovered her mother's home was without flood coverage days ago when the mortgage company asked for proof of coverage.
The 1940-built home precedes the 1971 flood maps for Charleston County. Its "pre-firm" status meant it had been eligible for a subsidized federal flood insurance rate as long as the owner maintained coverage and abided by other requirements.
But Holden discovered the subsidy would no longer apply under to the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2012. The law was designed to restructure the finances of the National Flood Insurance Program, part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The 45-year-old program is billions of dollars in debt. On Tuesday, parts of the new law kicked in, increasing flood policies an average of 10 percent.
Under the overhaul, subsidies are being eliminated from second homes, rentals and businesses, as well as dwellings that have had repeated flood losses and lapses in coverage. That's where Holden's troubles come in.
She was told to get a new flood policy, which required an elevation survey. That revealed the true insurance risk of the home, which is across from beachfront properties.
"I knew from the surveyor that it was bad," Holden said Tuesday.
The survey classified the property's first floor as living space, though Holden said that area has been uninhabited since Hurricane Hugo damaged it in 1989.
She was quoted a rate of $43,000 per year under the federal program. That's up from roughly $400 her mother had paid previously, which Holden said "was doable."
"And if she was able to get grandfathered in and (had the policy) not lapsed, it would have still been expensive with the new policy, but doable," she said. "It also wouldn't have had to have a new flood elevation survey, and that's what killed us because with that it shows she's basically underwater."
Holden's story is an example of what some real estate experts say is likely to become a more common occurrence as homes change hands or policies lapse.
"Some will make the trade-off and they're saying it's not worth it and I will sell and move out and get a less expensive home without that high cost associated with it," said Elaine Worzala, director of College of Charleston's Carter Real Estate Center.
Nick Kremydas, S.C. Association of Realtors chief executive officer, was in Washington on Tuesday to brief a House committee on the issue.
"The one-two punch that is impacting our state is that FEMA is updating their flood maps," he said. "This could have a pretty significant impact."
The maps, which are scheduled to be released last year, could raise elevation requirements for structures in certain areas.
The situation is a double-whammy for homeowners already reeling from overall increases in property insurance premiums, which are separate from the flood program.
Owen Tyler, president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, is encouraging residents to talk with an insurance agent and get an elevation certificate if they wish to sell.
"Every property is going to be affected differently depending on its individual circumstances," he said. "In the near term, we anticipate most will see a slight premium increase due to the Biggert-Waters act, which requires FEMA to build a 5 percent reserve fund."
Some Realtors have voiced concern that the law could stall some sales if buyers have to pay the full rate for flood coverage.
Some lawmakers on Capital Hill are seeking to delay the increases but no deal has been finalized.
As for Holden, she's undecided on what she will do. She plans to meet with a real estate agent to see if she should sell the home, which was valued last year at $1.2 million.
"I don't want to move her," she said of her mother. "She's ill and she wants to live out her final months in this house since it's what she's familiar with. She wouldn't understand the insurance and why we are moving."
Reach Tyrone Richardson at 937-5550 and follow him on Twitter @tyrichardsonPC.


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NOT HACKED! John Podesta's Incompetent Tech Team Told Him "Phishing" Scam Link For His Password WAS REAL
Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's incompetent technology team told him to open a scam "phishing" link to "reset" his own e-mail password, according to leaked WikiLeaks e-mails. Scammers operating from a ".tk" website domain (belonging to tiny remote Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand) sent Podesta a scam e-mail with a link to "change […]Read Story


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SOURCE: Resonate
February 01, 2013 12:06 ET
RESTON, VA--(Marketwire - Feb 1, 2013) - Resonate, the only advertising technology company that gives marketers the ability to target audiences based on people's values, was recently named as one of the 2013 Best Places to Work in Virginia. The annual list of "Best Places to Work" was created by Virginia Business and Best Companies Group.
This survey and award program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Virginia, benefiting the state's economy, its work force and businesses. The Best Places to Work in Virginia list is made up of a total of 80 companies, split into three groups: 39 small employers (fewer than 100 employees) 15 mid-sized employers (100-250 employees), and 26 large-sized employers (more than 250 employees). Resonate has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia in the small category.
"We are incredibly proud to be recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia," said Bryan Gernert, CEO of Resonate. "At Resonate, we focus on enabling marketers to identify the core values of their target audiences in order to help them engage more effectively. This award is a testament to the fact that we practice what we preach by ensuring that internally we understand our staff's values and provide them with a work environment that promotes creativity, openness, mutual-respect and growth."
Organizations from across the state entered the two-part survey process to determine the Best Places to Work in Virginia. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company's workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. The combined scores determined the top organizations and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration, survey and analysis process and determined the final rankings.
The rankings of the 3rd annual Best Places to Work in Virginia will be unveiled and published in the February 2013 issue of Virginia Business.
For more information on the Best Places to Work in Virginia program, visit www.BestPlacesToWorkVA.com.
About Resonate
Resonate enables advertisers to reach audiences based on consumers' belief systems and values that drive product decisions and support for a cause or candidate. Our proprietary platform allows marketers to build rich consumer profiles to power online advertising campaigns, and gain actionable consumer insights before, during, and after execution. Resonate's insights power the campaign performance of leading brand and political advertisers.
Resonate is headquartered in Reston, Va. with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C. For more information visit: www.resonateinsights.com.
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Visible Bodies
Your medical records on the Web, thanks to Microsoft.
(For discussions of the latest topics, check out the Human Nature Fray.)
Marion Jones admitted to taking steroids and will plead guilty to lying to federal agents about it. She faces up to six months in jail and the loss of her 2000 medals. Jones' spins: 1) My coach told me it was flaxseed oil. 2) When the agents asked me about it, I was trying to protect my coach and myself, and I panicked. Critics' reactions: 1) She thought it was flaxseed oil even though her coach told her "not to tell anyone about" it? 2) She didn't just take the drug; she lied about it repeatedly. 3) Stop blaming the men in her life. 4) She's going to cost her relay teammates their medals, too. Defenders' rebuttals: 1) Everybody does it. 2) She was the best athlete even without drugs. 3) Barry Bonds is using the same ignorance alibi, but he's getting away with it because his supplier, unlike hers, is refusing to talk. (Related columns: steroids vs. LASIK; steroids vs. steak; Olympic doping.) Should Jones' relay teammates lose their medals, too? Discuss in the Fray.
Microsoft launched a Web site for storing and sharing individual health records. Google and major health insurers are developing similar plans. Sample uses: 1) Your doctor puts your records on the site, where you can access them anytime. 2) You check your blood pressure or glucose at home, and your monitor automatically sends the data to your online records, where your doctor can access them. Microsoft's spins: 1) This will improve health care. 2) All your doctors will know all the medications you're taking. 3) We'll keep your records encrypted and totally private; only people you designate can look at them. 4) Consumers will get used to this just as they have with online banking. Skeptical reactions: 1) Private? Riiiight. 2) Even if the system is safe, people won't believe it, so they won't use it. 3) People don't care enough about their health to eat vegetables, much less manage their medical information. (Would you put your records on the Web? I would.)
Companies are peddling new home robots: 1) a roof-gutter cleaner; 2) a hospital robot through which doctors can interact with patients; 3) a Roomba-like Webcam you can steer around your house from far away, allowing you to "participate in family moments even though you're working late" or "read your kids a story and see their faces light up" while you're on a business trip; and 4) a "video surveillance" robot that can watch your pets while you're on vacation or spy on your kids if they're home alone. Industry spin: The new robots help you "connect" with your loved ones. Critiques: 1) They help you pretend you're connecting while you spend your life at the office. 2) They teach your kids that you need to spy because you don't trust them, even though you don't love them enough to be there in person. 3) Serves you right when some thief or pervert hacks into your Webcam robot. (Related stories: remote-controlled pigeons; remote-controlled hunting; remote-controlled aerial drones; remote-controlled flying saucers.) Human Nature's view: My wife would deactivate the robot on Day 1, after my son spent the afternoon mooning it.
Nearly half of the male-to-female transsexuals in a small study say they've achieved postoperative orgasm. All the participants had feminizing genitoplasty, i.e., "their penis surgically removed, their urethra repositioned and female labia constructed." In a follow-up subsample, roughly 90 percent had installed a vagina and a "neoclitoris" made from their penile glans. Findings: 1) Twenty-three percent had regular intercourse. 2) Forty-eight percent achieved orgasm. 3) Fourteen percent "reported having an overly sensitive clitoris." 4) Twenty-nine percent "were troubled by vaginal hair growth." Researchers' conclusion: Most patients were happy with the surgery. Human Nature's prediction: The next (but much rarer) breakthrough procedure will be adding a vagina while keeping your penis. Laurels to the first reader who can find a case in which this has already been done. (As always, post the URL in the Fray.)
The U.S. government's high-tech "virtual fence" is failing. Plan: Mobile towers monitoring the border with cameras, radar, and thermal imaging. Problems: 1) The cameras and radar "have had trouble distinguishing people and vehicles from cows and bushes." 2) Moisture foils the cameras and sensors. 3) So do canyons and plants. 4) Operators can't adjust the cameras fast enough to catch up with border crossers. Rosy spins: 1) Gosh, it worked so well in the lab. 2) All great ideas begin with glitches. Rebuttals: 1) So do all bad ones. 2) "Secure Border Initiative," meet Strategic Defense Initiative. 3) By the way, the low-tech border fence is moving along nicely. (Related: two previous updates on the "virtual" fence.)
A company is tailoring ads to monitored phone calls. The offer: Advertisers subsidize your (Internet-based) calls by paying for ads on your computer screen during the conversation. The catch: The ads you get are determined by voice-recognition software that monitors your conversation and shows you products related to it. Company's spins: 1) The software ignores naughty words. 2) We don't keep records of what you said. 3) This is no different from Google's practice of scanning your e-mail box and tailoring ads to the topics it finds there. Critics' view: Tech-industry invasions of privacy have become so common that we should stop and think before going further. Company's view: Tech-industry invasions of privacy have become so common that today's young people have lost the expectation of privacy, so let's go right ahead. And now, a word from Victoria's Secret … Question: Would you take the deal? I would.
Government contractors are proposing to catch carpool lane cheaters through "infrared head-counting." The companies have been hired to operate high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes around Washington, D.C. They need to deter solo drivers from using the lanes for free by masquerading as carpoolers. The infrared works by "measuring the reflectivity of human skin," which differs from dogs and dummies. Companies' spins: 1) Don't worry, we'll blot out your face on the screen so our operators won't know whose skin they're seeing in such detail. 2) Your car isn't really a private zone anyway. 3) You gave up your privacy when you installed E-ZPass. 4) Being scanned is better than being pulled over for a head count. 5) If you don't want to be scanned, stay out of the carpool lane. Human Nature's predictions: 1) Somebody will start selling carpool dummies made with human skin. 2) Next, traffic enforcers will install cameras inside your car. (Related: Invasion of the naked body scanners.) Reader contest: Find a human-skin carpool dummy on the Internet and post the link here. Prize TBD.
A transsexual is suing the IRS to get a tax deduction for her sex-change surgery and hormone treatments. Cost: $25,000. The tax break officially applies to treatment of "disease," to "alleviate or prevent a physical or mental defect or illness." IRS interpretation: Sex-change surgery is cosmetic. Rebuttals: 1) The patient was formally diagnosed with "gender identity disorder." 2) She endured years of counseling and hormone treatments, which proves she really needed the sex change. 3) The IRS allows deductions for birth-control pills, abortions, vasectomies, and alcohol rehab. 4) By second-guessing shrinks, the IRS is "practicing medicine without a license." (Related: government-funded sex-change surgery in Brazil; transsexuality, transhumanism, and self-mutilation.)
"Improvised explosive devices" are defeating U.S. forces in Iraq. They've killed about 2,000 U.S. troops and wounded 20,000 more. In Afghanistan, IED attacks have gone from 22 per year to more than six per day. Ingredients: 1) explosives, which Iraq is loaded with; 2) egg timers; 3) detonation via cell phones, key fobs, wireless doorbell buzzers, or toy-car remotes; 4) Web sites to "share bomb-building tips, emplacement techniques, and observations about American vulnerabilities and countermeasures." U.S. responses: 1) tougher armor and vehicles; 2) explosive-hunting dogs and bees; 3) robots to check out and disarm the bombs; 4) electronic devices to jam the detonating signals. Official U.S. military spin: Now it takes the enemy four IEDs instead of one to kill or wound one of our guys. That's progress! Unofficial military spin: Yeah, but they're producing more than four times as many IEDs as before, so it's a net loss. Military's conclusion: The bad guys are winning because "they're not tied to technology." Human Nature's conclusion: The bad guys are winning because their technology is simpler, smaller, and cheaper. (Related column: Are remote-controlled drones the answer to terrorism?)
The Minneapolis airport is putting full-length dividers between some bathroom stalls. Cost: $25,000. Reason: Larry Craig and 40 other guys who got busted for reaching under the current dividers, which leave a foot-long gap to the floor. Caveats: 1) The dividers are being added only in the two bathrooms where shenanigans were going on. 2) The airport apparently won't use cameras to watch the bathrooms, as other airports do. Airport's spin: It's too bad we have to spend this money because people won't behave themselves. Rebuttal: You don't have to spend the money—you solved the problem by busting Craig, which told the whole world you were running a sting in the airport, so the bathroom bangers have fled. Cynical view: The new dividers will leave a 2- to 3-inch gap above the floor, so the toe-tappers will be back. (Related column: Craig's anti-gay hypocrisy.) Know any other public bathrooms that need chastity dividers? Post your nominee here.
Latest Human Nature columns: 1) Rethinking the age of consent. 2) The best sex stories of 2007. 3) Are conservatives stupid? 4) Larry Craig's anti-gay hypocrisy. 5) The jihad against tobacco. 6) Fat lies and fat lies revisited. 7) Liberals and bioethics. 8) The case for turning food into fuel. 9) Recombining man and beast. 10) The spread of virgin births.


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My Ghoul Friday
While scrolling through my reader, I came across an image of The Baker Burglar-Proof Metallic Grave Vault which promised protection for those who couldn't afford a mausoleum but still want to be buried like a king (a king safe from grave robbers).
It caught my interest because - besides the obvious reasons - I've been reading Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930, a book described by Publisher's Weekly as "a startling window into the education of American doctors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries-on both a visceral level and for its revealing cultural record. Cringe-worthy shots of medical students-bare-handed gentlemen and a few ladies in street clothes show off their scalpels, saws and textbooks-while their cadavers, mostly poor and black, are awkwardly posed, and exposed."
The book's beginning talks of how early North American medical schools acquired their first subjects for dissection during a time when the concept was taboo to say the least (while in Europe the practice was more accepted).
We've all seen movies with Igor helping his master to gather fresh corpses for his Frankenstein Monster, or grave robbers digging up the dead for valuables, or mad doctors paying for corpses. For some reason, I had believed it was only in these rare situations that someone would steal a body.
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