text:
Read the full story here Web Link posted Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 9:31 AM
Town Square
County's ambulance woes unlikely to hurt Palo Alto
Original post made on Jul 30, 2013
Read the full story here Web Link posted Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 9:31 AM
Comments (22)
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 30, 2013 at 10:51 am
When this story hit the "air" a week, or so, ago, I "googled" around to see if there was a back story that might explain what was going on a RM (Rural/Metro). I didn't find anything at the time, but today, someone in Arizona had this to say about RM:
Web Link
Moody's Investors Service downgraded Rural/Metro Corporation's ("Rural/Metro") corporate family and probability of default ratings to Caa2 from B3. In addition, Moody's lowered the senior secured credit facilities to B3 from B1 and the senior unsecured notes to Caa3 from Caa2. The ratings outlook remains negative.
It seems that RM was bought by Warburg Pincus LLC not too long ago, taking the formerly public company private.
It would be nice if the County would provide some transparency into this situation by providing details about RM's performance in the execution of its contractual obligations.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jul 30, 2013 at 11:32 am
Rural Metro's performance and slow response time was news last Spring. Here's a link to a story from April in the SJ Mercury: Web Link
Santa Clara's effort on a backup plan to cover for a collapse of Rural Metro was in the papers and TV last week. Here's another SJ Mercury link that talks about Rural Metro's issues in Santa Clara: Web Link Pretty scary when an ambulance can make it all the way to an emergency room, but can't open the doors on the ambulance to get the patient into the hospital.
I'm surprised Chief Nickel put the third ambulance at Station 2. Wasn't that site already hosting Palo Alto's Medic 2? It appeared Medic 3 was being staffed by personnel from Station 5 on Arastradero yesterday, but maybe I heard the fire radio traffic wrong.
a resident of another community
on Jul 30, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Where are the "outsource everything" and "fire 'em all" crowds? This is the false economy of outsourcing. Lack of control and lack of dependability are high prices to pay for relatively small reductions in labor costs--especially in the public safety and welfare functions.
a resident of Downtown North
on Jul 30, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Palo Alto often responds to emergencies on Highway 101. Do we, or could we get state funds to help pay for this service?
a resident of Ventura
on Jul 30, 2013 at 3:37 pm
The reason to take a publicly-traded company private is generally to load it up with debt (including the debt of buying it), pocketing the money from laying off people and selling assets, and walking away, leaving them to sink or swim. This was Mitt Romney's "business" model that made him very rich. So it looks like this company has reached the "sink or swim" stage.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 30, 2013 at 3:52 pm
Seems that there is quite a bit of infomation on the Santa Clara County web-site and Rural Metro--
SCC Negotiating With Rural Metro:
Web Link
"Although there are differences in the two corporations, there is no evidence to substantiate that Rural/Metro cannot perform up to the standards of the contract, as they do around the nation," said County Executive Jeffrey V. Smith. "We have conducted an extensive review of their operating and financial capability and are satisfied that they can meet our requirements.
Rural/Metro also proposed utilizing a state-of-the-art automated vehicle location system, which will integrate with the County's computer aided dispatch system. The system will provide real-time analysis of historical call data, current ambulance location, and traffic congestion. Together, this information will aid in the efficient management of ambulance resources to assure that the high call volume areas can be covered by available ambulances.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 30, 2013 at 3:53 pm
(Continuation of above posting)
There also are in-the-field performance data available on the County web-site--
SCC Awards Ambulance to Rural Metro:
Web Link
Web Link
SCC EMSA: Semi-Annual Report:
Web Link
Complience Summary (5/01/2013 - 5/31/2013):
Web Link
Complience Summary (2/1/2013 thru 2/28/2013):
Web Link
From this data, it's clear that Rural Metro has been delivering at/about the 100% rate for on-time responses for a long time. (See the 2012 County EMS Semi-Annual Report, and this year's monthly reports.)
The idea that Rural Metro is putting its client's lives in danger due to non-perfomance is clearly a non-starter. If the issue is one of the County's being concerned about perceived financial problems with Rural Metro due to its missing a bond payment--then that's one thing. But to claim that it's operating "recklessly" (or some such) is another. (Notice the on-time stats for some of the County fire departments.)
This story needs better media attention than it is getting.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 30, 2013 at 3:54 pm
Typo correction--
From this data, it's clear that Rural Metro has been delivering at/about the 90% rate
a resident of another community
on Jul 30, 2013 at 9:29 pm
Give it time, folks. Give it time. I live in a neighborhood that had an AMR ambulance stationed here 24/7. I have yet to see a Rural/Metro ambulance in the local fire station.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 30, 2013 at 10:46 pm
That 3rd ambulance is staffed with Engine 2 personnel. When in service, Engine 2 is out of service.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jul 30, 2013 at 11:23 pm
Troy, thanks for the info.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 31, 2013 at 7:31 am
The Daily Post published some additional information in this morning's paper. Given that the performance data published by the County shows that R/M has been delivering on-time service in the 92%-94% level, any concern about the quality of service of R/M would seem unfounded. Supervisor Simitian is quoted as saying: "It is now exceeding the times set in the contract".
(When I tried to access the contract, which was linked to in one of the 2010 press releases on the County web-site, that link was dead.)
The opening paragraph of the Post's article reports R/M had not paid $2.5M for various charges owed the County, and other local agencies. According to the Post, these outstanding bills have been paid.
The Post article concludes: "There is no crisis. If someone dials 9-11, the person will get an ambulance, today, tomorrow and the following day."
Does make one wonder if this is a manufactured crisis? If so, to whose benefit?
a resident of Barron Park
on Jul 31, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Wayne, I'm confused by your post. Rural Metro won the contract for Santa Clara County over AMR. Their contract gives them an exclusive franchise for their service in Santa Clara County except for Palo Alto. Rural Metro's bid was significantly lower than AMR because they claimed that their "cost recovery" of their $1,200+ service would be much better than AMR was historically able to do. Adding more controversy, the deciding vote for Rural Metro in Santa Clara County was cast by Mr Shirakawa. Mr Shirakawa has since been convicted of multiple criminal felonies and ethical violations and is awaiting sentencing. The SJ Mercury News recently investigated Mr Shirakawa's interactions with Rural Metro prior to casting his deciding vote: Web Link Their investigation did not reflect well on Mr Shirakawa or Rural Metro.
Among many things, Santa Clara County's contract requires Rural Metro to respond within 12 minutes to 90% of the their calls. Failure to do so results in fines. Rural Metro incurred nearly $5 million in fines because they were unable to meet this response requirement. The contract also specifies that Santa Clara County and surrounding agencies provide dispatching services for Rural Metro. The company was billed for these and other services by the Country, but had not paid. Furthermore, Rural Metro missed a bond payment to shareholders, had their Santa Clara employees authorize a strike vote and apparently failed to properly maintain their ambulance equipment in the County.
If Rural Metro had failed to make the payment they did this week, they would have been in violation of their contract with the County. This was not a "manufactured crisis." Had Rural Metro not paid, there were only two alternatives. The first would have been to drop Rural Metro, take possession of their equipment and find a new provider. Since it took almost a year to make the conversion from AMR to Rural Metro, this would have been a bad situation for most of the residents of Santa Clara County. The second option would have been to let the County cover the costs themselves and hope that Rural Metro would somehow improve. Given the company's financial situation and Rural Metro's existing performance record in Santa Clara County, this doesn't seem likely. But, by making the payment this option still remains viable and the County doesn't have to eat the costs.
Wayne, where exactly do you believe that Rural Metro got a bad deal? Rural Metro obviously severely underbid their Santa Clara County contract and compromised service to the residents of the County to compensate. Rural Metro has never disputed their failure to meet the response requirements set out in their contract. Your statement: "The idea that Rural Metro is putting its client's lives in danger due to non-perfomance is clearly a non-starter" is completely in contradiction to the facts. While their 90% numbers have recently improved, Rural Metro should have never been awarded the contract in the first place. AMR had problems too, but they were never this bad.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 31, 2013 at 4:40 pm
> I'm confused by your post.
And I'm confused about what are confused about. You have posted a goodly amount (of unsourced) information, which one would assume you believe. Other than your question to me in your last paragraph, you seem to be fully "non confused". I
> where exactly do you believe that Rural Metro got a bad deal?
The media treatment covering this "non-event" has been shoddy. The details from the information on the SCC web-site is quite impressive, compared to the press coverage. The article in today's Post seemed adequate, however.
> Rural Metro obviously severely underbid their
> Santa Clara County contract
And you know this how? Are you the comptroller of R/M? Unless there are press releases from R/M to that point, the best one can do is speculate about the profitability of this account. You seem to be beyond speculation in your statement.
> Rural Metro has never disputed their failure to meet the response
> requirements set out in their contract.
If you say so. However, the County negotiated a requirement that the response times be published on a monthly basis. These monthly reports are available on the SCC web-site (see links in previous postings). From various press releases, R/M is supposed to have not been in compliance in the early months, but has been routinely demonstrating > 90% in recent months. To fully understand their performance, it might not be that hard to pull down all of these on-time performance reports to see just how many months these folks have not been hitting 90%.
Now—all of the information that we need to fully appreciate this situation is not readily available. For instance, if an ambulance is "late" by 20 seconds, say, it is "officially" late—but so what? Therefore--we need to really get the actual response time data, and do a full analysis of that data to see just how "bad" things are.
And then, given that Santa Clara County is pretty large, it might pay to see if the calls that exceed 12 minutes (per contract) are in hard-to-get-to places. If they are, maybe the County should grant the service a little longer time for their threshold time-to-respond?
Other issues need examination—such as equipment availability. Is there a maintenance problem with the equipment used by R/M? Every vehicle has maintenance issues. What's the availability factor for R/M's SCC fleet? If there are problems, how does equipment factor into lateness?
And the 12 minute contracted response time number should be examined for realism. Everyone wants transport to the hospital as quickly as possible. But if the threshold for R/M (or any ambulance service) were raised to 13 minutes, what would be the impact on patient health? And what would be the impact on R/M's "late numbers"?
And while we're talking about it—how many people have died waiting for R/M ambulances? If the answer is Zero—then maybe their service, even when late, isn't to be considered detrimental to patient health. The Post quotes a SCC representative saying: "there is no crisis".
As to R/M's not paying a $5M bill, this seems like little potatoes—and hardly enough to precipitate a takeover of the service. Given that the City of Detroit is in the process of trying to walk away from a $18B bill, owed to over 100K creditors—the R/M lateness in settling this particular bill in a timely fashion seems difficult to see as anything by normal business.
If SCC wants to dump R/M, then I submit tht there are issues not on the table. I have no stake in the R/M issue--I'd just like to see honest reporting .. that's all.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 31, 2013 at 5:06 pm
Seems that County has provided us with a goodly amount of data about their Emergency Services operation--
Web Link
SCC EMSA Semi-Annual Report (May, 2012):
Web Link
SCC EMSA Semi-Annual Report (November, 2012):
Web Link
BTW—there is a lot of interesting information about R/M's performance in SCC Emergency Medical Services Agency report from 2012. Anyone really interested in this situation should take a couple of minutes to review this report.
It's a shame that the media didn't dig into this a little more than they did.
a resident of Fairmeadow
on Jul 31, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Here's an interesting tid-bit:
Web Link
Regarding: Status of Rural Metro as Santa Clara County's Exclusive Operating Area Ambulance Provider
This letter serves to state the status of Rural Metro as the exclusive provider of 911 and emergency ambulance service within the Santa Clara County Exclusive Operating Area (EOA). During the past two to three months, persistent rumors have circulated that Rural Metro is in breach of the Emergency Medical Services Agreement between Rural Metro of California and the County of Santa Clara. These rumors are unfounded and incorrect.
Rural Metro has been the exclusive provider of 911 and emergency ambulance service within the Santa Clara EOA since July 1, 2011. Since that time, they have met response time standards in all five zones and in aggregate, for all Code 2 and Code 3 calls, measured monthly, every month, except in July 2011, when they did not meet the 90% response time standard for Code 3 calls in zone one. The response time standards in the Santa Clara County EOA are more stringent than before July 1, 2011. There are fewer exemptions and exceptions, and ambulances are on average arriving on scene faster now than before July 1, 2011.
The EMS Agency and Rural Metro have a strong relationship. There are no plans to replace Rural Metro as the County exclusive provider of 911 and emergency ambulance service within the Santa Clara County Exclusive Operating Area (EOA). Looking forward, the EMS Agency is working closely with Rural Metro to fully implement all of the terms of the comprehensive agreement, and to continue to improve clinical quality improvem
This letter is the better part of 13 months old, but what's interesting is the existence of "unfounded rumors". Given that the County is providing pretty good documentation (at the macro level) for R/M on-time performance, one has to wonder where/why these rumors persist?
a resident of Meadow Park
on Jul 31, 2013 at 9:51 pm
"This letter is the better part of 13 months old, but what's interesting is the existence of "unfounded rumors". Given that the County is providing pretty good documentation (at the macro level) for R/M on-time performance, one has to wonder where/why these rumors persist?"
Wayne, I'm sure we both fully understand why these rumors persist.
Private sector ambulatory companies are not based in a FD. They use predictive technology to strategically place their units in areas with the highest frequency of calls during different times of the day. The FD doesn't do that. That's why private ambulatory companies beat the FD to calls day in and day out. And they also do the transporting to the Emergency Room.
Try to get the FD to commit to stationing their units near a freeway during commute time, or near a dangerous intersection, near a senior center after dinner hours, or anywhere outside the confines of their Fire House, and see where that gets you.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 1, 2013 at 7:34 am
Mike from Meadow Park,
You are so right about the private ambulance companies. Only a matter of time before all cities switch to private transport. Plus, look at the savings: no salaries, pensions or medical to pay into. No buying and maintaining of ambulances. Yes, only a matter of time.
a resident of Meadow Park
on Aug 2, 2013 at 8:53 pm
I think city council needs to study the issue. IMO, less reliance on the FD and a solid contract with a private company will provide MUCH better service in a more timely manner at a reduced cost.
a resident of another community
on Aug 4, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Going down for the first time!
Web Link
Outsource THIS!
a resident of Triple El
on Jun 5, 2017 at 3:40 am
Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?
a resident of Portola Valley
on Jun 6, 2017 at 4:05 am
Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?
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text:
Noise Pollution Affects Coral Reef Fish
While fish don't have ears that we can see, they do have ear parts inside their heads that can pick up sounds in the water.
Not only do fish and invertebrates make their own sounds, but wind, waves and currents also create other background noise. And reefs especially are naturally noisy places.
Add this noise to the engines and horns of shipping vessels and military sonars, and we have a full-blown orchestra of marine sounds.
Consequently, fish react to the noises they hear and according to new research, boat noise can disrupt orientation behavior in larval coral reef fish.
Researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Exeter and Liège conducted a sound study in French Polynesia and found that while reef fish are normally attracted by reef sound, they are more likely to swim away from recordings of reefs when boat noise is added.
Sophie Holles, a PhD researcher at the University of Bristol and one of the study's authors, said: "Natural underwater sound is used by many animals to find suitable habitat, and traffic noise is one of the most widespread pollutants. If settlement is disrupted by boat traffic, the resilience of habitats like reefs could be affected."
Co-author, Dr Steve Simpson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter, said: "Boat noise may scare fish, affecting their ecology. Since one in five people in the world rely on fish as their major source of protein, regulating traffic noise in important fisheries areas could help marine communities and the people that depend on them."
The study used controlled field experiments with settlement stage coral reef fish larvae. Larvae in a long plastic tube could decide to swim towards or away from a speaker playing back different sounds. In ambient noise equal numbers of fish were found in each section of the tube and in reef noise most fish swam towards the sound. But when boat noise was played along with reef noise more fish swam away from the sound than in reef noise alone.
Co-author, Dr Andy Radford from the University of Bristol, said: "This is the first indication that noise pollution can affect orientation behaviour during the critical settlement stage. Growing evidence for the impact of noise on fish suggests that consideration should be given to the regulation of human activities in protected areas."
The research is published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series.
See more at the University of Bristol.
Underwater image via Shutterstock.

subset: commoncrawl


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Ahead of Saturday's "Strikeforce: Kaufman vs. Rousey" event, Strikeforce has released a video preview of the night's two headliners.
In the Showtime-televised main event, women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey looks to defend her title for the first time when she takes on former titleholder Sarah Kaufman.
If you like your fighters in latex, this is the preview video for you.
"Strikeforce: Kaufman vs. Rousey" takes place at Valley View Casino Center in San Diego. In addition to the Showtime-televised main card, which includes a co-headliner of Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza (15-3 MMA, 5-1 SF) vs. Derek Brunson (9-1 MMA, 3-0 SF), prelims air on Showtime Extreme.
Rousey (5-0 MMA, 3-0 SF), the fast-rising face of women's MMA, took the belt from Miesha Tate in March. But Kaufman (15-1 MMA, 6-1 SF), who originally held the title until a defeat to Marloes Coenen in 2010, looks to reclaim the belt in their five-round headliner.
Check out the embedded clip as the ladies discuss the show.
The full "Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman" card includes:
MAIN CARD (Showtime)
- Champ Ronda Rousey vs. Sarah Kaufman (for women's bantamweight title)
- Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza vs. Derek Brunson
- Roger Bowling vs. Tarec Saffiedine
- Lumumba Sayers vs. Anthony Smith
- T.J. Cook vs. Ovince St. Preux
PRELIMINARY CARD (Showtime Extreme)
- Julie Kedzie vs. Miesha Tate
- Bobby Green vs. Matt Ricehouse
- Adlan Amagov vs. Keith Berry
- Germaine de Randamie vs. Hiroko Yamanaka
For more on the "Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman" card, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.


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It was a heady feeling, and I recall thinking that small-studio producers, as well as home and corporate high-def wannabes, could actually drive HD market acceptance and perhaps even impact the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD marketing war. Then I bought another Blu-ray player and got a sudden dose of reality.
I had just finished taping my wife's ballet company's performance of The Nutcracker and was determined to produce a high-definition DVD, more for the experience than with the hope of selling any. I decided to produce bits of it in HD DVD, burning a dual-layer DVD-R disc, and a full version on Blu-ray, courtesy of Sonic's DVDit and the Pioneer BDR-101A burner.
Though I had a Toshiba HD DVD player to test my work, I had already had to return the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player that I had used for testing in Right Here, Right Now: Authoring and Burning HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs. So I requested another, and while waiting for it to arrive, produced the Blu-ray disc.
The Samsung player showed up and, as my daughters love to say, there was just one problem—the Nutcracker disc refused to play. So I tried several of the discs that had I had burned for the HD story, which played perfectly on the BD-P1000, and none of them would play either.
The first thing I checked was whether there had been a firmware upgrade on the unit and was relieved to find that there had been, since I assumed that the update would resolve the problem. About an hour later, I was back up and running, but when I retried all the discs, there was still no joy in Mudville.
Next, I Googled "BD-P1000" and "DVDit," and quickly hit paydirt. It all relates to the difference between BDMV and BDAV, two acronyms that I had happily never heard of before my research. Briefly, BDMV and BDAV are two recordable disc formats enabled under the Blu-ray Disc specifications. BDMV is the format used by DVDit because it enables menus, interactivity, alternate audio, and subtitle tracks, essentially delivering feature parity with current DVD±R technology. BDAV is targeted more for home recording functions, and offers far fewer authoring-related features (similar to the DVD±VR formats designed for set-top DVD burners).
When Blu-ray was first released, BDMV recording on Blu-ray discs was not supported, though it was later added in September 2006. Here's where it gets interesting.
It turns out that the earliest releases of the Samsung firmware, including the one I tested, supported BDMV. Later firmware releases, issued after BDMV support was introduced, inexplicably removed playback support for the format. Working with folks I met online, I obtained a much earlier firmware revision, and ultimately got the Nutcracker Blu-ray disc to play, making it, without question, the first high-definition disc authored here in Galax, Virginia (please hold your applause).
Again, though, there's just one problem: newer commercial Blu-ray Discs won't play on my outdated player. That's not an issue for me, since I still have an HD DVD player I can use for the rare movie that I absolutely have to see in HD. But it takes the Samsung out of the running for recommending to any parents who might want to buy my Blu-ray Nutcracker, not to mention anyone I sell on the idea of a hi-def wedding. Fortunately, there is an alternative, the Panasonic DMP-BD10, which according to several reports on the Roxio and Blu-ray forums, works perfectly with Blu-ray discs authored in DVDit.
What does Samsung have to say? Unfortunately, though I greatly admire Samsung's products and product marketing, it's one of those monolithic companies that conceals marketing and product manager types, the usual sources of information, from probing press-types like me. I never got to ask why they initially supported BDMV when it wasn't required in the specification, and later dropped BDMV support after it was officially mandated.
After several rounds with a public relations contact explaining and defining the problem, I heard that BDMV support might be added in a firmware upgrade to be released in either February or April. Though unstated, what came through loud and clear was a total lack of appreciation for the repercussions of their BDMV-related decisions to those attempting to author Blu-ray Discs.
Anyway, there's at least a chance that by the time you read this column, a fix may be available. But then again, maybe not. Either way, the enduring lesson is that the market is still nascent and that you have to be careful when recommending products to your customers. Specifically, test before you recommend, and let your clients know that seemingly irrelevant changes like updating your firmware can convert your vibrant hi-def discs into useless coasters.
Jan Ozer (www.doceo.com) is a frequent contributor to industry magazines on digital video-related topics and the author of Adobe Digital Video How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques with Adobe Production Studio, published by Peachpit Press.


text:
I am moving sites, this one's too bloody (not rude) picky. This is my website at Fanfiction.net, where all my stuff is at the moment. This profile will no longer be updated unless it's a poem or something equally small, as I'm just sick and tired of the perfectionists who say no simply because your English is AUSTRALIAN and not AMERICAN, something they don't appear to realise.
This is it, enjoy and don't complain that it doesn't look fancy, it's the goo inside that matters. Mugglenet can go to buggery for all I care.


text:
9 reasons to go the vacation home rental route the next time you travel
Home Away from Home (Really!)
by Christine Karpinski
Related Articles
The Vacation Home Renter's Peace of Mind Guide
Rent Out Our House While We're On Vacation?
Picture yourself and your family doing all the vacation-y things that make you happy. Now, instead of returning at night to a cramped, impersonal hotel room, envision yourself coming home to a home. That's right. More and more people are eschewing hotels in favor of vacation rental homes. For most people, especially families with children, staying in a vacation home is better in every way.
You may have assumed that it cost too much or maybe didn't understand the logistics of finding the right place to stay. But the Internet has changed everything. Not only is it increasingly easy to find the perfect home, it's often less expensive than getting a hotel room!
Figures back up that assertion. For instance, HomeAway recently did a side-by-side comparison of two lodging options in Orlando, Florida: a 228-square-foot King Room at the Radisson Worldgate Resort (a popular three-star hotel) and a 1,700-square-foot private home with three bedrooms. For a party of one to two adults staying seven nights, the hotel room was slightly less expensive: $1003 vs. $1050 for the vacation rental house. But when you add more guests, the rental home becomes far more reasonable by comparison. While its price stays the same no matter how many people stay there, the hotel's price skyrockets: $1,746 for three to four occupants and $2,619 for five to six occupants.
Price isn't everything, of course. There are many other reasons to choose a vacation rental house (or condo or chalet or cabin or villa or farmhouse) over a hotel. Here are a few examples:
- There are plenty of vacation homes to choose from. More and more people are realizing their dream of owning a second home and renting it out when they're not using it. That's good news for travelers like you. In fact, there's a vacation home within a two-hour drive of most metropolitan areas in the U.S. There are plenty of others in Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America as well.
You can find exactly what you're looking for no matter where your vacation takes you. Even if you have to go to a small town for, say, a relative's wedding, there's probably a vacation home in the vicinity.
- The rental process is getting easier and more convenient. Admittedly, it's not quite as simple to rent a vacation home as it is to book a hotel room. You still have to deal directly with the homeowner. Still, it's pretty easy. Homeowners are becoming more consumer-friendly in their business practices. Despite popular misconception, you don't always have to commit to a week. Many homeowners will let you rent by the weekend or even on a nightly basis, particularly during the off-season. And while some of them still expect you to send them a personal check, many others accept credit cards or PayPal.
- Vacation homes are more spacious and comfortable. You know that crowded, slightly stir-crazy feeling you get in a hotel room? It doesn't happen in a vacation home. In fact, I've found that people who stay in private homes don't feel so compelled to wear themselves out cramming in every touristy activity in town.
- You can live like a local. When you stay in someone's home, you get a more authentic experience. One big reason vacation home renters get to "live like locals" is that most homeowners love to provide their guests with helpful hints. They'll point you to the best restaurants in town, the best hiking trails, and the best bike rental places.
- You can cook and do laundry. If you're on a budget, both of these factors can be huge benefits.
- If the weather's bad, there's more to do indoors. Most vacation rental homeowners provide DVDs (along with the electronic equipment to view them on), board games, playing cards, and other family-friendly diversions. Also, more than half of all rental properties now have Internet access. If it pours down rain during your vacation, you'll appreciate these kinds of thoughtful extras.
- Vacation homes provide more privacy for Mom and Dad. Let's say you want to have some, ahem, adult time while you're on vacation. There's nothing better than being able to put the kids in a separate bedroom down the hall.
- You might even be able to bring Fido or Fluffy. Many vacation property owners will accept pets, which makes their homes especially attractive to families who can't bear to part with their four-footed friends for a week.
Once you go the vacation home route, you probably won't go back to hotels. Yes, it takes a little effort on your part and you may have to contact several different owners before you find the right home, but the results are definitely worth it. Start planning your next vacation right now. When you're relaxing in a comfortable home in a few months, you'll be glad you made the effort.
Christine Karpinski is the author of How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner: The Complete Guide to Buy, Manage, Furnish, Rent, Maintain and Advertise Your Vacation Rental Investment and Profit from Your Vacation Home Dream: The Complete Guide to a Savvy Financial and Emotional Investment. Her books, combined with her seminars, media appearances, and Web site (HowToRentByOwner.com), have helped thousands of people purchase and manage their vacation homes. Today she serves as director of OwnerCommunity for HomeAway, Inc. (HomeAway.com), the worldwide leader for vacation rentals on the Internet. Each year, more than 50 million travelers visit the HomeAway global marketplace that is comprised of more than 130,000 vacation rental homes across 100 countries.
Take the Next Step
- Make travel part of your frugal lifestyle with The Dollar Stretcher's Guide to Vacationing for Less.
- Is debt preventing you from taking your family on their dream vacation? Start taking the steps to get out of debt today so you can provide your family that vacation tomorrow.
- Visit HomeAway.com to find a listing of some home rentals.
Share your thoughts about this article with the editor.


text: Looking for 4.0 and up tennis partner(s) in Brooklyn or Staten Island I'm a fit, 4.5+ player - trying to play as much as I can, but often don't have anyone to hit with. email me vilinskiy@ gmail.com (NO SPACE) or just reply here. I also added myself to the "find a partner" search on usta site http://www.finder.usta.com/communitycenter/home.aspx


text:
Discussion in 'Former Pro Player Talk' started by forzamilan90, Jan 9, 2013.
Three, on three different surfaces.
Four if we include Australian Pro 1957 (and I do).
Good to know.Thanks.
We are talking 1962.
Actually, Segura put up a great fight against Rosewall at Wembley that year.
But he was past peak by this time.
Bobby, I thought that you respected Peter Rowley's judgment.
It was Rowley who claimed that Hoad was carrying extra poundage and moving slowly in 1960.
Of course, given Hoad's long layoff, propensity for the brew, and lack of serious training, what would you expect?
Dan, Segura deserves a fourth place for 1962 even if you don't believe it.
Remember Kiki that Segura was a pro and Laver wasn't nearly the player he would be in 1962. Segura is one of the finest players ever lived. He had a two handed quite similar looking to Jimmy Connors' backhand but those who have seen both consider Segura's forehand clearly better, some think by a wide margin. Many have called it the best single stroke in tennis history. Laver called it the finest forehand he ever faced. This is something to imagine since Laver only faced the Segura forehand when Segura was in his forties and Laver faced many awesome forehands.
As you have written yourself, the 1950's, in the pros was arguably the highest level of tennis play ever and Segura won most of his tournaments in that era, defeating players like Gonzalez in the US Pro final for example. Segura was a super mover with a fantastic volley, especially the forehand volley. He had a very solid backhand with great control. He was so quick he could run around his backhand to hit his super forehand an excellent percentage of the time.
So with Segura you had a guy with a good serve, super volley, very very mobility with perhaps the greatest forehand of all time. That's a lot going for you. If you asked me if Segura at his best was better than Emerson, I would say yes.
pc1, Segura by far stronger than Emerson.
I would say WAY better, without any kind of doubt. Emerson never faced peak-Kramer, peak-Sedgman, peak-Gonzales, peak-Rosewall, and peak-Hoad, while Segura did, and he caught 3-4 Majors title despite this enormous competition.
Which titles? Were they really majors?
In 1951 at Forest Hills, Kramer dropped out with back ache, Gonzales was rusty from lack of play.
Segura had good wins at Slazenger 1953 against Sedgman, and 1957 at Melbourne against Gonzales and Sedgman, LA Masters in 1958 against the field.
At Wembley he was a perennial bridesmaid.
Dan, They were really majors. Your own counting does not mean too much...
I agree. Dan Lobb is funny, he seems to live in another world, with another tennis history, which he totally invented.
I try not to buy into commercial hackery. Not every world championship was really a world title.
I have taken the trouble to do some research.
Yes, I know. The facts are disturbing to the established view.
I sympathize.
I do not see Segura at 4 for 1962.
He was whipped in straight sets by Bucholz in the Cleveland final.
Probably have
1) Rosewall
2) Hoad
3) Laver
4) Emerson
5) Gimeno
6) Cooper (who won a tournament that year)
7) Trabert (who won a tournament that year)
8) Segura
As I say, Segura looked good at Wembley.
Inventing Dan, Your list is a joke. Emerson No.4? I can't believe it.
Segura won several claycourt tournaments and had in SFs match point against Rosewall at Wembley. That's more than "looked good".
There is a lot of doubles standarts.Segura, while an excellent player, never belonged to the class of the kramers,Hoads,Gonzales and Traberts.
OTOH, Emerson won a lot of titles and matches against all time greats.He deserves respect.I am sure Gimeno´d change gladly his tennis record for Roy´s.
kiki, you are right that Segura never belonged to the class of Trabert. He just was a class higher! Segoo reached No.2 in several years while Trabert only jumped to the No.4 spot...
Emerson might have won more titles than Gimeno but Gimeno was just the better player as he reached the No.3 position, a place never realized by Emmo.
Don't trust Dan Lobb!
I have to agree with BobbyOne here. Segura was a superior player to Trabert but below Kramer and Gonzalez. Remember he did battle Gonzalez on tour and only lost by 20 matches to 30. Trabert lost to Gonzalez by 27 matches to 74. And Segura beat Gonzalez in several US Pro finals.
Never seen Segura ( never seen Trabert but he is such a likeable guy, you know)...in any case, I have seen live both Emerson and Gimeno.I think it is definitely even.Emerson was steadier, much fitter and had a true champion spirit which Gimeno, while a very accomplished player, never really had.OTOH, Gimeno´s Fh was better than any of Emerson´s shots ( although Emmo had a solid BH, Gimeno´s BH is, IMO, underrated when compared to his big and long FH).I think it is very close and both could win.Gimeno, on the other hand, was very smart, but lacked Roy´s competitive heart.
I agree partly.
Can we really say that Gimeno did not have a competitive heart because he did not win a pro major? (I think you insinuate this). He lost to Laver and Rosewall (but beat Rosewall at four majors), while Emerson beat hackers like Stolle and Drysdale...
Stolle a hacker??
Gimeno´s only major came against a mediocre player named Proisy.I like Gimeno but you overrated him a lot ( as you do with no major winner segura)...just as much as you belittle Newcombe and Stolle.We certainly do not share the same concepts.
Segoo was second in weak years, my friend.
Trabert beat Segoo in a head to head tour, proving who was the better.
Trabert: 4 Roland Garoos titles Segoo: 0 Roland Garros titles.
You can trust me on this, don't worry about that.
Emerson vs. Gimeno?
No comparison. Close doesn't do it in tennis, only in horseshoes.
Runnerups? Give me a break.
He lost to more than Laver and Rosewall.
Where was Gimeno at Roland Garros or Wimbledon before he turned pro AT AGE 23?
kiki, Stolle called himself "The Old Hacker".
Yes, we don't have the same concept. I just wonder what your concept is.
I don't overrate Gimeno.
I don't overrate Segura.
I don't belittle Newcombe.
I don't belittle Stolle.
You underrate and belittle Rosewall :"10 big titles" even though you exactly know that Rosewall is by far the most successful with 25 big titles against 2 of Stolle,f.i.,
against 19 of your first darling, against 8 of your second darling etc...
You belittle Vines and Nüsslein!
You call Muscles mean. That's mean!
Your "expertise" is a shame!
Gimeno won how many majors? Less than one? Oh, the victory over Proissy.
Segura at least had good years in the early fifties, but in the tough years of the late fifties, he ranked about 6 or 7.
Newcombe won the biggest titles in the 1970 to 1975 era, based on competition.
He beat Connors in two majors (Rosewall also played Connors in two majors!), Smith in three (including the Davis Cup, certainly a major event), Kodes in one major final, Rosewall in three majors (1970 Wimbledon, 1971 Wimbledon (the worst shellacking of Rosewall's career), 1973 Forest Hills), Emerson (1970 Wimbledon marathon, 11-9 in the fifth).
When Newk was on his game, the best player of the early seventies.
Dan, you are as great as kiki! You will forgive me that I don't answer to all your nonsense statements...
There is no need to answer. Not necessary.
I agree, Stolle was not that great, he never faced the Pros until 1968. His two amateur Slam victories are not such a feat.
On the contrary Gimeno was able to constantly beat Laver and Rosewall on clay in the mid 60s: this is something to take in great consideration. He has also beaten Rosewall indoor at some Pro Majors.
The 1972 FO was a good title: the field was partially depleted, but still with strong players. He has beaten Stan Smith in the quarterfinals.
How about Gimeno's amateur slam victories, when he was 23 years old?
Oh, excuse me. Wrong question.
Gimeno could win minor tournaments in the pros, but so could Stolle.
Why did Gimeno go down at Wembley in 1963 and 1966 to an over-the-hill, injured old man, Hoad? No excuse.
In 1972, the only tough match Gimeno got was from Metreveli, a decent but not great player.
I think that Gimeno could have accomplished more.
Old man? He was 3 years older than Gimeno, not 8.
I agree, Gimeno was not great between the amateurs, but he became great as a Pro - on the contrary some great amateurs were just weak when they turned Pro. So, the fact that he didn't win anything as an amateur, doesn't prove anything.
Ahahah, ha was 34 and he has beaten Smith, one of the top-2 players of 1972, please stop trolling around.
Thanks, Federic, for agreement. A little correction: Stolle turned pro in early 1967 and did not really well in his first pro year.
I'm impressed by the Rosewall/Stolle balance: 23 : 2 matches! (a few pro matches of 1967 could be missing).
Dan, it's good that you realized you asked a wrong question.
Yes, I didn't want to embarrass the supporters of Gimeno any further.
When he came on the pro tour in 1961, Gimeno was touted as "the next Gonzales, he even looks like him".
Didn't quite work out that way.
Dan, Gimeno turned pro in 1960.
Not many players can cope with Gonzalez, even not your favourite player.
That says a lot about Stolle and his real level.
...and a lot about Rosewall who has a positive balance against most good players, f.i. a similary hth against MacKay (25:1), Ayala (30:4) and Olmedo (33:7).
I was disappointed that Newcombe once ranked Stolle among the top ten Aussie players but not Roche who was stronger than Stolle.
Now I am sure Bobbyone and myself have not seen the same tennis, the same players.
I just laugh at the idea that you ever met Rosewall...you are the only one that does not know that EVERYBODY called him pockets, those who know him ( and I am sure you just don´t).
I have different darlings, yes, but Laver is my first darling and the others are more spendable...
I never belittled Vines, I just don´t buy some stuff.
I have seen Gimeno like 12 or 15 times LIVE...How many have you?
How many times have you seen Laver? Roche? Newcombe? Nastase? Kodes? Hoad? Gimeno? Santana? Emerson? Stolle?...Rosewall?? be honest with yourself.I don´t care if you are with me Mr " expert"
Bobbyone has certainly read a lot about tennis of the 60´s and 70´s.I doubt he has really seen one single match of that era.
Botht eammates.Rosewall had the right game to counter Stolle.
BTW, Have you ever seen Stolle and Rosewall live? or you just read about them in a Marvel comic?
kiki, You might have seen more old players than I have but thus the more your verdicts are very strange.
It's a severy insult that you write I don't know Muscles. You seem to be a second Limpinhitter...
kiki, My first tennis match was the 1970 Wimbledon final between Newcombe and Rosewall. Then my favourite player was still Emerson because I did not know too much about the banned pros.
Because I´ve seen them live, I can judge.You shouldn´t judge on textbook, but on watching players.
Rosewall, and this is the last time I´ll writte it, because I think you haven´t noticed, is one of the most impressive players that I have seen over the last 40 years.That says a lot considering how many great players I have seen.He was a true master and his positional game was jsut as ridiculous good, looked like your countryman Von Karajan.he could play with a stick instead of a racket.
and take no offense at Rosewall being Pockets.Nobody is perfect, not even your darling.Albeit he was technichaly close to perfection.happy?
kiki, Of course it's better to watch the players. But a 23:2 balance speaks for itself to allow an objective judgment...
Rosewall´s perfect BH ROS was a nightmare for the big serve and volleyer, but just too tall and not flexible Stolle.Fred had to volley below knee level and that left him frustrated.
however, both players made up for a great combo and were one of the best doubles team of the decade.Stolle was very succesful with a lot of different guys, from Hewitt and Emerson to Rosewall and Newcombe.That says a lot about his doubles credentials.
Stolle posessed a big Serve, a solid volley and a truly magnificient BH ROS.But he was tall and not fast or flexible.he was similar, IMO, to Stan Smith ( but Smith was a bit quicker )
BobbyOne does know a lot about tennis. One does not have to have seen Bill Tilden in person to know a lot of information on him. Of course it helps but in analyzing his results against top competition it is not as important as knowing the information. If I saw Henri Leconte on one of his "on" days I would think this guy was astounding. But in checking his results I would realize that he wasn't quite that good. Actually I still think Leconte was an astounding talent and one of the most gifted I've seen come to think of it.
It's quite easy to be in awe of Laver. Sometimes I would watch Laver and see the announcers yell "On the line" for another one of Laver's shots when he was on one of his hot streaks and I would think to myself that it can't be that easy for him to hit the line. Laver was a great shotmaker.
But I admire Rosewall too. He's spectacular in his own way. After watching Rosewall for a while you realize what a genius this guy was. He did things in a quietly brilliant way. By that I mean that he never seemed rushed but always seemed in the right place to hit the right shot. Arthur Ashe once wrote that Rosewall and him had as their best shots the backhand. Ashe commented that he had a wide variety of backhand and Rosewall had one backhand...perfect.
Separate names with a comma.


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Carbon tax triggers shifts in electricity generation
COAL-FIRED power generation has fallen in the wake of the midyear launch of the carbon tax, which also triggered a lift in hydro-power generation, a detailed analysis by the Australian Energy Market Operator has shown.
On July 1, a $23-a-tonne tax on carbon emissions was introduced, which pushed up wholesale electricity prices sharply, to about $58 per megawatt hour, although the price has since eased to about $50 due primarily to sluggish demand.
The carbon tax lifted hydro-power generation to 10.2 per cent of the total electricity produced in the national electricity market from 8.4 per cent previously, the analysis found.
The share for black coal fell to 51.1 per cent from 53 per cent, and that of brown coal dropped to 23.3 per cent from 24.1 per cent.
"The carbon price saw a shift in spot prices, a change in the mix of generation sources and changes to the flow of power … between states," the managing director of the AEMO, Matt Zema, said.
Part of the shift to hydro capacity could be due to seasonal factors, since the Snowy and Hydro Tasmania networks usually boost generation in winter and spring, when storage levels are high, AEMO noted.
The carbon price was introduced as electricity supply was being disrupted, after flooding cut capacity at the Yallourn power station.
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text:
Hi everyone,
i'm building a new PC and i was wondering if i should choose a 64-bit operating system or not. What are the risks and benefits ? Because i must say, right now, i don't see much benefits from it (except using the full 4 Gb of memory i'll have) since I don't see much 64bit applications out there (but I might be wrong - or blind). And what about drivers ?
The operating system I am looking at is Windows Vista Business 64bit (which i can get for free and completely legal; installing Windows XP is not really an option since i don't have any license left). I'll also install Ubuntu 8.04 64bit. Or i could install the 32-bit version of Vista with the 32-bit version of Ubuntu. I have numerous choice. What do you think ? Not installing Vista is not option, nor is not installing Linux.
It seems a bit odd to me to see that there is so few 64bit software even if it's been a couple of years that 64bit processor are on the market. I was too young to see the 16bit/32bit transition, but I'm curious, was it long ?
For people who might be interested, here's the highlight of my new system:
- Core 2 Duo E8400
- GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard
- 2x2GB of PC2-6400


text:
After lecture by Gardenhire, Hicks in lineup
By Rhett Bollinger / MLB.com
BOSTON -- A day after lecturing center fielder Aaron Hicks in the dugout at Fenway Park on Tuesday night, manager Ron Gardenhire had Hicks back in the lineup and in center field on Wednesday.
Gardenhire wasn't happy with Hicks casually flipping the ball back with his glove to second baseman Brian Dozier after catching a fly ball in the eighth inning of Minnesota's 6-1 win. However, Gardenhire said that after talking with Hicks, the rookie understood what he did wrong and both were able to move past what happened.
"I wanted him back out there playing," Gardenhire said. "He's fine. We have a belief around here there's a right way and a wrong way to play the game. And if I see something and I don't tell the player and I let it go, then I'm not doing my job."
Gardenhire was even able to joke about the play, as he believed it only became an issue because it was shown on the Twins' television broadcast.
"We had our moment," Gardenhire said. "It was a great moment. We were heroes on the Internet. That's great."
Hicks said that Gardenhire explained to him that the fly ball could've been ruled a hit if Dozier didn't catch the flip because the ball never left Hicks' glove.
"You have to be serious," Hicks said. "I was just out there catching the ball and thought it was just a regular out and didn't realize that if something happens in that situation and Dozier doesn't catch that ball, it could be a hit. So he just told me about the importance of making that catch and taking it out of my glove to toss it in."
Hicks added that he learned his lesson and understood why Gardenhire took him aside in the dugout after the play.
"That's what needs to be done," Hicks said. "When he sees something like that, which is something I didn't even notice that I did, it's important to have him tell that to me so that next time I know not to do that."
Carroll, Doumit adjusting to less playing time
BOSTON -- Veterans Jamey Carroll and Ryan Doumit have seen their playing time diminish compared to last season, but they were both in the lineup for a second straight night against the Red Sox on Wednesday.
It marked the first time that Carroll started on back-to-back days, as he started at shortstop in place of Pedro Florimon on Tuesday and second base in place of Brian Dozier on Wednesday. It was also just Carroll's ninth start in 30 games after making 130 starts last year.
"He just goes out there and gets it done," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He handles the bat very well. He's very competitive. So it's nice to move him around. Our guys need a chance to play and back-to-back games helps him out, too. If you're swinging good, you need to play."
Doumit has also seen his playing time decrease this year because of the emergence of rookie Oswaldo Arcia and the early frequency of off-days and rainouts, which has allowed Joe Mauer to start at catcher in 21 of the club's first 30 games. Doumit started at designated hitter on Wednesday for just the second time dating back to April 16.
Doumit homered and doubled in Tuesday's 6-1 win and said he's still trying to adjust to his role this year after playing in a career-high 134 games last year.
"It's something I've got to get used to," Doumit said. "I've never really dealt with anything like that in my career. I've always been a guy that's been used to playing, but it is what it is. What can you do at this point? All I can do is be the most prepared I can be any given day so when I'm in there I'm sharp."
Krejci named Twins' winner of Honorary Bat Girl contest
BOSTON -- Cheri Krejci was named the Twins' winner of the 2013 Honorary Bat Girl contest that recognizes baseball fans who have been affected by breast cancer and demonstrate a commitment to eradicating the disease.
Krejci will be recognized by the Twins in a special pregame ceremony before their game against the Orioles on Sunday at Target Field. She'll also receive pink MLB merchandise and two tickets to the game.
Krejci's parents both died of cancer, and in 2010, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy and had to go through chemotherapy and is cancer free. As head of the Blooming Prairie Cancer Group, Krejci has helped raise thousands of dollars. The last several years, this small community of about 2,000 people has donated more than $50,000 each year.
Besides giving the money to further cancer research, they also give money to people in the community stricken with this terrible disease. They help them with daily needs, such as gas cards to help pay for gas to get to treatment and grocery expenses.
The 30 Honorary Bat Girl winners were selected by fan votes on HonoraryBatGirl.com along with feedback from a guest judging panel that included CC Sabathia of the Yankees, Matt Kemp of the Dodgers, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates, Alex Gordon of the Royals, Maria Menounos of Extra TV and Sam Ryan of MLB Network.
The Honorary Bat Girl program was introduced in 2009 to raise additional awareness and support for the annual "Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer" initiative celebrated on Mother's Day. In four years, more than 4,000 testimonials have been submitted and more than 10 million fan votes have been cast.
Rhett Bollinger is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Bollinger Beat, and follow him on Twitter @RhettBollinger. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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It's draft day! Here's to your team making the right pick tonight.
Former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel said it 'Would be nice' to get drafted about the Dallas Cowboys, but he hopes he doesn't last that long during tonight's NFL draft.
Former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray and former LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger share similarities on their way to the NFL.
Former Vanderbilt wide receiver Jordan Matthews' greatness started at home.L
With recruiting over, LSU running backs coach Frank Wilson is eager to coach standout running back Leonard Fournette.
Despite a less-than-exciting junior season, former South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney has been a game-changer at every level.
Former Alabama safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix made a late pitch to the Philadelphia Eagles on the eve of the NFL draft.
Athlete Jacob Parker accepts preferred walk-on offer from Alabama.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel says 'There's some pouting going on still' when it comes to the Mizzou-Kansas rivalry.
Former Missouri offensive lineman Max Copeland has transformed himself into a fullback, in hopes of finding a 'patch of grass' in the NFL.
Sophomore defensive lineman Jason Carr is transferring from Tennessee.
Ryan Black of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer projects Auburn's receiver depth chart coming out of spring practice.
Florida coach Will Muschamp expresses his excitement for redshirt freshman running back Adam Lane.
Former Florida safety Dorian Munroe is launching a new comedy-drama called 'Crew.' The idea is to blend 'Entourage' with 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Girls.' Here's the show's Facebook page.
Former Kentucky linebacker Avery Williamson is excited and nervous about tonight's NFL draft.
Mississippi State wrestles with a get-tough schedule plan.
Arkansas defensive end Trey Flowers is looking to take the next step in his plan with Bret Bielema.


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Thousands flee fighting as Congo crisis deepens
GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A humanitarian crisis is looming in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, aid agencies have warned, after another day of fighting sent thousands of people fleeing for safety.
The rebel militia M23 - widely believed to be backed by Rwanda - holds the city of Goma but was taken by surprise on Thursday in the village of Sake, 26 kilometres away, when government soldiers launched a counteroffensive.
At Mugunga, a sprawling refugee camp halfway between Goma and Sake, the numbers of displaced seeking shelter have soared.
''Before [the fighting] we had 15,000 people here,'' Jean Sindi Dunia, the principal police commissioner in Mugunga's third camp said. ''Now we have displaced people arriving from Kanyaruchina [another camp north of Goma]. We … think the numbers have tripled.''
Those fleeing find only overcrowded, unsanitary conditions in the poorly supplied camps.
''There is famine in the camp since last Sunday,'' Mr Dunia said. ''We received many displaced with nothing to eat. Even to find shelter for them is very difficult. We ask the international agencies to come to help these displaced people. The problem is food. People don't have enough to eat.''
The speed with which Goma fell while under the eyes of United Nations peacekeepers has raised the spectre of a more protracted conflict in the DRC.
M23 consists mainly of soldiers who mutinied from the DRC's army between March and May this year. The rebels claim the Congolese government failed to fully implement the March 23, 2009, peace agreement - hence the name M23. The agreement was supposed to have integrated a precursor of M23, the National Council for the Defence of the People, known as CNDP, into the army.
The International Crisis Group says Congolese authorities only feigned the integration of the CNDP into political institutions, and the group appears to have only pretended to integrate into the Congolese army.
The advance of M23 has uprooted about 60,000 civilians, say UN humanitarian officials. There have been reports of summary executions, the widespread recruitment and use of children, unconfirmed cases of sexual violence, and other serious human rights abuses.
About 500,000 people have been displaced since April, when the M23 rebellion began. With state control collapsing in large swaths of the east of the DRC, there are severe food shortages and a heightened risk of cholera and other diseases.
M23 is thought to be backed by neighbouring Rwanda. A UN report released this week said the Rwandan military commands and supports the rebel force, while Uganda provides more subtle, but nonetheless decisive, backing to the rebels. The report said Rwanda provides equipment and direct reinforcements to the M23 rebels, with the de facto chain of command of M23 ending with the Rwandan Defence Minister, James Kabarebe. Rwanda and Uganda have rejected the accusations, but several donors have suspended aid to Rwanda in light of the accusations.
In response to the UN report, Britain issued a statement on Thursday saying there was ''credible and compelling'' evidence of Rwandan support for the rebels.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in which it strongly condemned the latest wave of attacks by M23 and demanded its immediate withdrawal from Goma.
The Congolese President, Joseph Kabila, met the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, for talks on Tuesday, mediated by the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, but no deal was announced. While the Congolese army is much larger than M23 - numbering about 150,000 - the spaces between the country's cities in are immense.
Analysts say it is in Rwanda's interest to exert influence over areas of eastern Congo, where an estimated 1 million Hutu refugees fled after perpetrating the genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. This enables Rwanda to maintain a buffer zone and exploit the trade and trafficking of minerals.
Guardian News & Media
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Towergate Insurance announce plans for office shake up
PUBLISHED: 09:45 20 August 2014 | UPDATED: 12:50 21 August 2014
A major insurer is to create a new hub near Norwich as part of a radical shake up of its regional businesses.
More than 80 jobs look set to be lost across East Anglia after Towergrate Insurance announced plans to restructure its operation and consolidate some provincial insurers into a central office.
The insurance brokers said it was looking at a site on the Broadland Business Park as the new home for more than 100 staff from the insurance broking arm at Norwich-based Smith & Pinching and Waveney Insurance Brokers in Lowestoft.
But the move would spark office changes, which will also see these parts of the organisation rebranded under the umbrella name of Towergate.
David Wrathall, regional trading director, said the restructure was likely to be finished by early 2015 – and could also see Great Yarmouth-based Towergate Risk Solutions transferred into the new office.
But he dismissed concerns that the company could lose its regional focus, claiming customers would still be able to call the same staff they had dealt with at its provisional brokers in the past.
"It is in our group strategy that we intend to maintain a presence locally," he said. "We are not moving out of whole areas in East Anglia. We will maintain a presence in these counties.
"We believe provincial broking is where we come from and what we do. The key to it is corralling all of these provincial brokers to enable them to leverage the collective strength of the £130m worth of premium power we have in the region."
"The vendors who have sold to us have done so because they have realised the need for scale in the market – many of them still work within the business," he added.
The move comes after the company announced earlier this year that it would be moving its telephone operations to a new call centre in Manchester, leading to 600 redundancies across the UK.
Part of its plans will see it consolidate from 12 national sites to five, while also reducing 130 of its brands to 15.
According to its half year results, group income remained flat at £223m, as operating cash flow fell 18pc to £36.9m.
Mr Wrathall said the company – which employs 400 people in the east – was looking to "recruit aggressively" in the coming months, as well as ploughing fresh investment into a new IT system and staff training.
Smith & Pinching was founded in Norwich by Barry Pinching and Gerry Smith in 1973.
Do you have a business story for the EDP? Contact business editor Ben Woods on 01603 772426 or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com


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Discussion in 'Stargate' started by teacake, Oct 7, 2012.
Kevin Costner is so boring I had forgotten he existed until I read that.
Space Race: That was so much fun!! The planet, the mixed race folk, the sportscasters, the visuals and WOW seeing all the other characters Patrick Currie planed as well as Warwick's brother Eamon. Chaka who we just saw. The Fifth. Fantastic stuff.
Sorry to backtrack but way behind ...just wanted to say I usually dislike kid episodes but I thought the children were really good in this, and that young girl could have made a good teen Seven/Jeri.
Both SG1's "Space Race" and Voyager's "Drive" involve our heroes participating in a race in space. Which episode does it better in your opinion?
I know you're not asking me, but I'll offer input anyway. Neither one is particularly good, IMO. But if I had to choose I'd go with Space Race simply for the news coverage of the race throughout the episode.
I especially enjoyed Space Race because it was such a change from the planets they normally visiit, which range from medieval villages downwards. Even Tollana felt like a very advanced, high-tech medieval village. It had different clothes and different sets that looked advanced, but it lacked that sense of fun and dynamism that we associate with a modern society. It felt almost like a cloistered research campus or corporate headquarters. I imagine the special effects and set design would be a major problem, but visiting planets that resemble Blade Runner, Fifth Element, Total Recall, and such would be a refreshing and eye-popping change.
We're used to seeing our advanced representatives vitsit primitive planets with simple cultures, instead of occassionally having our team of bumpkins from a mid-western Air Force Base gating into what looks like Times Square, Tokyo, or LA in the year 2150, where the storyline is like having four inappropriately dressed tourists from Iowa getting off a plane at LAX and thinking they're going to accomplish something, meet someone important, or get someone in the mayor's office to recognize the importance of relations with the Cedar Rapids' chamber of commerce.
Oh Space Race for sure. I was thinking of Drive while watching it. Space Race shows us a lot more of the culture competing.
Yes completely agree. The tension between the brothers (and great acting from Currie), references to Warwick's wife whose photo he was pining over when we first met him having remarried and had kids, the simple inclusion of ADVERTISING (I think we didn't get advertising in Trek until Quark!).. it all made for the "fun and dynamism" as you say.
The high tech coldness of Tollana gives it a weird cult vibe LOL. It's such sci fi nonsense that once people are hugely advanced they will want less and less material goods and distractions from important work. A glance round our century compared to 500 years ago should show how silly this is.
We need more Blade Runner cities and Coruscant planets! And yeah, it costs.. that's one thing I always loved about Firefly, the densely colorful and diverse streets and interiors on the high population planets.
Tollana.. where everyone has exactly the same taste in everything
Well most of the worlds in the Milky Way are populated by peoples that stem from one small area or culture on Earth. It isn't like Earth where cultures have mixed and mingled for thousands of the years.
This is also why Hebridan is so colorful. Two cultures mixed.
In his second role on SG-1 (his first was season 6's Smoke and Mirrors).
Well, the series never really went in certain directions that were easily justifiable. Even a small tribe of humans taken from here two or three thousand years ago, given somewhat modern medical care (antibiotics), improved farming methods and crops, and other 20th century niceties, would have a staggeringly high population by now. Starting with just 50 people 3,000 years ago and maintaining a 1% growth rate would give you a potential population of about a quadrillion people, enough to populate a million planets with a billion people each.
By our standards, 3,000 years is a long time!
*** boring math part ***
At this same growth rate (only a tiny bit more than the current US growth rate) the population would take 300 years to increase twenty-fold, so the fifty people would've become a thousand. So 300 years for the first good sized village, 600 years for the first small town, 900 years for the first medium city, 1,200 years for a medium sized state, 1,500 years for a good sized country (150 million), 1,800 years for a planet of 3 billion, 2,100 years for 20 such planets, 2,400 years for 400 such planets, 2700 years for 8,000 such planets, and finally 160,000 such planets. If you assume a 2% growth rate (still moderately low by third-world standards) you get 100 million planets with populations rivaling Earth's, and all from just 50 people snatched up 3,000 years ago.
The writers probably weren't spending too much time with a quick population growth spreadsheet.
A quick lecture about that in the briefing room could launch a set of story arcs, with vast numbers of humans off in some other galaxy, which they've filled up like tribbles.
The population sizes were kept small by the Goa'uld. The ones that were free of the Goa'uld, like the Aschen, Tollan, Hebridans etc. do have massive populations.
I was going to watch another Stargate tonight but instead I watched 1 minute of trailer 40+ times which took up my viewing block.
The Star Trek trailer is good, but it isn't that good.
Avenger 2.0: I guess it's kind of realistic that Felger starts off as an annoying wanker and finished exactly the same way with no redeem-the-nerd arc anywhere to be seen. Engaging episode nonetheless.
I would like to have one of these
Birthright: Is it a coincidence that Teal'c finally gets some in an episode written by Christopher Judge? I think not!
I'd heard this was a terrible episode but I enjoyed it. Jolene Blalock looking a lot healthier than last I saw her. Neith was a good character, sticking to the old ways and protecting her sisters. Despite O'Neill's hopes this did not turn into the Planet of Snu Snu for anyone but Teal'c.
Evolution Part 1: Wow, this was fantastic. Grim, horrifying, fascinating. What's under the Robocop Goa'uld armor..
Evolution Part 2: This was just an unbelievably excellent double episode. I liked how the Nicaragua kidnapping was done by regular rebels and not people with stargate agendas. Horrible that they got tortured I was predicting we'd see a clone army at some point of the Robocop Goa'uld and YES that is what happened. Fantastic! And opening up lots of new development!
I always thought that Daniel and Dr. Lee getting tortured by terrorists (bad guys that actually exist) seemed more poignant than whenever we've seen the Goa'uld or Jaffa go psycho.
Separate names with a comma.


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However, you can be assured that a full review is definitely coming - and with any luck it will have actual screenshots from the device for your viewing pleasure.
However, you can be assured that a full review is definitely coming - and with any luck it will have actual screenshots from the device for your viewing pleasure.
Last edited by AniV; 19-03-2012 at 05:59 PM.
Have resisted long enough - maybe time to get one now!
Don't see any reason to ditch the 2nd gen iPad yet
Here's another Pic of an iPad compared to an iMac, iPhone 4 and Galaxy Tab 10.1. The iPad is the one on the right.
The new iPad screen is amazing, and a jpg optimised for the web is not going to do it justice. Rather wait until it gets to SA in the next month or two, and go look at the screen then. Then come back here and edit your posts where you say you will be keeping your iPad2. Also, wait until most of the apps have been updated to support the new resolution as well. Things like GoodReader display the same on iPad2 and new iPad due to their internal engine, but Jan why don't you go open a PDF magazine in iBooks and see if you see a difference?
As for the boxes being the same, it is like the review is being done by someone who has never owned an Apple product. They hardly update the box on most of their devices when a new one comes out.
edit* - you can clearly see the default background image on the new ipad vs that of the ipad 2 on the boxes. The new iPad has the blue background on the screen and the iPad2 has the grey background.
Last edited by whatwhat; 20-03-2012 at 07:49 AM.
Steve Jobs started Pixar and he also at one stage worked with bill Gates but because of their different view points, stopped working together.
Last edited by ThinkCentre; 20-03-2012 at 07:20 AM.
I want an iPad!
EDIT: I know... I was just funnin'... see http://mybroadband.co.za/news/genera...in-a-name.html
Last edited by kilobits; 20-03-2012 at 12:17 PM.
However I for one prefer to live with the issue.
If Apple and now Microsoft had decided to support mobile FLASH then Adobe would not have killed it.
By refusing to support that horrible little thing, Apple and M/s have hastened the demise of mobile FLASH.
Now it's been killed its a matter of time (maybe years) before it dies properly


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AOL and Yahoo have separately made changes to the internet telephony features within their IM (instant message) services.
The moves signal that both internet giants believe that providing fee-based VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) features is important to their users and a way to generate revenue via their mostly ad-supported IM services, AIM and Yahoo Messenger.
"The reality is that the AIMs and Yahoo Messengers of the world understand that just providing [text] chat down the road won't be enough, and that they need to provide [good-quality] voice and video communications," said Rebecca Swensen, IDC research analyst for VoIP services.
This market for personal, or consumer-oriented, internet communication players is led by Skype, which has the largest subscriber base worldwide, she said. There's a related but different market for more formal residential VoIP services that run into a home, with players like Vonage and Comcast.
Although Skype also offers IM text chat, it entered the market primarily as a provider of voice communications, unlike Yahoo Messenger and AOL AIM, which started focusing on text chat and later added voice capabilities, Swensen noted.
Eager to propagate the use of AIM's Call Out service, which currently can only be accessed via PCs loaded with the AIM client software, AOL has released APIs (application programming interfaces) for this feature.
This Call Out feature lets people place calls to landlines and mobile phones from within the AIM interface for a fee to more than 200 countries. AIM also offers a free PC-to-PC voice chat feature called AIM Talk.
The so-called Open Voice APIs are designed so that developers outside of AOL can provide AIM's Call Out service via their internet telephony applications and devices that support SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and Wi-Fi connectivity.
This is the first time AOL has given external developers access to AIM's Call Out feature via APIs, said Brent Newsome, AOL's director of voice services. "We're trying to embrace the open community for the voice world," he said.
Because the service is based on open standards, it will be compatible out of the gate with a wide variety of softphones and devices, he said.
Using the APIs doesn't require special approval or obtaining a licence from AOL as long as the Call Out application clients that developers build comply with the service's terms of service, Newsome said.
For now, the advantage for developers is to make their softphones or devices more feature rich and theoretically more appealing to their customers. However, AOL might later consider entering into revenue-sharing agreements with AIM Call Out partners, Newsome said.
Meanwhile, Yahoo has selected Jajah to provide the VoIP technology behind Yahoo Messenger's premium voice service, which lets its about 97 million users make and receive calls to and from mobile phones and landlines in more than 200 countries.
Jajah's technology will power this Yahoo VoIP service starting in the third quarter. The deal also calls for Jajah to handle payment processing and customer support.
Relying on a VoIP expert like Jajah makes sense for Yahoo and, in theory, for any online services player, including AOL, that lacks a broad expertise in this area, Swensen said. "There are a lot of technicalities and complicated logistics that go into providing voice, and if Yahoo can get someone to do it for them, it makes sense," she said.


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Delegates from around the world are meeting in Doha, Qatar this month to discuss United Nations' climate policy. In the past, these meetings were a source of hope for the environmental movement, as governments came together and committed to reducing emissions to collectively try to halt climate change.
Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.
Remember the Kyoto Protocol? Even though the reductions it mandated were nowhere near what's required for us to reverse the trend we've started, we haven't even come close to achieving those reductions. Oh yeah, and the United States didn't even sign it.
The Protocol is expiring this year, and the U.N. Framework Commission on Climate Change (the body that created the Protocol — stick with me here) is trying in Doha to extend it for a couple years until they can reach an agreement on how to move forward.
So what's holding the discussions back?
Countries like India and China produce a lot of emissions, but as developing countries, aren't required to reduce them. In their mind, the fact that countries like the U.S. got to the standard of living we have through "dirty" methods gives them the right to do the same.
The reason the United States didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol relates to how it assigns responsibility to reduce emissions. For negotiators on the U.S. side, it's not right for us to make changes to our economy if we're not even releasing the most emissions. That's why President Obama tried to create the Copenhagen Accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol: every country can "pledge" to reduce whatever it wants, but there's no overall requirement for emissions reduction that it has to sum to.
That gets you into a whole other underlying debate: how do you determine who's releasing "a lot" of carbon, anyway? Should we rank it by country, or per capita?
Imagine that at your high school, there was a problem with clubs throwing spit balls at the mascot during basketball games. The 50 members of the glee club throw 2 spit balls each (100 total), while each of the math club's 2 members throw 20 (40 total). Which club should be disciplined first? You can see it as a question of 100 spitballs vs. 40 spitballs, or a question of 2 spit balls per person vs. 20 spit balls per person. Obviously, the glee club and the math club would have a pretty strong opinion as to which perspective you choose.
Those are just a couple of the questions holding up negotiations. Imagine all the other considerations. If you were an oil-producing country, you might want some payments to make up for the fact that the rest of the world was outlawing the basis of your economy. If your country didn't have a lot of emissions to reduce, you might want a credit for the forests you have that were removing carbon from the atmosphere and your efforts to protect and expand them. If you are a small island nation, you might want money to buy new land once yours sank due to sea level rise. A lot of people point to countries like South Africa, Brazil, and China, claiming they are too "developed" to be considered "developing" nations.
Now consider the fact that the delegates are sitting around and trying to advocate for these various positions through a document that looks something like this:
Developed countries as a group should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions [in the order of 30 [by][at least][40][45][50] percent from 1990 levels by 2020]. In accordance with the findings of the IPCC AR4, developed countries as a group should reduce their GHG emissions by 25.40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. They should reduce their aggregated emission by] [and by] [at least] [80-] [more than] [95] per cent from 1990 levels by 2050 [as part of a global emissions reduction of at least 50 per cent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels], [to be updated based on the 2013.2015 review of the global goal].
That's an actual draft negotiating text from last year's climate meeting in Durban. The bracketed sections are the different options that delegates are discussing and debating, trying to reach consensus.
Suffice it to say, many people look at the U.N. climate discussions as a failure. They don't have to be, though.
There are some signs that the United States might be more willing to lead on climate change, and the more we press our political leaders to do so through our local actions, the more they will be willing to press the rest of the world. Let's keep the heat on them and get this done.
Janelle Tupper is Campaigns Assistant for Sojourners.
Photo: Alexey Kashin / Shutterstock
Have Something to Say?
"Let's Get Wonky: Why the U.N. is Stuck on Climate"


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I'm trying to run Xfce on an embedded device with a screen resolution of 640x480 pixels (but that question also fits to the new low-cost-notebooks like OLPC, EEE and others that come with a resolution of 800x480).
With such a small vertical resolution most of the settings windows are too high, the buttons on the lower end of these windows can't be accessed any more. I already adjusted the font size for the windows but that did not help completely.
So my question is: what else can be done in Xfce to let it work properly with such small screen resolutions?
Due to its small size Xfce would be a perfect solution for devices that still have such displays...
Wherever glade is involved, you could try to reposition the dialogs yourself, but glade usage is rather rare in Xfce.
Apart from submitting patches to the devs, you can try your luck with the:
http://martin.ankerl.com/2007/11/04/cle … ome-theme/
i run xfce on my EEE and it is great. i use the prelude-4 theme which is almost chromeless:
http://www.xfce-look.org/content/show.p … tent=69300
and i have hotkeys set up (super+directional arrows) for moving my windows around. the prelude-4 theme allows you to move the top of the window past the top of your desktop, so it's perfect for getting at those hard to reach buttons ;D
Thanks for the replies. I meanwhile think about using XFast instead of Xfce - that's a really small and fast desktop environment that also contains the X-server. I recently found it at http://xfast.wiki.sourceforge.net/ and will do some tests with it the next days.
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OCEAN CITY – The first batch of retired New York City "Red Bird" subway cars will find a permanent home off the coast of Ocean City next week, weather permitting, when 42 of the cars will be unloaded over the famous "Jackspot" about 19 miles offshore on Tuesday morning.
A barge carrying 42 of the retired subway cars from New York City is expected to reach the Jackspot around 10 a.m. on Tuesday where it will rendezvous with the local and state artificial reef foundation officials who will direct the deployment. The first batch of 42 cars was funded by a private citizen, fishing enthusiast and charter captain Jack Power, who donated around $25,000 and will be on hand to witness their placement on the growing artificial reef system off the coast of the resort.
The Ocean City Reef Foundation, in conjunction with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), is in the process of acquiring as many as 630 of the recently retired New York City subway dating back to the 1960s. The city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is making available 1,600 of the subway cars for artificial reef systems in coastal states throughout the mid-Atlantic.
The local plan calls for acquiring 630 of the subway cars for the artificial reef system off the coast of Ocean City over the next three years as funding becomes available. The cars will be delivered to the reef sites by barge with about 40 cars on each barge. Because of the distance they must be transported, the cost is coming in at around $600 per car, which is a significant undertaking for the local reef program and will amount to more than it has raised and spent in the 10 years of its existence when the project reaches fruition.
Ocean City Reef Foundation director Greg Hall said this week the subway cars headed for the Jackspot would likely be just the first of hundreds that could ultimately find their way to the bottom of the sea off the coast of the resort. Through its fundraising efforts and private donations, the foundation is well on its way to financing the purchase of the next batch. Hall is confident the program will be able to meet the goals.
"We've got a couple more paid for and we're well on our way to a second barge-load," he said. "I don't know how many we'll end up with, but we're trying to raise funds for as many as we can get."
Hall said he recently inspected many of the cars destined for artificial reef sites off the coast and voiced no environmental concerns.
"They've done a great job with them," he said. "They're clean as a whistle and some of them have only come off the tracks as recently as a couple of weeks ago."


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