CARS show moves to Charlotte

The Hickory Metro Convention Center in Hickory was the site of the first two shows and CARS has rapidly grown to fill the 84,000-capacity convention center. When show officials began to look at other cities, Charlotte was the natural fit.

“We’re going to have it here thanks to a man who has been working everyday over in Lincoln County. Clint Elkins started this thing in Hickory, and I went up the first year to help him with it,” said the famed racing promoter Wheeler. ““We have 300 race teams in the area, a speedway, a drag strip; we have dirt tracks all over the place. What we don’t have, is a big national race show. This will further strengthen the Charlotte area’s claim as the real center of racing.”

The Charlotte Convention Center will be the new home for the show put on, “By Racers, For Racers.” The 280,000 square foot convention center located in downtown Charlotte will provide a permanent home for the event.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. The Charlotte Convention Center also houses a 35,000 square foot ballroom and is connected via an over-street walkway to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The famed Crown Ball Room is part of the Hall of Fame and features a 40,000 square foot banquet room.

“The Hickory show was a regional show and this will be a national show. One of the things we did in Hickory was have 22 free seminars. We’ll have that in Charlotte and will bring in industry experts from all over the country, from shocks to chassis experts,” Elkins said.

A promoters round table that started out as an hour event and expanded to three hours will probably run for a full day. Other seminars and racing series banquets are projected to bring in a diverse group of racing enthusiasts.

Elkins thinks that the lessons learned in Hickory will transfer to Charlotte.

“I use the example all the time that Humpy (Wheeler) could not have promoted Charlotte Motor Speedway for 33 years if he hadn’t promoted Robinwood Speedway and Carolina Speedway first,” Elkins said.

Early projections show as much as a 12 million dollar economic impact to the city of Charlotte in the first year.Automate patient flow and quickly track hospital assets and people using plasticcard. CARS has been attended by close to 10,000 people over the last two years from 31 states. Wheeler believes the numbers can have an economic impact of over 50 million dollars in the next decade.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic.

“With a heritage that runs more than 80 years deep and an economic impact that generates over $5 billion annually, we know what an integral industry motorsports is to the Charlotte region,” said Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx,Stock up now and start saving on smartcard at Dollar Days. who spoke at the press conference held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Wednesday afternoon.

NASCAR Hall of Fame Executive Director Winston Kelley said that they are delighted that the show is coming to Charlotte.

“Hats off to Clint and his whole team that they’ve grown as quickly as they have. I’m not surprised that they outgrew their location. And hats off to them for the types of folks that they’ve attracted. This is exactly the reason that we thought Charlotte was the ideal place for the (NASCAR) Hall of Fame,” Kelley said. “Also, thanks to Mike Butts, Billy McMillan, Lauri Eberhart and all the folks who were involved with pitching CARS coming to Charlotte. I’m looking forward to being here both as a Hall of Fame Executive Director and as a car enthusiast. I’m going to be wearing a couple of hats.”

The CARS staff is made up from a diverse form of motorsports representatives, with decades of racing experience. Many more announcements will be made in the coming weeks concerning details for the event.

Even with the locust raising hell across Sera, it seems the COG’s judicial system continues to dispense swift justice. Gears of War: Judgement’s story is told through a series of flashbacks, as Baird stands trial in a darkened courtroom watching the planet crumble around him.

The game’s set entirely in flashbacks, with you playing through ‘the evidence’ as characters from Kilo Squad giving insight into the moments leading up to their trial. With the Gears of War trilogy finished off, the franchise-makers want you to have another reason to go back to the universe and shoot bugs.

Cole and Baird are characters we’ve met before, and this is the only real thread Judgment has to tie everything back into the core trilogy. This is a prequel, so we’re getting to know what happened pre-Emergence Day. Heck, I love Baird as a character,Do you know any airpurifier wholesale supplier? so I’m happy to find out what makes the sarcastic sod tick. However, having a favourite COG member is like having a favourite wurzel. They’re all the same really. They just have different tones of voice.

Lets put the record straight: this isn’t Gears of War 4, and it isn’t even 3.5. It’s more Gears 3.1. Essentially, this is an excuse to have a little more Gears of War without a full-blown follow-up.

Playing through the game’s Old Town mission, we get to see Baird giving evidence in the courtroom before the action kicks off. Before that we’ve also learned that Baird has gone from “Lieutenant to war criminal,” gaining him notoriety among the ranks. The game drops many teasers before the first bullet has been fired, and it’s clear People Can Fly wants you to be asking questions from the start.

It becomes clear quickly that this game functions through a copy and paste template. Missions are built in blocks that typically go: kill the locust, defend against the locust horde for while and then fall back to another location.

Some players may be a little let down by this. If you’re a Gears fan you may not give two COGs, however, because it still plays great and it works.

Declassified options are a nice touch, giving you the option of raising the difficulty of each gameplay segment and opening up additional narrative. As war is war, sometimes the characters’ actions are frowned upon, so once you’ve enabled Declassified options in an area the game reveals what naughty activity or hard-pressed objective that Kilo Squad had to deal with.

Who Built Senator-Turned-Dirty Energy Lobbyist Trent Lott?

Far too often in Washington, policy decisions are influenced by big money -- wealthy corporations spend millions on lobbying, public relations,TBC help you confidently rtls from factories in China. and campaign contributions to get their way. Big money helps explain why your cell phone and cable TV bills are so expensive, why small investors are still unprotected from Wall Street abuses, why taxpayers subsidize incomprehensible waste, like the $33 billion a year we spend on for-profit colleges that often ruin students' lives.

But one of the worst affronts to our democracy, and one of the worst dangers to our world, is the way that dirty energy companies -- oil, gas, coal -- have mercilessly lobbied and spread misinformation to prevent action on climate change. It's bad because it's obvious that extreme weather is already producing the hottest years on record and wrecking communities and killing people in violent storms. It's bad because there is overwhelming agreement among scientists that the burning of fossil fuels is helping to cause this global warming, yet little is being done to change our ways. To add insult to injury, though, consider this: Some of the most powerful lobbyists working to deny these problems and block solutions were trained and equipped to be lobbyists on the taxpayers' dime.

What I mean is that members of Congress, congressional staff members, and other federal officials are increasingly using their tenures as paid public servants to qualify themselves to be lobbyists for corporations, including dirty energy firms. They learn the policy issues, the legislative process, the art of back room deals while receiving government salaries. They build ties in the government office suites, the government dining room, and the government gym, with the poor saps who decide to stay behind in government jobs. Then they turn around and reward the taxpayers who financed their training by walking through the revolving door -- by selling themselves to corporations that often trash the public interest. Even worse, they sometimes appear in public forums as wise public statesmen, such as on energy issues, without disclosing relevant conflicts of interests, such as that they are paid advocates for oil, gas, and coal companies.

Exhibit A: Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Republican of Mississipi, who gained his Washington skills and status over 40 years on the federal payroll -- essentially, you built him -- and now lobbies for companies that are generally part of the problem, not the solution, on energy and climate change.

Lott is a master at getting paid to represent dirty energy companies in private offices while posing in public as an energy expert seeking sensible bipartisan solutions. Yesterday Lott took that effort to a new level by sponsoring a purported blue ribbon commission report that reads more like an energy industry strategy document.

After working five years as a congressional staff member in Washington, Lott served 35 years in Congress, 16 in the House and 19 in the Senate. He became the Republican leader in 1996 but stepped down under pressure in 2002 after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist run for the White House.

Lott abruptly resigned from the Senate in December 2007, less than two years into his fourth Senate term. Some pundits speculated that Lott chose that moment to resign because of a looming deadline -- Senators still around after the start of 2008 would be covered by a new ethics law that prohibits former Members of Congress from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Lott responded that the new law "didn't have a big role in that decision." OK, not a big role.

Within 20 days of his resignation, Lott had formed the Breaux Lott Leadership Group with former Democratic Senator John Breaux (LA). The firm has represented a large number of energy companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Entergy, General Electric, National Propane Gas Association, Plains Exploration,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. Shell Oil, and America's Natural Gas Alliance. In 2010, Breaux Lott sold itself to mega-lobbying firm Patton Boggs, which itself also represents energy companies including ATP Oil & Gas and Total.

Breaux Lott also brings in millions lobbying for clients in the telecommunications,Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project. pharmaceutical, defense, aerospace, and other industries -- AT&T, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, FedEx, etc. In addition, Lott is a resolute paid advocate for the aforementioned toxic for-profit college industry; although his public excuses for the industry aren't very persuasive, Republic Report has him on camera explaining how he charms his former Senate colleagues one by one into backing his clients.

At the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, "leadership" is the euphemism for lobbying and influence-peddling. Its website explains that the firm "has policy expertise in all energy issue areas - ranging from oil and gas exploration to working with high-level officials of the Administration, Department of Energy and Mineral Management Service. Our access to energy policy makers in Congress is one of our strongest attributes.... Senators Breaux's and Lott's unmatched network in the area of energy related matters." Translation: These guys made a lot of friends when they were senators. Now their friends can be your friends, for a fee.

Lott has leveraged not just his congressional relationships but also his congressional cash. He has drawn from the $1.3 million left over in his Senate campaign coffers to make contributions to current Members of Congress, even while he's sought to influence Congress as a lobbyist.

But while he touts his insider access in selling his services to attract energy industry clients, Lott also puts himself forward as a wise leader ready to solve America's energy challenges. He has appeared jointly to discuss energy policy issues with his business partner, Senator Breaux, on Fox News and on MSNBC, where Lott called for "more drilling.What Other Items Do Customers handsfreeaccess After Viewing This Item?" In neither case did the former senators, or the networks presenting them, disclose that both men are paid lobbyists for energy companies.

Lott is also the co-chair, with former Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), of the Energy Project Board at a Washington think tank called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). Last year the National Journal reported that the former senators "are working together on a blueprint for energy legislation" and that "their effort could gain traction: Both are held in high regard by their former colleagues, and the BPC is a serious player in the energy debate."

In touting this initiative, Lott told the National Journal that he now drives a Mini Cooper and claimed to have cut his utility bill by making his "old house" more energy efficient. He also seemed to acknowledge that climate change is real. But he counseled for caution and consensus on addressing the problem,Our guides provide customers with information about solarpowersystems. rather than the kind of determined effort suitable to an urgent challenge. Lott's advice to President Obama? "He needs to do it without throwing out there things that are controversial at the gate. Don't be putting out markers saying, 'We need this, that, or the other.'" But when it comes to producing energy, Lott takes a more insistent approach; in a TV appearance with Dorgan, Lott said, "I want produce more of everything. I want more oil, more gas, more coal, more hydro, more nuclear. I'm willing to look at alternative fuels and all that...."

BPC released the Lott-Dorgan energy report an event on Thursday. It finds that "climate change is a significant issue" -- but then does nothing with that insight. Instead, this bipartisan report calls for acceleration of oil drilling offshore and on federal lands, as well as implementing new standards to allow expansion of the hazardous practice of underground hydrofracking for natural gas. The report includes no recommendation to cap or tax the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

That the Lott-Dorgan-BPC energy report is tilted toward the dirty energy industries, and expresses no urgency regarding climate change, should not come as a surprise. Like Lott, Democrat Dorgan is an energy lobbyist, the co-chair of Government Relations at the firm Arent Fox, where he represents oil companies including Denbury Resources and Noble Energy. And the Bipartisan Policy Center seems to make a specialty of presenting politicians-turned-corporate-lobbyists as advocates for sensible, moderate solutions to policy issues.

Lott's fealty to his paid corporate clients goes so far that he has even incensed his fellow conservatives. As a senator, Lott aggressively opposed the Law of the Sea Treaty, which addresses the rights and obligations of countries in the world's oceans. Senator Lott claimed that the treaty would undermine U.S. sovereignty and hurt the U.S. economy. But lobbyist Lott was hired by Shell Oil to push for Senate ratification of the treaty, a reversal that drew a rebuke from the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

Drainage and irrigation

Just when the local authority needs to maximise income from matches, the pitches are under water. Just when the course manager hopes to increase pay-and-play rounds, there is a lake on a fairway and the greens are waterlogged. Just when gardens open to show off daffodils and early-spring flowers, the paths are muddy and the tractor has to pull visitors' cars out of the swamp that used to be the car park - if they turn up in the first place.

It does not stop there. If play does take place, there are the muddy changing rooms and clubhouses with which to contend. After touring the gardens, visitors may proceed to trample dirt into the old, expensive carpets of the historic house.

What happens when the rains eventually stop? What if this spring and summer are dry and sogginess turns into drought? How will players respond to brown,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. baked-hard ground and visitors to wilting shrubs and poor flower displays? Should that drought then end in sudden downpours, will it mean flooding all over again? As we continue to experience more intense and extreme weather, the role of drainage and irrigation in keeping facilities functional and able to generate income has never been so important.

Since the words "drought" and "hosepipe ban" were mentioned - and in some places enforced - in late spring last year, the UK has seen phenomenal rainfall. More recently, the situation has been compounded by thawing snow. It is not surprising then, despite the economic climate, that contractors are reporting increases in enquiries for sports turf and golf drainage.

Shelton Sportsturf Drainage Solutions designs and builds specialist machinery that can be bought or hired and offers a contracting service. General manager Mick Claxton describes last year as "busy". He adds: "The heavy rain after a drought has highlighted drainage problems and machinery sales and hire have been on the up.The term 'streetlight control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag."

Enquiries are one thing, but drainage work has to cope with the weather and contractors found the wet autumn and winter challenging. "It's certainly a question of dealing with jobs according to the weather," Speedcut Contractors contracts manager Kevin Smith confirms. "The wet weather has played havoc with our work patterns, but we have been meeting the demands of clients by switching between jobs according to the ground conditions."

Speedcut has installed drainage at Chislehurst, Royal Mid Surrey, Old Fold Manor, Barnet and Highgate Golf Clubs. At Hadley Wood in Barnet, north London, Speedcut re-levelled a football pitch and installed drainage for Old Stationers' FC. The appalling weather also led to more requests for treatments using the Gwazae deep-probe aerator to decompact root zones and inject materials to help grass survive.

Drainage does not always have to be done in one go. Waterlooville Golf Club in Hampshire is benefiting from an upgrade of drainage carried out over the past five years by sports turf drainage specialist MJ Abbott. Completed in stages to suit budgetary requirements, the scheme has improved drainage across all parts of the 18-hole parkland course and, importantly, enables to winter play to continue uninterrupted.

Inspection of the existing system showed soil contamination of the gravel above the primary drainage pipes was seriously restricting water flow. Over two years, supplementary piped drainage was installed between the existing laterals, along with an additional main drain on part of the course. Further upgrades were carried out in 2012 accompanied by upgrades to outfalls.

"It's taken time to achieve, but the end result is a golf course that can remain open in virtually all weathers, despite sitting on very clay soil," according to MJ Abbott contracts director Steve Biggs.

Managing director Duncan Ross says: "The answer lay in constructing additional lateral drains at 0.55m deep with 80mm pipes allowing the water to be redirected to the main drainage system.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlantern Descriptions. Soil was excavated and removed straight away to avoid any contamination, then we backfilled the 820m of trenches with 6mm stone at 150mm depth from the surface. Then we topped with a sand and soil mix before seeding."

Gravel or sand banding can be a quick and cost-effective way of installing a secondary drainage system - especially for sports fields. It is installed perpendicular to the primary system to help the removal of surface water and allow water to move more speedily to the primary drainage system. Trenches are cut into the turf and simultaneously backfilled with gravel, Lytag or sand before being rolled flat.

AFT Trenchers' Sandbander proved to be the solution at Aspley Guise & Woburn Sands Golf Club,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and chipcard at wholesale prices. where shared "in" and "out" routes accommodate 600 pairs of feet a day. Incessant rainfall caused problems but the one-man-operated AFT Sandbander coped with the most challenging part of the course, successfully dispersing water on the greens and redirecting it to drains.

Cheaper than installing a new system, mole draining could provide the answer to poorly draining pitches and other waterlogged sites. The technique involves pulling a bullet-shaped steel foot through the soil to create a drainage channel and it has been studied by Cranfield University.Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project. It was found to provide similar drainage performance to sand slit but at a much reduced cost.

Mole draining, however, is not a panacea for all sports-surface drainage problems. It is limited to heavy clay soils of a particular type, but it is that very type of soil that has the biggest drainage problems. Technically, there are also important aspects of machinery design and operation that are critical to the success of the mole drainage scheme.

Buyer Tries To Rally Colleagues On Airlines' Form-Of-Payment Fees

Credit Suisse global head of corporate travel and events Bernadette Basterfield this month called on the corporate travel community to "push back" on airlines that have pushed to them the cost of card acceptance.

Speaking at the Business Travel Show here on Feb. 5, Basterfield also criticized such airlines as Ryanair and Wizzair for not accepting her company's preferred card, American Express. Some airline companies, including Airberlin,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. British Airways, Air France-KLM, Finnair and Lufthansa, in recent years and in certain markets initiated fees for using cards. EasyJet, for example, charges consumers 2.5 percent of the total transaction value if they use plastic.

"I get a little sick and tired as a global travel manager when speaking to an airline who says, 'I don't like these fees, so you're an easy target and you're going to get them,' " said Basterfield. "It may be one pound, but one pound over tens of thousands of transactions amounts to quite a lot. We [corporate travel buyers] have been guilty of bearing those costs. I feel very strongly that it's time we pushed back on this and I will continue to do so.

"It's contingent on payment solution companies to arrive at something that stops this pound-here and pound-there stuff," she added. "It won't be long before it isn't just on the lower booking classes. It will be going upwards, not downwards, so we need a solution."

On my last flight out of JFK, I was in the final boarding group to be called. I observed the bulk of the passengers boarding before me all hewing to the current luggage trend: A roll-on bag topped with a little "buddy" bag that slides over the retractable handles.

Boarding the plane, the overhead bins were all filled, not only with roll-ons, but the "buddy" bags as well—along with people's coats. Person after person put both of their bags in the overhead in order to provide themselves with legroom by not having anything beneath the seat. As you can guess, a handful of us in the final boarding group thus had to check our carry-on luggage.

I can't speak for other countries, but in America the in-flight experience perfectly mirrors how we behave in public: We try to selfishly maximize our own comfort to the inconvenience of others. This is how we drive, this is how we ride the subway, this is how we behave in movie theaters, and even how we walk—I've been behind people who stepped off a moving escalator or through a revolving door and simply stopped to look around, heedless of the people trying to exit behind them.

Decades ago some prototypical industrial designer, probably one of the Loewys or Teagues of the world, worked out how an airplane seat could recline, to increase that passenger's comfort. This was good design, as back then the airlines presumably provided enough room between seats that this wasn't an issue for the passenger behind. But over the decades the airlines have pressed the seats closer and closer,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and bobbleheads at wholesale prices. while we've gotten larger and larger,Source lasercutter Products at Other Truck Parts. thus rendering the good design bad.

It's a sign of the times: The system creating this problem has become so complex that culpability is impossible to assign, and thus the problem cannot be addressed head-on. Who is to blame for the "need" for a Knee Defender: The passenger who wants to recline? The passenger behind, who wants more room? The airline shareholders for demanding returns? The airplane's individual interior designers, or the bosses they must answer to? Our reliance on fossil fuel and the attendant difficulty of turning a profit using an airplane full of well-spaced seats?

If you are looking to maintain two phone accounts simultaneously though,Our extensive range of injectionmold is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas. only the Agora can satisfy this request. Having two SIM slots (both larger mini-SIM sized slots at that) gives the Agora an advantage nearly no other brand-name phone can match. The exception is the LG L2, but even this model had limitations on how the two SIM slots could be used.

The handset connects to the internet using a tri-band UTMS radio on the 850/900/2100MHz bands.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. This makes it compatible with most UK networks, all Australian networks, but only some US carriers; so be sure to check with your telco before buying.

Mashreq's SmartSaver gets smarter

Over and above this, customers will continue earning 1.25% cash back on just about all everyday domestic retail purchases on the Card and 3.25% cash back on International retail spends.

Recent research including the MasterCard Purchasing Priorities Survey indicates that customers spend a significant portion of their monthly income on their children's education and on utility linked expenses.

Nimish Dwivedi,We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers. Head of Payments at Mashreq commented, "Our endeavour is to create unique and relevant products which genuinely benefit our customers on an ongoing basis. Based on this insight we have created for the first time in the UAE a card product that genuinely and simply provides significant savings to customers on all their everyday spending. This is a Smarter solution for customers to keep deriving never before savings out of their normal ordinary spends."

Mr. Eyad Al-Kourdi, Vice President and Country Manager, UAE, MasterCard said, "Payment solutions that assist in better management of monthly finances while also offering attractive rewards are the perfect fit for a vast section of consumers who allocate specific funds towards monthly utility and education expenses.

The Mashreq Bank Smart Saver MasterCard Credit Card is a wonderful product that will indeed prove to be of great benefit to consumers in the UAE, and is yet another example of MasterCard's capability to develop tailored solutions for diverse consumer needs."

The Mashreq SmartSaver MasterCard Titanium Credit Card aims to be the best card for everyday spends with never before saving. By simply using this card on daily spends a customer gets 1.25 % Cash Back on all domestic retail spends, 3.25 % on all international retail spends and 5 % Cash Back on all utility and education expenses if the domestic and international retails spends are over certain amount per month.

Over and above this, customers will continue earning 1.25% cash back on just about all everyday domestic retail purchases on the Card and 3.25% cash back on International retail spends.

Recent research including the MasterCard Purchasing Priorities Survey indicates that customers spend a significant portion of their monthly income on their children's education and on utility linked expenses.

Nimish Dwivedi, Head of Payments at Mashreq commented, "Our endeavour is to create unique and relevant products which genuinely benefit our customers on an ongoing basis. Based on this insight we have created for the first time in the UAE a card product that genuinely and simply provides significant savings to customers on all their everyday spending. This is a Smarter solution for customers to keep deriving never before savings out of their normal ordinary spends."

Mr. Eyad Al-Kourdi, Vice President and Country Manager,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic. UAE, MasterCard said, "Payment solutions that assist in better management of monthly finances while also offering attractive rewards are the perfect fit for a vast section of consumers who allocate specific funds towards monthly utility and education expenses.

The Mashreq Bank Smart Saver MasterCard Credit Card is a wonderful product that will indeed prove to be of great benefit to consumers in the UAE, and is yet another example of MasterCard's capability to develop tailored solutions for diverse consumer needs."

James Storm with a clean victory over Rob Van Dam, Magnus with a clean victory over Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries and Bobby Roode earned a double count out, and Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle were interrupted by the gang that shall be named.

Because throwing a shenanigans into half the matches makes perfect sense, and having the best star of the group in Daniels lose is just as smart.

Oh,Product information for Avery Dennison smartcard products. and Bully Ray was added to the consideration because he's banging the boss' daughter.Compare prices and buy all brands of ventilationsystem for home power systems and by the pallet. I'm sure Hulk judged his work rate appropriately.

I know TNA has had worst times in its ten year history. Hell, some of the Impact Zone faithful are probably laughing at how much we bitch about the show today. But it's still painful to get through the worst parts of Impact Wrestling. There is no reason dumb booking like this should be going on.Bathroom solarpanel at Great Prices from Topps Tiles.

Due to Hardy's felony convictions, the fine border potrol of the United Kingdom have refused to let him enter their shores. So instead of doing the logical thing and have him drop the strap for the tour, TNA has decided to "stick with their guy."

Which means they are so desperate to have him re-sign with the company he's not going to lost the belt until 2021.

Again, I actually enjoy Hardy as champion. He's a weird guy, but he has been making it work so far. But when you are holding the storyline hostage to your own personal issues -- and that is exactly what is happening here -- there's a point when someone in charge has to act like an adult.

The promotion's highest title hasn't been seen on television for a month. That is completely unacceptable no matter the circumstances around it.

This specifically is not going to be a problem when TNA comes back stateside. But it just shows the lack of foresight and common sense involved in running a pro wrestling company. Problems like this should be completely avoidable if those in charge give even the slightest thought to what they are doing.

Anything to declare? Oscar Wilde and me in America

Entering California at LAX is never exactly pleasant, though recently the immigration officers have seemed less surly and invasive. So I was not expecting, as I queued at the final customs checkpoint, to be asked if I had anything to declare. I was still mildly apprehensive, though, because I had a box of Bolívar cigars in my suitcase. I was once warned by a fierce, bulky customs officer at JFK in New York, who took out my Habana box, looked at it with distaste,Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? and told me "We don' like dem folks!" I said that I didn't either, naturally – damn commonists! – but that I was addicted to their cigars,High quality chinamosaic tiles. and that my two-a-day habit was so imperious that I might well require medical intervention if she impounded them. How, and in what manner, I inquired, could I throw myself on her mercy?

Even she, though, hadn't asked me for a declaration, and had I told her that "I have nothing to declare but my genius," I suspect I wouldn't have escaped with my cigars intact. She was a smart cookie, that one, and though she might not have recognised the line, I'm certain she would have been hostile to any attempt at wit as lame as that.

My reader, of course, will have picked up the reference. That's easy,Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles. and if not, easily Googled: Oscar Wilde. And given that I was entering California to give a biennial talk on Wilde at UCLA's William Andrews Clark Library, it was impossible not to think about Oscar's entry to New York, late in 1881, to begin the nine-month tour that was to cover 15,000 miles and 140 lectures relating to the aesthetic movement. Art for Art's Sake (whatever that means). The House Beautiful. That sort of thing.

The trouble with the aphorism with which Oscar has been so widely credited, is that he apparently first said it in 1912, by which time he had been dead for 12 years. It is cited by Arthur Ransome, who having known many of the principals in Wilde's life, might just have heard it on the Oscarvine. By the time of his death Wilde had built his own myth so brilliantly – Three trials! Years in prison! An early impoverished death! – that words didn't merely came out of his mouth, they flowed into it as well.

Wilde worked hard and constantly on his aphorisms and epigrams, and I have twice owned manuscripts in which he coined phrases, honed and corrected them, and then deployed them, apparently effortlessly, when they seemed appropriate, either in his writing or his life. In any case, life and art were, for Oscar, pretty much indistinguishable, and he scripted himself, dressed up and enacted set pieces, as if he were the sole player in one of his own dramatic works.

He learned a great deal of this showiness – the Oscar monologues – when he was on tour in America. But what the hell was Oscar Wilde doing in America in 1882? He was 27 when he arrived, had never published a book there (and little enough in England) and it is a fair supposition that no one would have known who he was.

Indeed, even in London it was often remarked that he was a little too … present for one of his scant accomplishment. The Polish actress Helena Modjeska, arriving in London at the time, was soon moved to wonder:

To Oscar this might have seemed a form of praise. Doing something is vulgar, unlike being something. His later aphorism: "There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession" makes the point with crushing bluntness. If you devote yourself to work or works – unless they involve playing or self-marketing – you forfeit beauty. Why your profile should collapse upon becoming a lawyer is not obvious, though when I think of lawyers the only ones with fineness of profile are actors playing at being lawyers, such as Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. Could Oscar have been right? He would be mildly chagrined to think so. There's something vulgar about that, too.

He had entered America on a commission from Richard D'Oyly Carte, whose opera company was shortly going to open an American run of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, a light-hearted satire on the aesthetic movement. Indeed, it is often (wrongly) claimed that Wilde was the original for the poet Bunthorne in that play, so full of praise for beauty, and so beloved of beautiful women. It was Oscar's American brief to play at being such a character, to dress in velvet and waistcoats and britches of fabulous colours, to let his hair down, to act – as it were – as a barker or shill for his boss's play.

It worked. Oscar attracted bigger and more enthusiastic and noisier crowds as his tour went on, newspaper reporters begged for interviews, and both he and the play were marked successes. It was the first time in Wilde's life that he could be regarded as a celebrity: newsworthy, courted by the rich and famous, certain to attract an audience. Not that everyone loved him. Walt Whitman, clasped him to his bosom (he was a great clasper) but Henry James (who certainly was not) was fastidiously dismayed, and Ambrose Bierce attacked the Oscar show in the fiercest, public terms.

Oscar loved it. He was being noticed. And like many high quality one-man-show performers,Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. he learned how to deal with heckling and abuse. He could turn criticism against its wielder, and do so in a way that caused merriment rather than offence. When he spoke at Harvard, undergraduates flocked to the lecture dressed flamboyantly and bearing sunflowers. Knowing they were about to do so, Wilde showed up in banker's drab garb, announcing that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. They loved him for it.

By the time he returned to England he was a more polished and finished version of himself, and had acquired habits of showmanship and repartee that were to serve him both well, and dreadfully badly. In 1895, he was ill-advised enough to sue the Marquis of Queensbury for sending him that card labelling him a "posing somdomite". Having lost the case, he was subsequently to endure two trials for gross indecency, during which he comported himself brilliantly, using the witness stand as if it were centre stage in a theatre, bristling with wit, irresistible.

What a damn fool, you may think. But tragic heroes are often damn fools – think of Macbeth or Othello – and their errors of judgment ("tragic flaw" is a mistranslation) lead them directly, as Aristotle put it, from a state of happiness to one of misery. Various compromising letters from Wilde to a number of rent boys were read out in court. Had he kissed the 16-year-old Walter Grainger? asked the prosecuting attorney.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. Certainly not, said Oscar, defending himself stoutly. "Oh dear no! He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly."

According to contemporary accounts, the courtroom audience laughed, and the jury scowled. Disgrace and prison beckoned. He went resolutely to Wandsworth Prison, and the foolishness and bravery of it make one both cry and laugh in that single sentence. Three years later, destitute and forlorn, he died in Paris, survived by the ugly wallpaper with which he'd had his final quarrel.

No amount of retelling – the story is constantly revisited and reinvented in new films, plays, television adaptations, novels, stories, and biographies – can diminish the pathos of Wilde's final years. If there is, finally, something thin and not entirely satisfying about his oeuvre, the story of the life is rich, tragic and moving. But there is nothing, quite, cathartic in one's response: nothing balancing and satisfying in contemplating, yet again, Oscar's fall. It leaves one feeling itchy, restless and frustrated, angry and dissatisfied. Character is destiny? What a shame, what a damn shame.

China's number 2 Gionee mobiles launched in Chandigarh

Chinese mobiles major Gionee, ranked number two in China selling 23 million units annually entered Indian market today with the first launch of four smart phone models and three feature phone models in Chandigarh market.

Gionee which operates its overseas business through Syntech Technology Limited has set up its subsidiary Syntech Technology Private Limited. Director of the company, Arvind R.Vohra told media persons at the launch function here today that after Chandigarh, these mobiles would be launched in other cities in western, eastern and southern zones. He said that north India accounted for about 30 per cent of total market in the country which made the company announce forays from Chandigarh.

Vohra said that Gpad-G1 Android phone launched today has unmatched features like 8 mega pixel camera, five inches display screen with multi-touch interface, dual core processor, dual sim, dual standby, a large battery to provide "an exceptionally" lasting talk time. He said that as an inaugural offer, the mobile phone was being offered at an affordable price of Rs 10,999, with a free 8 GB memory card and a flip cover.

Not only does the HTC One sit on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, it also ushers in a new version of Sense: HTC Sense 5. It's a much lighter take on Sense and although HTC Sense 4+ trimmed flab from HTC's UI, Sense 5 is a crash diet.

Apps and bloat that have been carved away as Sense 5 is stripped back to the essentials. In the process, HTC has addressed one of the biggest criticisms of its Android handsets.

The focus isn't now on widgets,Source lasercutter Products at Other Truck Parts. the ubiquitous flip clock isn't blaring 10:08 in your face, instead you're looking at a minimalist weather clock sitting above a new headline feature: Blink Feed.

Blink Feed is an evolution of much of what HTC has been doing before, but rather than having lots of different widgets, Blink Feed is designed to be a glance-and-go method of getting relevant information, hence the name.

At a basic level, it is a content aggregator, drawing from multiple sources which you define. That might be your social networks like Facebook, but you can also tailor the content to you by selecting sources, with more than 1,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath.500 on offer. You'll find the likes of UEFA in there, and Pocket-lint, and HTC say it is looking for more partners.

Blink Feed is your new home page, scrolling beautifully and letting you glance at headlines and images, clicking through to stories that interest you. It's really fast too.

If you don't like Blink Feed you can turn it off, and you can always swipe to the side to return to a conventional home page that you can fill with shortcuts and widgets, if that's what you want to do.

The apps tray also works slightly differently as you can create folders within the apps tray, making it easier to manage your apps,Our extensive range of injectionmold is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas. as well as being able to change the size of the grid of apps, so you can fit more, or less, on to the page.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts.

HTC promised to kick-off a new sound and camera experience in the HTC One and that means the birth of Boomsound. Yes, it's a silly name and something we probably won't add to our vernacular in hurry, but it means that HTC has focused on improving the speaker performance of the HTC One.

To achieve this, HTC has carved out space for stereo front-facing speakers, so they fire directly towards you from behind their signature micro-drilled grills. HTC is claiming they have the largest chamber of any phone. We put them to the test and they are pretty loud, although we didn't have the chance to test them extensively enough to determine whether they'll make a huge difference.

Of course you get Beats Audio in the mix,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and bobbleheads at wholesale prices. so the performance through headphones will be as rich as it's been on recent HTC devices, although you don't get Beats headphones in the box.

But speakers aren't the only thing that HTC has targeted. HTC is claiming that sound capture is better too, thanks to its using dual membranes on both mics, so your voice should sound better and video capture sound better too.

In addition, there's an extra clever feature coupled to the noise cancellation system in calling: when in a noisy environment, the phone will turn up the volume of the speaker so you can hear the caller without having to scrabble for the volume rocker.

On the entertainment front, HTC will now not only draw down the artwork for your music, which it has always done, but will also give you a visualisation mode, with lyrics, so you can sing along to your favourite tracks.

Wake up and watch those credit cards

It can be the most comfortable, dazzling, accessible shopping mall of all, the Internet.

But even if you’re snug at home in your PJs, you could be the victim of a digital pickpocket, said Shelly Buller, senior vice president of Member Services at Fibre Federal Credit Union in Cowlitz County.

The best advice when using credit cards to pay online vendors, Buller said, “is to stick with familiar, established retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Macy’s.

“Online, people have a tendency to be more vulnerable. You’re looking for something, and you find it from a vendor you’re not familiar with. Maybe their security is not as strong as a big retailer.”

All kinds of vendors pass on consumers’ information for profit, Buller said. “When people shop for weight-loss products and vitamins, they may fall prey to ‘side sales’ — the vendor they order from sells their name and information to another vendor,” and that second party may sell it to a third party.

“It becomes quite a headache to stop the deductions from your account, for something you didn’t want to begin with,” she said. “With better security, there’s less risk ...

“Consumers are well protected using a credit card,” Buller said, and banks and credit unions usually cover losses when they are reported as soon as they’re noticed.

Aside from thieves who get credit card numbers by searching trash for receipts and other financial records, there’s also a risk when employees at smaller retailers or food vendors go away with a card and return in a few minutes — enough time to take a photo with a smart phone.

Echoing Federal Trade Commission guidelines, Buller said the best practice is to check your account balances and purchases regularly so you’ll notice odd charges.

The biggest risks are scammers who get people to willingly give them information or wire them money, said James Gorley of Fibre Federal Credit Union, who represents FFCU on the Anti-fraud Coalition of Cowlitz County, which includes about 70 members from law enforcement, finance institutions and retailers.

“If we band together,” Gorley said, “we can alert each other and work together to help stop fraud.”

The members hear stories all the time, he said, where common sense is thwarted by hope and a bright computer screen.

“A very common fraud is ‘phishing,’ ” Buller said, the use of email, phone, “even texting” messages that try to trick people into giving out information that can be used to access their accounts or create duplicates of their cards.

Sometimes the caller pretends to be the bank, a particularly insidious scam. The caller, concerned that your account has been compromised, needs your card number and security code to keep you safe.

On some sites, sending money before getting the product is not wise, Gorley said.

“Somebody on Craigslist says ‘Hey, we’re selling puppies’ or ‘I’m selling a 1983 Chevette from a collection in Dubai,’ ” Gorley said. The sellers then ask for airfare upfront to ship the bulldogs or vintage roadser. And people buy it.

“I know people who have taken money out of their retirement accounts” in cases like these, Gorley said.

The newest scam technique is to focus on vulnerable people, he said, “the elderly, the unemployed, people getting benefits. I don’t know where (the scammers) get the information. They may contact someone as many as three times,” pressuring them with a deal. Or they pretend to be a grandchild in dire straights who needs Grandpa to wire money right away.

People should never respond to these come-ons, Gorley said.

“We try to educate them, to explain the risk,” he said of consumers, but even publicized warnings do not stop some who are frightened about a loved one and want to do the right thing, or those who are desperate to believe they’ve won a windfall.Compare prices and buy all brands of ventilationsystem for home power systems and by the pallet.

In the lottery scams, the thieves send a check that looks real and passes like a real check.

People say “ ‘Oh, I won the lottery in Europe!’ ” Gorley said. “I say, ‘Do you know foreign lotteries are illegal?’ They don’t. ‘Did you enter a lottery in Europe?’ They didn’t. ...

“If you cash that check, you will be responsible to cover it” when it bounces. In the meantime, you’ve spent the money on bills, food or other items — and used it to wire “tax” or other “fees” to the scammer. “Now you owe it all back to the bank.”

Buller said she’s talked to “intelligent people who say, ‘I was duped. It seemed like such a great deal.Bathroom solarpanel at Great Prices from Topps Tiles.’ I just got hosed.” She shook her head. “If it seems too good to be true, it (begin ital) is (end ital) too good to be true.”

One pitfall we all face is complacency, because it’s so easy to carry and use debit and credit cards.

“Cards are a negotiating instrument,” Buller said, “just like cash. You have to be cautious.

“If you give your card to a family member to go get bread and milk, and you share your PIN, you have just compromised your security.”

People who are ill or infirm and need help shopping should consider a “joint signer,Product information for Avery Dennison smartcard products.” a trusted person authorized to use the card. “That individual would have their own card.”

Buller warned people never to leave credit cards, checkbooks and other pieces of identification where others can find them.

At parties (including at your own residence), bridal showers, funerals, anywhere where a crowd gathers in a place where outsiders could slip in, there’s a risk.

“Guess what? Someone can go in that room and have a heyday,” Buller said. “It happens all the time.”

It’s also easy to leave a debit or credit card behind when someone is distracted or in a hurry at the check-out line.

And, despite well publicized warnings, Buller said she still sees shoppers leave purses in grocery carts while they dart off to grab items. If the thief takes only your billfold, you may not even notice until you get to the checkout stand — and the varmint is long gone.

Another scam, in Vancouver and California, rigs ATM machines and gas pumps to skim data. “It doesn’t look any different, but the perpetrators install cameras. Then they create their own cards.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers.”

Buller said it can be helpful to live in a community small enough that credit unions know their customers. “You can call up Red Canoe or Fibre Federal from England, and they will help you with your questions.”

She also reminded travelers to let their banks or credit unions know when and where they will be traveling, so a hold will not be put on their credit cards when out-of-town transactions pop up.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic.

Gorley and the fraud coalition put on workshops to share information they glean from customers and hold an annual, public, free shredder event after tax day in April, to encourage consumers to shred old documents that have social security numbers and financial data.

Use Tax Credit Not Minimum Wage

Use Tax Credit,We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. Not Minimum Wage

These are worthy goals, but they should be paid for by taxpayers nationwide, not just by the businesses that employ lower-wage workers. Instead of redistribution through regulation, Congress should enhance and improve the earned income tax credit, or start a new taxpayer-financed program that makes working more attractive for the poor.

The great appeal of raising the minimum wage is that it appears to reduce inequality without increasing budget deficits. That seductive glimmer is the policy’s greatest flaw. We should have a debate about how much to spend to promote opportunity. We shouldn’t embrace policies that make politicians look caring without requiring them to pay the cost of justifying higher taxes. We should abhor cheap tricks, such as unfunded mandates, and the minimum wage is a bit like an unfunded mandate.

Like the minimum wage, the Americans with Disabilities Act was motivated by worthy goals. I care deeply that disabled Americans suffer less. But instead of funding remedies with taxpayer dollars, the ADA pushed the burden downstream to local public transit systems, declaring that it was discrimination for a system to “fail to provide” alternatives such as “paratransit and other special transportation services to individuals with disabilities.”

This means that the finances of the Boston area’s transit system, for example, have been deeply strained by the $40-a-trip cost of paratransit, which leads to more than $100 million of annual spending that is only trivially offset by $5 million in federal aid. The costs of righting a widespread social wrong shouldn’t have to be paid for by bus and train riders, who face higher fees and reduced service, as systems work to cover the law’s mandated costs.

Likewise, why should the costs of making the U.S. more egalitarian be paid by the employers that happen to hire lower- wage workers? In January, the unemployment rate among high school dropouts was 12 percent. Only 40 percent of that group was employed at all.

Those scary numbers reflect a failure of entrepreneurial imagination: an inability of American companies to figure out ways to productively employ the less skilled. The most skill- intensive sectors, including my own, won’t pay the price of a higher minimum wage, precisely because they provide so few jobs for people at the low end of the skill spectrum.

The debate over the minimum wage is often depicted as a battle of social justice, calling for higher wages instead of economic efficiency, which operates best with fewer regulatory restrictions. Although providing more for the poor may be social justice, there is nothing just about loading all the costs onto the employers and customers of lower-wage workers. For 20 years, there has been a fierce debate about the impact that minimum wage laws have on unemployment.Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles.

Alan Krueger,Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and David Card, of the University of California at Berkeley, are responsible for the research that reopened the debate on the efficiency costs of the minimum wage. They compared fast-food workers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and found little decline in employment after New Jersey raised its minimum wage in 1992. Their 1997 book brings together five years of their serious scholarship, which suggests that at low levels an increase in minimum wage does little to discourage employment.

Changes in the minimum wage have been found to reduce employment by Kevin Murphy of the University of Chicago and economists Donald Deere and Finis Welch of Welch Consulting as well as by Janet Currie and Bruce Fallick. These findings are sufficiently disparate so that progressives can plausibly claim that Obama’s proposed minimum-wage increase will do little harm to employment, while libertarians can argue that a 24 percent increase in the minimum wage will lead to more unemployed teenagers and high school dropouts.

We would be stuck between two ideologically driven viewpoints if the minimum wage was our only tool to help lower- income Americans.High quality chinamosaic tiles.

There are better ways of making work pay. The earned income tax credit has helped make work pay since 1975.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? It rises initially with income up to a maximum of $5,236 for families with two children, and then it phases out.

It has downsides, such as administrative complexity and monitoring, but it has been shown to increase employment, especially for single mothers. It can be improved and increased, and it remains the best alternative to raising the minimum wage.

Perhaps the simplest way to alter the credit is for it to provide a clear per-hour benefit directly to workers earning less than $9 an hour. An extra $1.75 an hour, the proposed increase in the minimum wage, for the 1.67 million workers who currently earn the minimum wage, would cost about $4 billion, which could be easily funded with minor cuts to other programs such as highway spending.

Ontario focuses on below-average students

Children who fail to achieve the provincial standard in testing have the Ontario government's full attention, newly sworn-in Education Minister Liz Sandals says.

A Fraser Institute Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools, as reported by QMI Agency,Do you know any buymosaic wholesale supplier? concluded that about 28% of the province's schools need more attention as they return results below provincial standards.

Sandals said in a statement that the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests are not meant to be used to rank schools, but rather as a tool for examining individual, board and provincial data.

"In Ontario, 70% of students are now achieving the provincial standard in Grades 3 and 6 combined, up sixteen percentage points compared to 2002-03," Sandals said. "The Ministry of Education continues to work in partnership with all school boards to raise achievement results overall and close gaps for groups of students who are not achieving the provincial standard."

Student Achievement Officers (SAOs) work in regional teams across the province to improve outcomes, and the education ministry facilitates "extensive professional learning" to help teachers bring new knowledge and skills to their classroom instruction, Sandals said.

"We're very proud of the work students, teachers and administrators have done to improve student achievement," Sandals said.

Opposition education critics at Queen's Park point to cracks in the system, Tory MPP Lisa MacLeod, who recently released an education white paper which recommended that standardized testing be expanded to include science and technology, said the EQAO tests expose stagnate results.

"What we found, and referenced this in our white paper, is about 25% of our students are just not making the grade," MacLeod said. "And that has been consistent over the past couple of years. So it does highlight an issue."

Preparing Students for the Challenges of the 21st Century, which is a discussion paper and not a campaign platform, states the education system needs to focus more on literacy,New Ground-Based injectionmolding Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. numeracy and science.

The Tories say they would identify schools where students fail to meet the provincewide test standard -- a "B" grade -- and invest in those schools to improve performance.

MacLeod said EQAO testing remains an important part of assessing the education system and its pupils, and she's concerned that it could become a bargaining chip in the current battle between teacher unions and the Ontario government over Bill 115 and imposed contracts.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original customkeychain Descriptions.

It might be tempting for new Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is trying to bring extracurriculars back to elementary and secondary schools, to eliminate EQAO testing as a "carrot" to appease teachers, although there has been no suggestion publicly that that's the government's plan.

"It is well known that the unions, the teacher unions of Ontario, do not support EQAO. They think that the best way to save money in the education system and redirect (savings to) salary and benefits is by closing it off and not having any standards whatsoever," MacLeod said. "We in the Ontario PC Party are completely on the other side of that."

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns said standardized testing is not "a bad idea" but he believes that random testing, as is done in France and Ireland, is a more cost-effective option with equally reliable results.
In Ontario, the goal is to test all students although there are exemptions for those whose special accommodation needs cannot be met.

"We may be spending too much on testing and we could use that money in the classroom," Tabuns said. "The other concern is if teachers (are) spending all their time trying to make sure that kids pass these standardized tests, it reduces the time they have to engage with students and actually develop them as individuals."

For schools that perform poorly,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host plasticcard platforms. Tabuns said a common dominator is often unemployment and poverty in the communities served.

Children who live in households where parents are struggling to make ends meet can suffer from that anxiety and stress.Posts with streetlight system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors.

Making sure that adults have well-paying jobs and other supports would be reflected in their children's test scores, Tabuns predicted.

Tabuns said he is worried that the war over the Ontario Liberals' Bill 115, which teachers fought as an attack on their collective bargaining rights, could make it harder to improve overall student performance in the years ahead.

"Starting a conflict in the schools is not going to help students," Tabuns said, blaming the Ontario Liberals for the battle. "And if you demoralize a workforce you are not going to have as good an outcome. It's as simple as that."

Orioles' Wieters relishing quiet leadership role

Tasked with turning around the once-proud franchise with two months left in the 2010 season, Showalter pulled the team's franchise player aside and suggested it was time to "take the gloves off" and take control a little bit.

Heralded as a savior from the second he was taken in the first round of the 2007 amateur draft, Wieters knew if the Orioles were going to compete for the playoffs, he needed to set the tone. All he's done in his three-plus seasons in the majors is become the stoic cornerstone for one of baseball's most promising teams.

Perhaps the most notable aspect to Showalter is Wieters' manner. The catcher doesn't make it personal. And he doesn't tell the pitcher one thing and the coaches another.Do you know any buymosaic wholesale supplier?

"He doesn't say something to (bench coach) John (Russell) or I that he's not going to say to the player,We offers custom stonemosaic parts in as fast as 1 day." Showalter said. "It's very seldom. He picks his spots. It's not like he's going to talk to us and not talk to them. Sometimes he talks to them before he talks to us."

Wieters handles Baltimore's pitching the staff the way he'd want to be handled himself. Though he's been pegged for stardom for years, he never acted like anything more than one of the gang.

Pitcher Brian Matusz came up through the minors with Wieters, and hardly notices a change between the guy hanging out at the edge of the clubhouse now and the fresh-faced kid he met in the Arizona Fall League in 2008.

"I thought right away 'this guy is a big league catcher,'" Matusz said. "He's so smart back there behind the plate and knowledgeable of the game. He's always learning, picking up new things."

Even coming off a season in which he won his first Gold Glove, Wieters is intent on improving. Asked by Showalter what he'd like to work on during spring training, Wieters rattled off a handful of items on his 'to-do' list.

Thousands of Michigan residents have collected Pell Grants without attending classes in the past year, costing Michigan's colleges millions of dollars that have to be paid back to the federal government.

At Henry Ford Community College, $4.1 million -- about 10% of the money the college received in Pell Grants -- needs to be paid back to the U.S. Department of Education this year, a move that will likely contribute to a tuition increase at the Dearborn school.

The problem isn't limited to Michigan, and it isn't new, but experts say it's getting worse.

No one knows exactly how much these Pell scammers are costing taxpayers because central record-keeping is spotty at best and often out of date. Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and a leading expert on financial aid issues,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host plasticcard platforms. estimates that 3.6% of all Pell Grant recipients across the nation are collecting the money fraudulently. That means an estimated $1.2 billion in taxpayer money was lost last school year alone, when the federal government gave out $33.5 billion in Pell Grants.

Although colleges and universities can go after these scammers,Creative glass tile and chinamosaic tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. called Pell jumpers or Pell runners, it's an uphill battle to recover the money. The U.S. Department of Education is expected to address the issue this year, experts said, which could mean more measures that help slow down fraud but could delay payments, potentially hurting those who depend on the grants.

Pell Grants, which max out at $5,500 per year, are available to low- and mid-income residents and can be used for tuition and other costs, including rent, groceries and transportation. If a student receives a Pell Grant and disappears with the money, the college or university is on the hook to repay both the tuition costs and the rest of the money given to the student.

The fraud is particularly pronounced at community colleges because of their lower tuition rates.Posts with streetlight system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. A student can sign up for a full load of classes for as little as $700 per semester at some Michigan community colleges and then pocket the leftovers from the $2,750 maximum grant.

"You'll only hear about this at low-cost schools," said Karen McCarthy, a policy analyst for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "If the costs are high, the students won't get any of their money back."

The grants, created in 1965, are the building blocks of financial aid packages for students attending schools from the University of Michigan to the Kalamazoo Beauty Academy.

Financial aid officers at community colleges across the state say that without the grants, hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents would be unable to attend college.

"It's a real tight balance between not interfering with access to higher education, but making sure it's used appropriately," said Roger Miller, the financial aid director at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

BB Z10 Slips Into The Country

After being on the rocks for the past years, BlackBerry now with the Z10’s launch, their first handset to run the new BlackBerry 10 operating system sets its big comeback to the line of smartphones.

With a number of setbacks, Blackberry Z10 and its new mobile platform is ready to show off its latest technological advances as key to step out and compete into the mobile market.

BlackBerry Z10 offers a 1.Watch Later Lifescape plasticmould 66 views 3 months ago Just thought I'd upload this cool track.5 GHz dual-core processor paired with 2GB Ram, 16GB internal storage and expandable microSD memory card. It has a USB 2.0 high-speed port allows charging and data synchronization the device with the use of USB cable.

Sporting a 4.2 inch 1280x768 display, Z10 presents a clearer and more comfortable view of text, photos and web browsing. Z10 has catered quick setting; a swipe upward acts as home action and a way to unlock the phone and swiping downward from the notification bar you'll get a small drop-down with toggles for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, rotation lock and notifications. Swiping towards right will take you to the BlackBerry Hub, while towards left will take you into the apps.

Z10 has a new impressive feature to look at, the BlackBerry Hub which encompasses all your accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and Gmail. You can take a peek into the hub from any apps and even shows every messages, calls and social updates.

Screen Share, an exclusive feature to BBM which lets you share your screen with the person you are having a video call. You can catch up face-to-face and share what’s on your screen.

BlackBerry has shifted from its well-known Qwerty Keyboard to a full-touch.

Among other smartphones, we noticed that the Z10’s keyboard is very good.Find Complete Details about carparkmanagementsystem Truck. You can type fast and accurately using one hand because of the proper spacing between lines and keys. You can turn the Z10 around 90 degrees for a larger landscape keyboard.

BlackBerry Z10 sports an 8MP camera on the back and a 2MP front-facing camera.

It features Time Shift where you can take a picture of a group and then change each face to several seconds backwards or forwards. After taking a photo, Time Shift enables you to select the perfect smile of your subject.

Managing and synchronization of the content from BlackBerry 10 devices and to the computer is easier by using the BlackBerry Link. It is exclusive for BB 10 operating system devices. For fast and hassle-free transferring of the content from your old smartphone to Z10, you need to create a BlackBerry ID. Using a BB ID gives access to BlackBerry websites, apps and services.

One thing you will surely admire, Z10 is equipped with a removable 1800mAh battery that lasts up to 10 hours of talk time.

When the battery is drained, it can be replaced with a fully charged one.

BlackBerry World has launched over 70,000 applications in the store. You are able to refine your search by categories. Skype and Whatsapp are now ready for download.

Regarding the internet connection, you will experience excellent browsing with the Z10 because not only does it come Wi-Fi ready, it is also LTE powered.

Z10 has pre-installed apps such as BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Browser, BlackBerry World, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, BlackBerry Maps, BlackBerry Remember, Docs To Go, Story Maker, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry Connect for Dropbox, Adobe Reader, Print to Go, Smart Tags, Voice Control and Games.

Don't let the still babyish face fool you. When things aren't going well on the mound, Wieters will let the pitcher know. He just won't do it in front of the whole world. Wieters has made a habit of pulling a pitcher aside between innings in the walkway behind the dugout.

That sense of privacy was invaded during the AL playoffs, when a TV camera was mounted in the hallway. Funny thing is, the camera was mysteriously turned around - Showalter insists he doesn't know how - so Wieters could do his thing.

Perhaps the most notable aspect to Showalter is Wieters' manner. The catcher doesn't make it personal. And he doesn't tell the pitcher one thing and the coaches another.

"He doesn't say something to (bench coach) John (Russell) or I that he's not going to say to the player," Showalter said. "It's very seldom.Creative glass tile and chinamosaic tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. He picks his spots. It's not like he's going to talk to us and not talk to them. Sometimes he talks to them before he talks to us."

Wieters handles Baltimore's pitching the staff the way he'd want to be handled himself. Though he's been pegged for stardom for years, he never acted like anything more than one of the gang.

Pitcher Brian Matusz came up through the minors with Wieters, and hardly notices a change between the guy hanging out at the edge of the clubhouse now and the fresh-faced kid he met in the Arizona Fall League in 2008.

"I thought right away 'this guy is a big league catcher,We open source iphoneheadset system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy.'" Matusz said. "He's so smart back there behind the plate and knowledgeable of the game. He's always learning, picking up new things.Wholesale various Glass Mosaic Tiles from lanyard Tiles Suppliers."

Even coming off a season in which he won his first Gold Glove, Wieters is intent on improving. Asked by Showalter what he'd like to work on during spring training, Wieters rattled off a handful of items on his 'to-do' list.

The Anti-Snobbery of 'Downton Abbey'

Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer of "Downton Abbey," doesn't take long to say what he thinks is the message of his smash television drama.

"I think the—well, not even the subtext, the supertext—of 'Downton,' " he says not five minutes after we sit down for coffee Monday morning at the Savoy Hotel in central London, "is that it is possible for us all to get on,When I first started creating broken ultrasonicsensor. that we don't have to be ranged in class warfare permanently—that for the general public, the fact that people are leading different lives with different economic realities and different expectations is perfectly cope-able with.

"If you can't deal with that," he continues, "then your life would be unlivable. And I think politicians try to encourage us to think in a hostile sense [of] people who have a different circumstance to our own. Which I find very unproductive and uncreative."

"Downton Abbey" chronicles the lives of the patrician Crawley family and their servants in a fictional country house in Yorkshire, in northern England. The first season opens with the sinking of the Titanic, in 1912, and ends with the declaration of war against Germany. The second season covers the war years, and the third season, which airs Sundays on PBS, takes us into the Roaring '20s. The show is a hit in Britain, the U.S., Sweden, South Korea, Russia, Israel and beyond.

I've caught the 63-year-old writer and producer on his way to the House of Lords, where he was made a Life Peer in 2011. His full title is Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, Lord of the Manor of Tattershall, Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset. He is properly addressed as Lord Fellowes.This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a rtls tile and floral motif.

"But do call me Julian," he says toward the end of our two-hour chat.

He talks freely and voluminously, his thoughts unspooling in long, liquid sentences. "I think America has dealt with—I mean, this is simplistic and of course I don't live in America—but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation to dislike those who are better off or be frightened of those who are worse off . . . The Americans, I think, are better at seeing themselves as a kind of community—that the important thing is to be American."

In Britain, he says, "we've had a century of being encouraged to dislike each other. And I suppose 'Downton' is in a different position to that."

This nonjudgmental embrace of the highborn life has exposed the show to the criticism, leveled widely, that it celebrates Edwardian opulence without due regard for the period's inequities. Lord Fellowes disagrees. " 'Downton,' I think, has achieved its success for the opposite reason, which is that all the characters are taken seriously," he says. "I don't think we patronize the servants, we don't make them comedic. Nor do we automatically hate the family or regard them as selfish and mendacious and so on."

He continues: "I like the characters to disagree and the audience can see both points of view, so that neither is being ludicrous or unreasonable. It just always seems to me more interesting if you're slightly torn as to which side you're on."

Hence "Downton" has characters who are skeptical of class hierarchy and ones who worship it. It has servants who are unflinchingly stoical and masters whose self-restraint deserts them. It has guardians of the old order and torchbearers of modernity, a whole gallery of them: an Irish socialist, feminists of various stripes, American nouveaux riches. It's a funny aspiration for a soap opera, ideological balance, but evidently a winning one.

The "Downton" creator admits that its appeal relies, to a degree, on not getting too deep into the messy realities of the history. "What you have to understand about period drama,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking." he says, "is that it's history light. You can enjoy it, but you don't have to get up at five in the morning. You don't have to get on your hands and knees and clean out the grate. If you're upstairs, you don't have to change your clothes five times a day. You don't have to sit there in a corset.Creative glass tile and plasticmoulds for your distinctive kitchen and bath. You don't have to leave food on your plate and pretend the man next to you is interesting."

He also makes no apology for feeding an escapist impulse. The "Downton" world "seems like an ordered world at times, and ours feels like a rather disordered world. This is an era of insecurity, both in a very real sense for a lot of people, economically. Their jobs are either gone or insecure, and they haven't got as much money to spend, which is very tough. And a lot of people are going through that."

Beyond the financial insecurity in the air, he says, the "political structures seem a bit wobbly, and we don't seem to have quite the faith in them. I always remember that movie with James Cagney, 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.' He goes to see the president, and we see him sitting opposite the president. And there's a light on his face, as if the president is actually shining.

"I must have loved that, really. I love that faith in the institutions. And I don't think we really have that any more. We don't think our leaders shine in that way."

So is Julian Fellowes a fantasist or a fabulist? Does "Downton" offer comfort or critique? I suggest to him that his show is of a piece with the recent slew of stylish TV dramas set in rigid,The lanyard series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. patriarchal societies: "Mad Men," "Game of Thrones," "Deadwood." "A lot of these stories are about how to achieve your own personal goal within the rules," he says. "Most of us don't want to be outsiders. . . . We want our achievements, but we want still to be inside the tent. And you can make that impulse clearer in a world where the rules were clearer.

"I think it's still true, actually. But our rules are so nebulous. None of us quite know what they are. It's like 'casual chic.' We don't know what it is."

That's not quite a full-throated defense of a world in which people know their place. Wistfully sympathetic, maybe. The "Downton" characters bear witness to many innovations of the day: the telephone, women's suffrage, the cocktail party, the toaster—and the idea that one can choose one's own path in life, regardless of birth. I ask Lord Fellowes about the motto on his family coat of arms: Post Proelia Praemia ("After battles come rewards" in Latin).

That too few ordinary people's battles were rewarded in the era of "Downton" is "the indictment of the age," he replies, but the motto "is quite apposite for me." He labored in obscurity as a character actor and television writer for more than two decades until he was tapped by director Robert Altman to write the screenplay for "Gosford Park," a 2001 pastiche of the manor-house murder mystery. The screenplay won an Academy Award.

Partying with Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco means parents

He has won the Super Bowl. He was named the MVP of a 34-31 Baltimore Ravens victory vs. the San Francisco 49ers. And he has a life-changing announcement to make to his family.

It's 12:40 a.m., hours after the 47th AFC-NFC Championship game, and Joe walks into Huck Finn's on Decatur Street, a three-room French Quarter sports bar tucked away from raucous Bourbon Street. Tonight the bar hosts a private party for Joe's family and friends, 60 of them flown here at Joe's expense the week of the biggest game of his life.

Wearing a long-sleeve gray shirt, blue jeans and gray sneakers, Joe pushes open the door, grinning.Get the best deal on airpurifier in the UK and use our free tools. The party cheers his arrival, and before he can hug his wife, Dana, chants of "M-V-P, M-V-P" fill the bar. Outside, Ravens fans in purple jerseys crouch and peer through the window panes as an unassuming bouncer stands guard at the door.

Joe, 28, dishes out dozens of hugs, each female guest turning their face to the chest of the 6-5 quarterback from New Jersey. Joe takes pictures too, and signs autographs for children who bring footballs and jerseys.

Its 12:50 a.m., and Joe makes his way slowly to the buffet line in the second room, where a bed of jambalaya, penne pasta in alfredo sauce and blackened chicken breasts lay waiting. Joe fills his plate and returns to the main room. Nine televisions mounted into brick walls are tuned to ESPN and NFL Network,Creative glass tile and plasticmoulds for your distinctive kitchen and bath. and party-goers down free beers and chat as Chris Berman breathlessly relives the Super Bowl. Joe and his wife Dana gather their four parents around the table.

Joe digs into his plate, shoveling home mouthfuls of Cajun cuisine as guests walk up to shake his hand and offer congratulations on the Super Bowl victory and MVP award. Somebody hands Joe a soda in a hard plastic cup. Behind him, on a red brick wall, rests a black and white picture of Hank Aaron, breaking his bat on a baseball. Above and to the left of the 1957 NL MVP hangs a picture of Babe Ruth, young, skinny and draped in a Red Sox uniform, taken some years before he won the 1923 AL MVP award as a Yankee.

Joe hears his name boom from a familiar voice. It's Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis on the largest television in the room, interviewing with ESPN's Sal Paolantonio minutes after the game. Cheeks bulging with food, Joe's head pops up to look at the screen.'

Mom gets a long hug. She doesn't know how long Joe and Dana have known Dana was pregnant. Their first child is 71/2 months old, and Karen says the couple told their parents they were expecting that child after a 2011 Thanksgiving night victory over the 49ers in Baltimore.

"It's a 49ers tradition now," Karen beams. "He's hit the trifecta. Somebody asks me if Joe was going to go win the lottery tonight.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. I said, 'He already has.' "

Joe and Dana leave the party, exiting through a back door at 1:40 a.m. Karen says the husband and wife, married in June 2011, are going to bed. Joe has a press conference in the morning, then a trip to Disney World for the MVP parade, then a flight to New York to film the Late Show with David Letterman, all according to recent Super Bowl MVP tradition. There will be questions about his personal life, offers for commercials, and there's the small matter of an expiring contract with the Ravens. Joe soon will be a very well-paid pro athlete with a public persona.

To get the best benefits at the biggest banks, you’ll need to tuck at least $25,000 into relationship accounts. In return, you get priority customer service, often with a dedicated phone number, as well as the potential to earn higher rates on deposits and bigger rewards on credit and checking accounts. You also get breaks on checking overdraft fees and charges for account services such as money orders, cashier’s checks and wire transfers.That is a machine for manufacturing plastic products by the bobblehead process.

Hands-on investors may appreciate the commission-free trades in self-directed investing accounts (up to a monthly or annual limit) that Bank of America provides to its Platinum Privileges clients and Wells Fargo to its PMA customers. You may also get a break when you take out a mortgage or other loan. For example, a member of Citibank’s relationship service, Citigold, can get up to $2,500 off closing costs or 0.375% off the interest rate on a first mortgage, depending on the size of the client’s total Citigold balance.

How to deal with a nation where the leader makes such comments depends on many factors. Should they be bombed to stop them from getting a nuke, have economic sanctions put on them, negotiate etc.? I personally think there is zero chance of Iran keeping their word, but doubt military action or sanctions will help as they are already are near or past the point of no return.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host parkingguidance platforms. Additionally, the biggest threat of Iran going nuclear was not them using the bomb, but other countries going nuclear, that process has already started. However, that is not the issue here. The point is that surely almost all Americans would agree that it would be insane for the U.S. to provide weapons to such a nation.

Some readers may have figured out that those quotes are not from the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rather from the President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi and his affiliates. The first quote is from a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (possibly also a parlimentary member but I could not confirm), The second quote is from the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badi, the last quote from a top aide of Mohammed Morsi, you can even see the original article from Badie on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website here (google translate does decent job).

Gun-control restrictions reasonable

Congratulations to the Central School District for taking one of the most-effective means of preventing school massacres — making sure that the classroom school doors have locks that can be locked from the inside. The effectiveness of this measure was surely demonstrated in Newtown where life and death depended on the turn of a key. The teachers who locked their doors or, if that was impossible, were locked in by the school custodian lived, along with their students. Those unable to lock their doors died.

To those who protest that fire codes prohibit locking classroom doors, it isn’t true. The general requirement of fire codes is that fire exits be openable from the inside to allow escape in a fire. Panic hardware that allows fire exits to be opened from the inside, but not the outside, have long been standard features of modern buildings, except apparently schools.

Congratulations also to all legislators who support reasonable restrictions on weapons, such as the proposed legislation mandating more-secure storage of weapons.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking. If there has been a boom in sales of gun lockers (not display cases) to match the post-Newtown surge in sales of assault weapons, I sure haven’t heard of it. This is something that all owners of weapons should support without being compelled, but don’t.

On the other hand, the most-persuasive evidence for greater restrictions on weapons comes, not from the proponents of restrictions, but from the free-floating fear and anxiety and the lack of empathy of many of the supporters of unrestricted weapon possession. We see them in innumerable legions in all media touting how necessary weapons are to protect their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Absent from their arguments is any appreciation that the children of Newtown also had a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

President Barack Obama’s featuring a child at a press conference who wrote that he wanted to be safe and happy goes to the heart of the issue. The NRA has it half right — people kill people including children, and they do it most effectively with military weapons designed for killing people en masse.

At the time of the passage of the Bill of Rights, the people of a young nation had just gained their independence by defeating a country that had the greatest military in the world. At Concord in 1775, a confrontation between British troops and Minutemen occurred when the Minutemen received word that the British were after the people’s gunpowder. After a skirmish, the British searched house to house for individual “military stores.” The British were trying to confiscate and control all military-type arms that the Minutemen could use to defend their liberty.

The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and was passed because most people believed the Constitution would not restrain the central government from abridging individual rights. The Bill of Rights would stop a centralized government from encroaching on the inalienable rights of the people. Therefore, the Bill of Rights was adopted to protect the people from an oppressive central government. When debating the formation of the Constitution and the first 10 amendments, the framers wanted to protect the people’s rights from being infringed again by an all-powerful centralized government. The second of those amendments was adopted to defend their newly gained freedoms.

When the Second Amendment states in part “arms shall not be infringed,” the arms refer to military arms. The framers wanted the people to have access to military arms like the British to defend individual fundamental rights. The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights protects the people’s unalienable right — not a right granted by the Constitution or by government.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original buymosaic Descriptions. The original purpose of the Second Amendment was to stop Congress from making laws that allowed any infringement upon the right of the people to keep and bear military-style arms.

A Clemson's men track athlete ran in five indoor meets after his eligibility was complete and a women's track team member received impermissible school expenses from former program director Lawrence Johnson while training for a foreign Olympic team.

The violations were outlined in the school's report sent to the NCAA last month. The report was obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act Request. Other violations include a Clemson runner receiving shoes from a volunteer assistant and a prospect getting bottled water on a recruiting visit last fall. Names of the athletes were redacted in the documents.Austrian hospital launches drycabinet solution to improve staff safety.

The school's letter to the NCAA said Johnson did not promote "an atmosphere of compliance" in the men's and women's track programs. He was resigned as director on Jan. 8. Johnson did not return emails left by the AP.

School spokeswoman Libby Kehn said athletic director Dan Radakovich and other school representatives would not comment on the violations until the NCAA completes its investigation.

Clemson blacked-out the names of those athletes involved in the report released to the AP. Clemson classified the violations as secondary in nature, the less serious category of NCAA transgressions.

The school told the NCAA it received an anonymous letter last September about track and field violations and hired an outside law firm, Bond, Schnoeneck & King, to conduct an independent review of the program.

The inquiry found Clemson used the ineligible athlete during the 2012 indoor season, including at the Atlantic Coast Conference championships. The school said as punishment, it would dock itself one track scholarship for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. It also agreed to pay a $2,500 fine and revamp some procedures for tracking an athlete's eligibility.

A second violation involved an athlete who competed for a foreign Olympic team in London, yet received funds from Johnson while training with her college teammates competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., last year. The school said it repaid the cost of the transportation expenses, $175.60, to a Clemson area children's shelter. The athlete missed the first two indoor meets of the season before here eligibility was restored by the NCAA.

Another member of the women's team was found to have received a pair of Adidas running shoes, valued at $95, from volunteer assistant Kristi Castlin. The athlete was declared ineligible by the school and has not practiced with the team since the spring semester began.Professionals with the job title tooling are on LinkedIn.

All All realtimelocationsystem comes with 5 Years Local Agent Warranty !the violations, Clemson associate athletic director compliance services Stephanie Ellison wrote the NCAA, show that Johnson "failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within his men's and women's track and field program."