11.23
0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Nov 22, 2009 | by DEAN PIPER
ONCE an addict, always an addict. And now it seems Amy Winehouse is battling a new addiction – plastic surgery.
I can reveal that just weeks after she pumped up her boobies from a 32B to a 32D she’s booking herself to go back under the knife – this time to sort out her beak.
A close pal tells me she’s booked in to the London Clinic, where she had her boob job, for a nose job in January and she’s not listening to friends and family who are desperately trying to talk her out of it.
My Wino mole reveals: “Amy’s become totally obsessed with surgery since her boob job.
“She wants her nose made smaller to fit with her small face as she hates the fact her nose is so big and she doesn’t like the shape.
“Amy says she can barely look in the mirror at the moment as she hates it so much. She’s booked in for January but is pushing to get it done sooner. Her family are dead-set against it and her brother has gone mad at her saying it will ruin her whole look and she will become unrecognisable. They’re trying to talk her out of it but Amy’s having none of it.”
On the plus side people, we have to commend her for her efforts in getting clean from drugs – sources tell me she’s been clean for MONTHS now
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11.23
0 Comments | Wireless News, Nov 20, 2009
In the course of routine surveillance, Fitch Ratings on November 13 affirms its ‘A ‘ rating to the Apache Junction Unified School District No. 43 of Pinal County, Arizona’s unlimited tax general obligation (GO) bonds as follows:
–School improvement bonds, series 1999D (Project of 1996);
–Refunding bonds and supplemental certificates, series 2001;
–Refunding bonds, series 2003;
–School improvement bonds, series 2005A (Project of 2004);
–School improvement bonds, series 2006B (Project of 2004);
–School improvement bonds, series 2007C (Project of 2004);
–Refunding bonds, series 2007.
The bonds are general obligations of the district payable from a continuing, direct, annual unlimited ad valorem tax levied against all taxable property located within the district. The Rating Outlook is revised to Negative from Stable.
The ‘A ‘ rating reflects the district’s conservative fiscal management as evidenced by its healthy financial profile, solid tax base, and moderate debt load with slightly above-average amortization. The Negative Outlook incorporates the district’s recent enrollment losses and corresponding state funding cuts that will apply significant financial pressure over the near to mid term. The prospect of continued development that is expected as a result of state land auctions is favorable but expected to materialize at a much slower pace than previously anticipated. This development would apply capital and operating pressures, but the corresponding enrollment gains would somewhat mitigate this risk.
The district is located in the north central portion of Pinal County, Arizona, approximately 35 miles east of the Phoenix metropolitan area. District boundaries encompass the city of Apache Junction and unincorporated developments surrounding the city serving an estimated population of 85,000. The area economy historically was based on recreation, tourism and retirement activities, but has emerged as a bedroom community for the Phoenix metropolitan area. Unemployment rates for the City of Apache Junction are consistently lower than the levels recorded at the state and national levels; however, the county unemployment rates are typically higher than those of both the state and nation. County wealth levels as measured by median household and per capita buying income are lower than that of the state and national levels.
Only about one third of the district is currently developed. Transportation improvements – especially the completion of the Superstition Freeway that connects US-60 to I-10 – combined with availability of affordable housing led to significant population growth between 1990 and 2000. However, population within the city has declined modestly in the last few years as is reflected in the district’s enrollment levels, which dropped about 5 percent in the current year to about 5,500 students.
The district’s financial profile has been healthy, typically posting higher fund balances than the average Arizona school district. Arizona school districts budget on an essentially break- even basis and typically retain small operating reserves. However, at the close of fiscal 2008, the district posted a solid unreserved general fund balance equal to 15.8 percent of expenditures
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11.21
Business Wire, August 18, 2009
Health insurance, internet providers, and pharmaceuticals also lose
ground
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Every year, The Harris Poll asks a cross-section of adults whether they
think about 20 leading industries do a good or a bad job of serving
their consumers. The latest poll finds very big changes in the last 12
months. Some industries have seen their reputations crumble. Some show
modest slippage. A few show significant improvement.
These are some of the results from The
Harris Poll, a new
study of 1,010 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone between July 8 and 13,
2009 by Harris
Interactive. While the question asks how good or bad
different industries are at serving their consumers, our experience
suggests that the answers reflect a somewhat broader picture
of how the public feels overall about these industries.
Unsurprisingly, the industries whose reputations have been most badly
hurt in the last 12 months are car manufacturers (down 31 points), banks
(down 24 points), and investment and brokerage firms (down 27 points).
In light of the current debate about health care reform it is
interesting to note that health insurance companies (down 10 points) and
pharmaceutical companies (down six points) have also slipped while
hospitals have improved by six points. Interestingly, life insurance
companies improved (up 12 points) while health insurance lost ground.
Industries that are most likely to be thought of as doing a good job
Supermarkets, hospitals, online search engines, packaged food companies,
and computer companies enjoy the best reputation for serving their
consumers. The percentage of adults who think they are doing a good job
are 92% for supermarkets, 78% for hospitals, 76% for online search
engines and 72% for packaged food, computer hardware and software
companies.
Industries that are most likely to be thought of as doing a bad job
The most unpopular industries, using this measure, are tobacco, oil,
managed care, and health insurance. These are the only industries on the
list used in the survey where more than half of all adults believe they
are doing a bad job: tobacco companies (63% doing a bad job), oil
companies (60%), health insurance (58%) and managed care (54%).
Other industries with relatively high negative ratings include
investment and brokerage firms (46%), car manufacturers (45%),
pharmaceuticals (45%), banks (38%), and cable companies (37%).
Industries that are doing better this year
Airlines show a bigger improvement this year than any other industry.
Tobacco (while still at the bottom of the list), life insurance, and
computer hardware companies have also improved.
The score used to measure changes over time, since Harris first asked
these questions in 1997, is the number of adults saying good job
for each industry minus those saying bad job. Using this
measure, airlines are up 16 points, from 18 to 34 (which is still far
lower than their score of 66 in 1998), life insurance is up 12 points,
from 26 to 38, and tobacco companies are up 11 points, from minus 43 to
minus 32.
Industries that are doing worse this year
The biggest declines using the same measure (those saying “good job
minus those saying bad job) are for car manufacturers, and investment
and brokerage firms. The car manufacturers score has dropped 31 points
from 37 to 6
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11.21
0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 20, 2009 | by David Morrill
DUBLIN — He went through a terrible divorce. He doesn’t make a lot of money. And one of his friends describes him as a “big guy with a Ben Stein monotone.”
For John Dekoven life couldn’t be better.
The owner of Bunjo’s Comedy Club in Dublin, Dekoven found his way onto stage as a way to make fun of the otherwise not so hilarious aspects of life.
“I was going through a terrible divorce that would probably have sent me to a shrink,” Dekoven said. “Instead I went on stage and found ways to laugh about a relationship where the divorce took a year longer than the marriage lasted.”
Currently Dekoven is engaged to a woman who he met in a most unusual way.
“In person,” he quips.
He knows he carries a few more pounds than he would like.
“I’m a 250-pound bulimic. I just throw-up the healthy stuff,” he jokes again.
The shows are every Friday and Saturday at the Willow Tree Restaurant in Dublin. On Fridays it’s an open mic for professionals and amateurs. On Saturday, it’s all professionals. One Sunday a month he has a show that is family friendly.
Dekoven decides on the lineups. It’s this ability to match the right comedians with the right crowd that Dekoven says is one of his big gifts.
Besides the shows he runs in Dublin, he can quickly tap into the nearly 100 comedians he knows and come up with a perfect combination.
For example, if you have a show for a company party, Dekoven makes sure that he doesn’t have a comedian that swears every other sentence because you never know who is in the crowd.
“Right now, I’m putting together a show for a company’s IT department, so I’m going to find a comedian or two that has humor about computers and technology,” he said.
At a recent open mic show in Dublin, one comedian made a quip about Carrie Prejean. A single person clapped, while others seemed not to realize she was Miss California and had an awkward moment on Larry King Live.
When then-Vice President Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face with the shotgun, Dekoven jumped on the opportunity.
“Thank goodness he didn’t shoot himself,” he said. “If he did, then Bush would have become president.”
While he loves political humor, or “smart comedy,” that’s about as deep as he can go with politics or current events in the suburbs, he said.
“Unless people follow the news closely and know what happened yesterday, most of the crowd won’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Children, marriage, and self-faults are usually a better way to go, Dekoven believes.
Even though not every comedian on amateur nights will bring a laugh, Dekoven has faith in their talent.
“Even those that bomb really are not that bad are they?” he said.
Prior to his stint in comedy, Dekoven owned a real estate company. He would book comedy acts on the side with Bay Area comics for restaurants and clubs such as Tommy T’s.
Eventually his income was enough that he could sell his real estate business. A huge break, because a year later the market crashed.
“I was very lucky there,” he said.
Last May, Dekoven started Bunjo’s. He realizes that some might see it as direct competition with Tommy T’s in Pleasanton.
He doesn’t see it that way, because his emphasis is much more local.
“If there’s a certain comedian you have to see, then Tommy T’s might be the place to go,” he said. “But if you are looking for good laughs at a reasonable price, then we can offer that.”
Shows are $5 on Friday and $10 on Saturday.
And any local comedian can sign up on the Web site, bunjoscomedy.com, and perform a 5-minute set on Fridays. Some are regulars trying out a new joke. Others are trying to get their names out there.
“John has been a savior for comedians in the East Bay and really put the area on the map,” said Carrie Gilbert, a comedian
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11.21
0 Comments | Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England), Nov 10, 2009
Byline: Alpa Bisarya
AFEW days’ pampering in the Austrian Tyrol sounds bliss, but when the invitation comes in the middle of another damp and miserable August, it’’s even harder to turn down.
On arrival at Innsbruck airport, we were greeted by Hansie Entner, proprietor of our first hotel, the Wiesenhof. He took us on a beautiful drive to his hometown of Achensee. As soon as we checked in, we were given details of our appointments in the Wellness Centre and discovered what treats lay in store for us over the next couple of days.
Before we even had time to take in our amazing rooms with their four-poster beds, walk-in wardrobes, slate-tiled bathroom and beautiful views over the outstanding Austrian countryside, it was time for the first of many treatments.
First up was a stone-oil bath treatment.
Lying in the bath, looking at the picturesque Tyrolese mountain peaks and enchanting meadows, I drifted off to a world far, far away. But the treatment had healing qualities, too, as one of our party was covered in insect bites and the stone-oil seemed to soothe the itching and soften her skin. This was followed by a back and shoulder massage which took me beyond my already pretty relaxed state. The Wellness Centre also offers a covered swimming pool, a sauna, different steam rooms and plenty of space for rest and relaxation which we took every opportunity to use.
After being given time to unpack and relax in our rooms, it was time for dinner with Hansie. The hotel dining area is like a huge family kitchen, with all guests encouraged to help themselves to the fine food on offer. The restaurant serves four different menus – local, international, good for the heart and vegetarian. The focus is firmly on eating healthily while eating well, and all the food was delicious.
During dinner, Hansie explained the hotel had been started as somewhere for cardiac patients to recuperate and then developed into a well-being spa because of demand. He revealed he placed so much emphasis on health and well-being because his father had suffered seven heart attacks and had nine bypasses – the hotel now offers three different types of health-checks including metabolic and cardiac fitness programmes for its guests. They offered many activities for guests including Nordic walking, horse riding, sailing, paragliding, skiing, tobogganing and riding Segway electric scooters, which we were to experience the following morning.
After an extremely restful night in the four-poster bed and a hearty breakfast, Hansie took us to the Tyrolean Stone Oil Centre. The business of extracting stone oil started here in 1902, and has been in the same family for four generations. The oil shale – from which the Tyrolean Stone Oil is extracted – is more than 180 million years old and is formed from fossil deposits which were pushed up to an altitude of 1,800m above sea level during the creation of the Alps in the region. It is used for everything from skin and hair treatments to soothe aching joints and rheumatic pain.
Following the tour of the centre, Hansie took us on a ride on some Segway electric scooters into the mountains. Although daunting at first, the two-wheeled vehicles were easy to get used to and were a great way of exploring this beautiful valley without putting in much effort – and we were assured the only person to have fallen off one was former US President GeorgeW Bush! In the afternoon, Hansie’s wife Alexandra took two of us horse riding in the mountains while the other member of our party decided to try out the cable cars for a different view of this idyllic place.
On our return to the hotel, it was back to theWellness Centre for more treatments, including an Alpine hay bath where I lay down on what felt like a water bed while wet hay was applied on top of me. It seemed like quite a strange thing to do, but before long I was floating away and afterwards my skin felt incredibly soft and smooth.
After breakfast the next morning, we were greeted by Hannes Seyrling, proprietor of our final stop on the tour – the AlpenMedHotel Lamm. An hour’s drive later, we arrived in a pretty little village on the other side of Innsbruck. The hotel was nestled in the heart of Seefeld, which is extremely popular as it hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976 and still has beautifully-groomed ski slopes and a 262km network of cross-country ski trails.
The hotel had been in the family since 1890 when it was a one-storey guesthouse, but it now has 71 rooms and suites, a restaurant, wellness centre, golf lessons with a PGA professional and a cryotherapy chamber where temperatures drop as far as -110C.
Hannes and his wife, Sylvia, have run the hotel since the late 1970s and their daughter, Simone, is now being groomed to take over
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11.21
0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 20, 2009 | by Paul Thissen
CONCORD — The pool at Meadow Homes Park, shuttered earlier this year because of budget cuts and health code concerns, will be replaced with a spray park by the summer of 2011.
The spray ground — an area with fountains, sprinklers, nozzles and other ways to get wet — is less expensive than fixing the pool and more in line with what the neighborhood wants, according to the city. And not many residents were using the pool.
The project, which will cost just under $1 million, will be paid for with grant money from the state and money from the Measure WW parks bond passed last year.
“I think we have a lot of families that feel this will be a really nice addition to the park,” said Concord Community and Recreation Services Director Joan Carrico.
Even before this year, the pool was open for less than three months each year, she said.
The spray park would likely open earlier in the spring and stay open until around November, Carrico said.
It should be a good addition to the park, said Sandra Scherer, executive director of the Monument Crisis Center, which runs youth programs in the neighborhood.
“There’s a huge need for the parks around here,” Scherer said. “You need to have an outlet like being able to go to the park.”
Many kids in the neighborhood don’t know how to swim, she said, so a spray park could be more accessible.
But it’s not good that the neighborhood is losing the pool, she said, as a place to learn to swim and get exercise.
The project will also add a picnic area and update the bathrooms at the site, Carrico said. Construction will start in mid-2010, but the work will not be complete in time for next summer
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11.20
Business Wire, Nov 19, 2009
Industry veterans head up newest office in hub for large-scale
e-discovery projects
NEW YORK — Excelerate Discovery, a leading managed attorney review and e-discovery
solutions provider, today announced the opening of its New York office
and document review center. Located in mid-town Manhattan, the office is
headed up by Nancy Espuche and Kristen Johnson-Gluck, both industry
veterans. Christopher Jensen, President and Co-Founder of Excelerate
Discovery, commented, Having Nancy and Kristen spearheading our New
York efforts is a real testament to our unique offering. These women are
already well recognized by clients that utilize both technology and
managed document review services for e-discovery.
Both Espuche and Johnson-Gluck have spent years developing solutions for
law firms and corporate legal departments to curb escalating discovery
and document review costs
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11.19
0 Comments | Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales), Nov 18, 2009
IN his influential 2005 book, The World Is Flat, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Friedman argues that advances in technology have levelled the global economic playing field.
Everyone and every company, he argues, can be a global economic player no matter where on earth they are located. In a flat world “you can innovate without having to emigrate,” says Friedman.
So, has the world really become that flat? To an extent, yes, but in reality it is both flat and spiked at the same time.
These spikes consist of leading economic and knowledge-led regions from around the world, typically Silicon Valley in California, Oxford and Cambridge in UK, and Helsinki and Stockholm elsewhere in Europe.
More recently these regions have been joined by a new band of leading Asian hot-spots led by Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai in India and Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai in China.
Although much of China and India remains adrift of the global knowledge economy, these cities and regions, along with the traditional centres of economic activity in the western world, are part of a new order of elite regions – or spikes – that form a virtuous circle generating a significant proportion of the world’s wealth. Unfortunately for Wales, instead of forming part of a virtuous circle it appears trapped in a vicious cycle that continues to erode its competitiveness and lower standards of living for its citizens.
Rather than a spike it remains in an economic valley not only in global terms, but even when compared with its UK and European counterparts. Of the twelve regions in the UK, Wales is the least competitive with the exception of only North East England.
It has the lowest level of Gross Value Added (output) per capita of all UK regions, standing at only 75% of the UK average.
This has dropped from 80% in 1997, and we have to go back to the industrial revolution – 1891 to be precise – to find its best performance, when it peaked at 95% of the British average. Levels of pay, productivity, employment and economic activity all remain significantly below the UK average.
A lack of innovation – the creation of new products and processes – is identified as a major barrier restricting the growth of the economy, which is manifested by relatively low levels of investment in knowledge, such as skills, research and development, and technology.
Although Wales is a small country, it is perhaps not as clever as it likes to believe. With a lack of knowledge infrastructure, especially large R&D-focused; companies, the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has placed a significant focus on universities as the potential catalysts for transforming Wales into a knowledgebased economy, primarily through their role in establishing links with business and industry.
However, many of the links Welsh universities have developed are with companies outside of Wales, suggesting a lack of local demand.
The probability is that many Welsh businesses – most of which are small in size – do not possess significant enough in-house resources to actually undertake a collaborative project with a local university.
Evidence from leading regions around the world indicates that while universities can play an important development role they are usually supported by a dense system of institutions, including publicly-funded research institutes and laboratories dedicated to applied research.
Most of the UK’s least competitive regions, including Wales, have little established research infrastructure, with many of the public research institutes being based in the Greater South East of England, which, by no coincidence, is also the most economically competitive part of the UK.
In Wales, the onus being placed on universities to become key bases of commercialisable knowledge is probably too heavy, particularly in light of their continuing teaching and research remits.
An important reason underlying the focus on universities as agents of knowledge transfer is that Wales only has two public sector research establishments: the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER) at Aberystwyth, and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) at University of Wales, Bangor.
The Science Policy for Wales document published by WAG in 2006 stated that: “No one now builds new government research establishments… It may be a regrettable situation but it is a situation which has to be faced.” However, the coalition WAG of Labour and Plaid Cymru established in 2007 resulted in a reversal of this view, with WAG stating “we will work to establish a National Science Academy… we will establish new National Research Centres”.
Despite these pronouncements apparent development of such an academy and research centres has been slow to emerge
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11.18
0 Comments | Wireless News, Nov 18, 2009
Intuit unveiled its Customer Manager, stating that the new service allows small businesses to keep and track all their customer information in a single place, making it available when and wherever they need it.
Customer Manager, built on the Intuit Partner Platform, is available as an online service and mobile application. It provides access to up-to-date, important information, letting small businesses spend less time searching for data and more time focusing on customers.
Customer vancouver wa real estate Manager for Mobile provides access to important details for business owners and employees while outside the office. They can search for contact information, see past due balances, add and view notes, or see a map of a customer’s address. The service is designed to work on smartphones
11.18
0 Comments | South Wales Echo (Cardiff, Wales), Nov 13, 2009
A CAR thief is behind bars after his father shopped him to the police.
Damian Jones, 21, of Bryn Hyfryd, Tylorstown, was sentenced to a total of 15 months in custody for a string of offences.
Before magistrates at Rhondda, he admitted receiving a motor vehicle, theft of a motor vehicle, driving without insurance and licence, and driving with excess alcohol and was committed to Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court for sentence.
David Bowen, prosecuting, told the court that on September 14 the owner of a motorbike was told it had been stolen and two people had been seen riding it.
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Jones was the driver and he was caught after his own father told police that his son michigan auto insurance quotes had collected his helmet from the house before he was seen riding the bike with his pillion passenger.
When interviewed, Jones told officers that he had bought the bike for pounds 100, a fraction of its pounds 6,000 value and knew that it had been stolen.
Whilst on bail, Jones went to an address in Tylorstown on October 6 where he broke into a garage and hot wired a classic Ford Fiesta.
But in order to get at the car, he smashed the Mondeo car that was parked in front of the building.
A neighbour saw Jones drive off and he was spotted by a police officer on the Maerdy mountain.
There was a chase that led into the streets of Aberdare where the car stopped briefly at John Street before Jones slammed the car into reverse and backed out at speed into the town centre.
By the time the officer caught up with him, the Fiesta had collided with railings and Jones was making a run for it but was caught a short distance away.
He was found to have had 43 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.
The legal limit is 35mg. Jeff Jones, defending Jones, who has 14 court appearances for 29 convictions, said his client had resorted to the use of alcohol and Valium and had been living in “that sort of zone”, seeking thrills from his aimless existence.